Of all the places we’ve visited so far, Maine’s tourist industry has been hit hardest by the economic fall out of the pandemic. Its location, tucked far within the northeast states with travel restrictions, coupled with the 14 day state quarantine has caused many full-timers and out of state regular seasonal customers to rethink their plans. This is in stark contrast to other areas of the country that have sold out campgrounds and increased RV sales and rentals during the pandemic. Maine relies heavily on the few beautiful months of weather between May and October to attract tourists and keep the residents afloat through the harsh winter months.
Timberland Acres proclaims that it is “where friendly people come to meet.” It is a low key campground that has a sense of community with sponsored themed events each weekend.
Somewhere between half to three quarters of residents at Timberland Acres were seasonal campers. There were a good number of residents that had permanent porches, flower gardens and vegetable gardens. Near the front of the park was an oversized unit with a large wire fenced yard. This one of a kind lobster trap bench sat out front.
Near the back of the campground were three oversized sites that opened towards each other, forming a courtyard, complete with kids’ playhouses and power wheels. The unique blend of Maine residents and full-timers (many full timers are members of the Escapee Club which provides mail forwarding/resident status through the state of Texas so it’s easy to guess who they are) were truly friendly with one another as the park’s slogan claims. Inside the park, the only evidence of covid was the face masks on everyone’s truck dashboards and signs at the front office and laundry room which were largely ignored by the residents.
The themed weekend events included a carnival, “decades,” a luau, western, and Christmas in July. They also host weekly bingo, movie night, and kids’ crafts. Despite these activities being held outdoors, they were large non-distanced gatherings, so we passed on all of the activities. Many campsites decorated for Christmas in July! It was fun driving around the campsite looking at lights.
The most unique decoration was a Christmas tree made from lobster traps. There was also a beer themed tree made from beer boxes and cans. We even hung a string of lights across our awning; we had thought they might be fun to hang regularly, but in the first few weeks realized they were inconvenient in times of bad weather (without awning anchors, awnings tend to move a lot unless you retract them during heavy wind or rain).
I will fondly refer to Timberland Acres as the “golf cart” campground because this was the thing to do here. There were half a dozen lined up at check-in awaiting rental. While the campground was large, the ground was even and there was little incline, so it was pretty easy to walk to and fro. Of course, there were some hot days when I dropped off and retrieved John from the pavilion multiple times a day. Why was John hanging out at the pavilion all day?
The elusive, yet promised wifi connection that he required for work. The campground assured us before booking that they have great wifi and steered us to a sunnier site because it purportedly had excellent wifi signal. We chose TA over a cheaper campground closer to Acadia. The first few days we were there, we had spotty internet connection. Then, all signal went out. Apparently, a company was upgrading the wifi and made a mistake. After hounding the front office and two visits from the service company, the manager assured John that he was awaiting a part that would arrive in “2-3 days.” Once this arrived, the company would install it and the issues would be resolved. In the beginning, we could get just enough connection to watch Hulu after most of our neighbors had gone to sleep and stopped overwhelming the wifi. After two weeks, we stopped getting late night reception.
We went to get two of our propane tanks filled around this time. The manager provided the fill free of charge due to the wifi mishaps the first two weeks. John brought the propane tanks home and the grill wouldn’t work. He tried everything, but couldn’t figure out why our new grill wasn’t working. Then, I tried to turn on hot water and it remained cold. There was something wrong with the tanks. An hour later, google and YouTube came through with the answer. Apparently, really nice propane tanks, like those often used for RVs, have a fill sensor. If they are overfilled, they won’t release any gas. John bled out some gas, then we had hot water and a grill that worked again. The wifi was never resolved in our thirty days at Timberland Acres.
To give you perspective on our wifi and cellular issues across our trip, I’ll tell you about Kaeli’s virtual endocrinologist appointment ... at the pavilion. We were reviewing her three month data and the doctor commented that Kaeli’s device had only connected to its internet host 48% of the time. It’s been a lot of missed connections for us all and super sweaty days for John. I’m grateful we brought our standing fan to make his workdays more tolerable.
Upon arrival, the manager warned us that Maine’s electric costs are higher than typical (which is true). When we settled our account, the electric bill was outrageously high. We did our own research and figure that they were making money per kilowatt (they made over $60 on our electric bill)!
We enjoy walking around the campground in the evening and checking out different RV set-ups. There were several with side or back porches. We found one camper with an outdoor toilet behind a curtain (like the man behind the curtain at West Haven). This camper was on a seasonal site, but we never saw the people living there. Sometimes, there were rows of three rental campers in a row and we imagined their journey — were they friends or family vacationing together? The coolest RV was a converted semi-truck.
We saw one family tent camp for two weeks. Right before we left, we saw a group of Orthodox Jewish men who came in an oversized white van. They piled out of the car as if it was a clown car in the circus, one young man after another carrying multiple tent structures, each young man dressed exactly the same in black pants, a white shirt and a wallet chain. Our direct neighbors arrived just days before us and left the day before we departed. They had a huge white fifth wheeler with no decals. I fantasized about the arrangement inside, believing it to be retrofitted as it had no pop outs, but was extremely tall. We enjoyed the shade of their RV across the back half of ours. When the family packed up to move, two paddle boats and two kayaks disappeared inside the vehicle the night before they left (so clearly they had enough room to store four water crafts and still sleep and cook).
This was our one experience with a pull-through site so far. Typically, pull throughs have additional length (ie we had space to park another full truck behind our RV), but the grassy yard is smaller. We were happy to have a large section of trees behind us. The girls explored this “forest” immediately upon arrival; however, they saw a snake and only returned to the trees one other time during our stay. The kids’ favorite activity here was riding their bikes or scooters to the basketball court at the front of the park to play a game they invented, “sheep dog.”
What I liked about Timberland Acres: It felt safe, relaxed, and there was plenty of room for us to safely roam. I also think we would have enjoyed the campground activities in non-covid times
What I didn’t like: the wifi issues were a major issue for John working; there wasn’t any social distancing (although we were able to maintain distance); they made a significant amount on electric (which is weird and doesn’t sit well with me)
(Picture of the “breakfast date” the kids set up for us one morning)