Homestead by the River

Welcome to Homestead by the River Campground

We were at Homestead by the River Campground in Biddeford, Maine this week (July 15-20) Mark grew up camping at this campground by the Saco River in southern Maine with his family.  It has changed ownership since then but a lot has stayed the same.  It is still very much a family oriented campground.  There is a large playground in the middle of the grounds and a basketball court and ping pong table by the barn. We are surrounded by farm animals. We passed a horse pasture on the way down the long drive to the office.  Several horses live there, both  standard and miniature.

On the other side of the drive is a barn and fenced in barnyard with goats, chickens, bunnies, llamas and several guinnea hens.  The guinnea hens seem to have the run of the campground and came to welcome us as we set up the RV when we arrived.  If you’ve never seen a guinnea hen, they are NOT beautiful – they are noisy and a little annoying BUT they eat ticks!  So I love them.

Our Friend the Guinnea Hen

Our new home site for 5 days

The Saco River- We did swim in the river one afternoon!

Homestead Campground is close to several beaches and points of interest.  Our first stop after arriving and setting up was Biddeford Pool beach.  It is a public beach and entrance is free – we were able to find free parking not far from the beach as well!

Our next stop was Camp Ellis Beach and dock.  We had to visit the former site of Wormwoods, a favorite Seafood Restaurant.  Since Wormwoods was no longer there, we decided to give Huot’s Seafood a try.  Of course our first dinner after arriving in Maine had to be LOBSTER!

It did NOT disappoint!  The weather was perfect for our first day!

Day 2 was spent visiting Kennebunkport and Ogunquit and hiking the Marginal Way. It was a little foggy on the coast but perfect temps. We got coffee and a donut at Satellite Donuts as we walked towards downtown Kennebunkport.

Every cup of coffee comes with a donut! I just want to mention that I’ve seen some unique coffee shop names since we started this journey – my favorite so far is Brewed Awakenings.

As we walked we saw the familiar circle at the center of town.

And lots of cute tourist shops.

We stopped and talked to a shop owner for a while. We swapped stories about the Bush family and got directions to the City Post Office.

 

Someone’s birthday was coming up so we mailed her card here! Happy Birthday Mom Ballard!

We drove over to Ogunquit next because it was almost lunchtime and we wanted our Barnacle Billy’s fix!

After lunch we walked the Marginal Way, a one mile path along the coast.

Day 3 was Rainy! We spent the day in Freeport at L.L. Beans.

Day 4 was beautiful and sunny so we headed to Popham Beach State Park.

At Popham, we set up our umbrella and chairs and headed out toward the island that we can walk to at low tide. On our way back we saw a commotion at our spot on the beach. A gang of rowdy seagulls had helped themselves to a bag of popcorn from our beach bag! They were in the middle of feasting on our snack. We chased them off and checked our beach bag to make sure nothing else was missing. Lesson learned – seagulls do NOT respect your personal space or possessions!

Day 5 we were thinking of getting ready to pull out the next day. It was laundry day! So we actually set our alarm- something we haven’t done in several weeks! Of course we set it wrong and it didn’t go off. We are up early usually anyway but we had to laugh about our inability to set an alarm. We loaded up the truck with Beach bag and Beach toys and all our laundry and headed to town. First stop was Lucky Loggers Landing, a favorite breakfast stop from previous years’ camping trips.

Then we went around the corner to the laundromat. This was not your mother’s laundromat! We first had to load value to a card that we could then insert into the washer or dryer to add time. They were not cheap but the machines were huge industrial type and they were fast! So less time spent waiting for clothes to dry is always good.

Laundry done!  Next we hit the beach (Biddeford Pool) one last time. The sun was shining and the waves were perfect for boogie boarding! We ate lunch on the beach, took a little beach nap in the sun and caught some nice waves.

After the beach, we made a trip to Two Lights Lobster shack.  We got there right before the dinner rush and we sat outside by the ocean while we ate our lobster.

On the way back to the campground we stopped by Len Libbys Candy and Ice Cream to see the world’s only life-sized chocolate moose.

The perfect way to end our week in southern Maine! Now we head to Bangor, Maine for a week before going into Canada…