We ventured back east from Colorado in our new GMC truck, barrels full of waste deep fryer oil filling the bed. We made the trek straight through without stopping for anything more than a bathroom break and to stretch our legs while grabbing a quick bite to eat.

While in Maine we got harassed by the police 2 times for not having the truck inspected and having a cracked windshield. We got to spend some time with Adrienne’s family, including close relatives. We visited with some college friends, went sailing in the ocean with my college professor, advisor, and good friend, and Adrienne got her motorcycle license.   We went to the Liberty Tool Co., one of my favorite places, and bought some low priced, high quality old tools. We visited with Adrienne’s brother in Portland and got to eat some of the best donuts I’ve ever had at The Holy Donut. We went up to Moosehead Lake and spent some time at Adrienne’s family’s camp while replacing all the plumbing in the house due to many broken pipes from the harsh winter.

After our nice long visit to Maine, just as we thought our summer was on track, damn truck let us down for the first time since our major repairs in January after buying it. Headed from Maine to PA to pick up the Studebaker and we made it just out of the state of Maine. Broke down in New Hampshire 120 miles from where we started…good old AAA 100 mile limit.

It was my first opportunity to take a diesel injection pump apart. Found a broken fuel fulcrum inside the injection pump. Bosch of North America and Germany are out of stock and back ordered; only 1 pump repair house in the country had the part on hand.  (A year later I find out that the part they ordered was so hard to find because it was for the wrong injection pump! Some goofy 3 cylinder diesel that they never made many of.)

After 2 weeks of waiting for the fulcrum to show up, I took the pump apart to put the new fulcrum on and realized we need more parts. Not being thrilled with the design of the Bosch VE injection pump (now that I have one apart) we got coerced into buying a whole new Cummins 4BT engine with a P-Pump instead. What a joy. And now, after waiting a week for the new engine, we got word that it didn’t ship last week when we got billed $3K for it, it shipped today and will take 1 more week to get here.  Amidst all the delays and setbacks, we took a boat trip in the bay with my childhood friend who happened to be visiting Maine for a wedding, went strawberry picking with Adrienne’s mom and Aunt, explored many of Maine’s ice cream shops, and got silly on the coast.

We decided, while waiting for the new engine to show up, not interested in just sitting around, to take a trip up to Moosehead Lake. During this trek back to Mooshead Lake, we took Adrienne’s grandmother up so she could enjoy summer in her favorite spot. While in the north woods this time around, we talked Adrienne’s brother and girlfriend to meet us up at the camp for some good ol’ time family fun. We enjoyed some water skiing with a broken tow rope, explored around Mt. Kineo and some of the smaller islands around the lake and road around the dirt roads on some old nostalgic banana seat cruisers.

 

Finally, it was time—we packed up and headed back to Sidney to put our truck back together and get on with the remaining plans for our summer in Colorado. We spent the next few weeks putting the engine back together and installing it in the truck before eventually heading south from Maine for the second time.

Quads on cars, boats in lakes, picking strawberries in fields with shoes with loose soles, mud-slaying monster trucks, and moose — of course, moose!
THIS is Maine…