A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 197 miles from Wells to Trenton, Maine.
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Travel from Wells to Trenton, Maine
We drove our coach 197 miles, about four hours of driving, from Wells to Trenton, Maine.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading northeast:
An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:
A nice farm stand:
Narrow roadworks:
Toll plaza:
Downtown Portland… Maine, that is:
Classic cars:
Exit:
Service plaza:
BK and Dunkin for lunch:
Toll plaza:
Rest area:
Exit:
Arriving at Narrows Too Campground:
Office:
We were assigned this short and narrow site, despite the campground being mostly empty:
So we went back to the office and asked if we could move, and ended up in a much better site; sometimes it pays to ask:
Thousand Trails Moody Beach
We stayed at Thousand Trails Moody Beach in Wells, Maine. (Campground Reviews listing.)
A short stay at a Thousand Trails park.
Dates:
- Check in: 2025-06-18
- Check out: 2025-06-22
- 4 nights
Weather:
- Mostly cloudy, some drizzle
- High temps 74-80°F, lows 61-65°F
- Some wind, gusts to 24 MPH
Noise:
- Some road noise
- No train horn noise
- Some neighbor noise
Site:
- #314, back-in, gravel
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front of coach
- Unlevel site; high on passenger side and rear; used hydraulic leveling with blocks on front
- Gravel driveway about 64 feet long by 10 feet wide
- 22 feet to neighbors on both sides
- Just grass between sites
- Picnic table
- Fire pit
- No trees
- Clean site
- Elevation 50 feet, front facing SE
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, conveniently located
- 60 PSI water, conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 200-330 Mbps down, 22-38 Mbps up, 28-35 ms ping
- RoamLink: 3-9 Mbps down, 9-15 Mbps up, 130 ms ping (the RoamLink service picks the best network, so I’m not sure which one it used, other than not AT&T)
- AT&T: 4-11 Mbps down, 0 Mbps up, 80-1000 ms ping (I have AT&T on my iPhone)
- Campground Wi-Fi: not used (paid)
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpsters
- Pool
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Good basecamp
This was a fine place for a short stay, and it was convenient to things in southern Maine. We even took a daytrip down to Salem. We had a back-in site at the front of the park, and it was fine–a little awkward when leaving because the sites are angled in such a way that you have to cut across the neighbor’s site a bit to get out. Utilities all worked well and the site was mostly level. We camped at Thousand Trails Moody Beach in a Motorhome.
Campground map:
An interactive map:
Our site:
Other sites:
Tiny homes:
A nice Thousand Trails park. We’d be happy to stay here again.
Video: White River Junction, Vermont to Wells, Maine motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 138 miles from White River Junction, Vermont to Wells, Maine.
Travel from White River Junction, Vermont to Wells, Maine
We drove our coach 138 miles, about three hours of driving, from White River Junction, Vermont to Wells, Maine.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading east:
An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:
Heading down a narrow road in the campground; fortunately we didn’t meet anyone trying to come up the hill:
I-89 South:
Weigh Station Rest Area closed for the season… why would you need to close a rest area?
Exit to I-93 South:
Rest area:
New Hampshire Welcome Center plus Liquor & Wine Outlet… weird to sell alcohol at rest areas, but seems common in this area:
A very cute welcome center:
Lunch:
I-93 South:
Exit to I-95 toll road:
Toll plaza; we took the rightmost lane as it looked a bit wider:
Maine state line on Piscataqua River bridge:
“Maine; Welcome Home; The Way Life Should Be”:
Route 1 North:
Rainbow crosswalk in Ogunquit:
Arriving at Thousand Trails Moody Beach:
Mini golf out front:
Entrance gate; needed to buzz the office to be let in:
Our site:
Replacing cover on vent fan lid lift motor
Back in 2023 I replaced the rear bathroom vent lid motor after the cover broke.
A little while ago it broke again — the lift mechanism seems to put a lot of strain on the plastic cover. But this time, instead of replacing the whole motor, I just ordered a replacement cover from Amazon (I actually ordered two of them, in case it breaks again).
Here’s the broken cover:
After removing the cover from the motor:
The replacement cover:
The cover on the motor; I needed to unscrew the useless handle to get it on:
Finished:
Let’s see how long this one lasts!
Quechee Pine Valley Campground
We stayed at Quechee Pine Valley Campground in White River Junction, Vermont. (Campground Reviews listing.)
They were called Quechee / Pine Valley KOA Holiday when we booked (fairly recently), but we got a first clue that they were moving away from being a KOA when they didn’t give us the KOA VIP member discount. They were changing the various signage away from KOA during our stay. They have a blog post about their transition back to a private campground.
Dates:
- Check in: 2025-06-15
- Check out: 2025-06-18
- 3 nights
Weather:
- Partly sunny, some rain
- High temps 72-75°F, lows 55-62°F
- Negligible wind, gusts to 17 MPH
Noise:
- Some distant freeway noise
- No train horn noise
- No neighbor noise
Site:
- #53, pull-in (unusual!), gravel
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked beside coach
- Unlevel site; high on driver side; used hydraulic leveling
- Gravel driveway about 50 feet long by 20 feet wide
- 20 feet to neighbors on both sides
- Trees and slope between sites
- Picnic table
- Fire pit
- Tall trees
- Clean site
- Elevation 760 feet, front facing SW
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, conveniently located
- 40 PSI water, very conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, very conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 30-44 Mbps down, 16 Mbps up, 31 ms ping, significantly obstructed (lots of trees)
- Campground Wi-Fi: used by Jenn, but not measured; seemed plenty fast
- RoamLink: 20 Mbps down, 0.1 Mbps up, 150 ms ping (the RoamLink service picks the best network, so I’m not sure which one it used, other than not AT&T)
- AT&T: no service
Amenities:
- Garbage pickup from site
- Pool
- Package delivery (didn’t use, but asked)
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Hilly convenient location
When we made our reservation, this was a KOA, but upon arrival, they were in the process of removing all traces of KOA signage. It’s a nice campground, but with some very twisty, hilly internal roads and lots of trees. We had a front-in site at the top of the hill with a narrow road, which wasn’t a comfortable drive in a 40′ motorhome, but they escorted us to our site and made sure there wasn’t any oncoming traffic. Getting out was a little hairy as we had to back out and avoid the trees and the neighbors parked into the street. The site was a little unlevel, with no sky available for Starlink. The campground’s Wi-Fi was decent, and the location was good for exploring Vermont and New Hampshire. We camped at Quechee Pine Valley Campground in a Motorhome.
Campground map:
An interactive map:
Our site; unusually, a front-in site (for motorhomes only):
Trees in front of our coach:
Other sites:
Pool area (still with some KOA signage here, but since changed):
Pond by the entrance:
New entrance sign; clearly a KOA Holiday sign has been removed and replaced with a temporary banner:
Seems like a nice enough campground, though a little hilly. We’d probably stay here again.
Video: Richfield Springs, New York to White River Junction, Vermont motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 261 miles from Richfield Springs, New York to White River Junction, Vermont.
Travel from Richfield Springs, New York to White River Junction, Vermont
We drove our coach 261 miles, about five hours of driving, from Richfield Springs, New York to White River Junction, Vermont.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading northeast — not the most direct route, but the easiest, sticking with interstates, instead of twisty highways:
An interactive map, with potential stops pinned; we went through Massachusetts, but didn’t stop, so that doesn’t count as a visited state — but we’ll get it in a few weeks time, so that’s fine:
A short video of engaging the tow bar and doing a pull test to ensure the truck wheels turn as we prepare to leave:
Narrow road:
US-20:
Exit to I-88 East:
Exit to I-90 East:
Tolls:
Rest area:
Starbucks for lunch:
South to I-87:
Exit to I-90 East:
Narrow roadworks:
Narrow bridge:
Fuel stop:
Massachusetts Welcomes You:
Steep Grade Next 6 Miles:
Exit to I-91:
Narrow roadworks:
Exit to I-91 North:
Welcome to Vermont:
Rest area:
5% grade:
Exit to I-89 North:
Exit to US-4:
Arriving at campground:
Following coach up steep narrow curvy road:
We were stuck! Slide-out failed to retract due to leaking piston
While preparing to leave the Four Mile Creek State Park campground recently, the big front driver-side slide-out started to come in crooked — the front side didn’t move, but the back side came in. This is very bad — apart from a potentially difficult and expensive repair, we could not move our coach with the slide unable to retract.
Here you can see that the front side of the slide was almost fully extended:
But the rear side was mostly in:
Looking underneath, the arm was twisted:
That was the end result of our efforts: we stopped after a moment when we realized that it was coming in crooked, and tried re-extending and re-retracting a few times, to no avail; we stopped when it got that skewed, and we couldn’t re-extend it again.
Time to call for professional help! I looked on the RV Help site, and found Brian Villa (Villa Mobile RV Tech). He was enjoying some Sunday time with his family, but was willing to come help us, arriving within an hour or two. We spent some time investigating, trying to narrow down the cause, and eventually discovered that the hydraulic reservoir was empty, and when we added more fluid, it immediately leaked out over the top of the fuel tank:
Unfortunately it isn’t easy to see the front hydraulic piston, as it’s above the big 150 gallon fuel tank, but we’re pretty confident that the piston seals have failed.
The next day, the tech got some caps for the hydraulic hoses, and capped off the two hydraulic hoses for that slide (here’s the first one capped):
He also disconnected the slide from both the front and back pistons (this is the back one):
Little bolts that hold the slide to the piston:
We were unable to push the slide in manually with just the two of us, so he used two jacks to raise the slide a little (as it has to go up before it goes in):
We also recruited some extra “muscle” from the campground maintenance staff and other campers, and between six of us we were able to manually push the slide in — once we got it over the first inch or so, it slid in the rest of the way very easily (with a little gravity assist by tilting the coach using air leveling):
With that in, Brian built some bracing out of 2×4 boards to hold it in, since the hydraulics were disconnected. On the front side of the slide, there was a very sturdy structure on top of the slide:
Even screwed into the slide itself:
A simpler but still sturdy bracing above the slide on the rear side:
Plus a board bracing the bottom on the front side:
Thanks again to Brian for getting us back on the road!
To make it even more secure, I later added a heavy-duty ratchet strap on the rear side of the slide in the basement:
Plus a board under the couch feet, so they’re not hanging in the air (they sit on the floor when the slide is out):
And finally a couple of cabinet jack support poles adding extra bracing on the rear side:
Perhaps overkill, but we were continuing to travel while awaiting an appointment to fix it.
I initially made an appointment at NIRVC in Tennessee, which is coming up next week, but I discovered that the manufacturer of the slide cylinders, HWH, is not far off our planned route in Iowa, and they said they would be able to repair the cylinder and restore the slide (plus check the other slide and jacks), much cheaper than NIRVC would be able to (even if NIRVC had ordered a replacement part in time). So we’ll be heading to HWH in a couple of weeks. Hopefully they’ll be able to fix it as easily as they indicate!
Update: it turned out that HWH wasn’t willing to fix the issue, as they thought we’d have to drop the fuel tank to reach the piston. But it wasn’t a wasted trip, as they were able to sell us the required part. We later took our coach to the Oregon Motorcoach Center in Eugene, Oregon, and they were able to successfully fix it, accessing it through the back of the battery compartment.