Here's Carol and my Coleman Caravan.
Lois and Jim's Shadow Cruiser.We arrived at Deerfarm Campground late Friday afternoon to begin our Memorial Day
weekend. Sunny and rather hot for this time of year. Temperatures we saw on various displays along the way were in the 90s. It was a nice ride up to Kingsfield driving through Auburn, Livermore Fall, Jay and Farmington. We'd been to Deerfarm six or seven years ago when we had our folding camper. Not surprising it's well wooded so practically every campsite is nicely shaded. A strong contingent of blackflies greeted us at the site, annoying but not the worst I've experienced. One nailed me in the middle of my forehead which I hadn’t realized until Carol asked me if knew that I had blood running down my 
forehead. I scooted over to the camp store and bought a package of citronella insect repellent coils that helped some if the breeze didn’t shift much. After getting the campsite set up and solving a couple of camper problems Carol started supper as Lois and Jim arrived and set up their site. After visiting with them a bit and a half-hearted attempt at starting a campfire I called it a night and hit the sack early as I‘d been on the move since finishing breakfast.
Saturday morning after breakfast Carol and I struck off for Stratton to hike from a trailhead there to Cranberry Mountain. I found this hike in the book “50 Hikes in Northern Maine”. Another beautiful day, slightly cooler. It’s an up and back on the same trail hike. Were you to continue on from the peak
you’d connect up with the Appalachian Trail which travels along the Bigalow Mountain Range, Cranberry Mt. is part of the range. It was 10:30am when we started; it didn’t take long that the trail started up an incline that would continue for quite awhile. We had one backpack loaded with water bottles, snacks and our lunch – the hike book and a couple of other things. With the water the pack was a bit heavier than either of us would have care for considering the steepness of the trail but we took turns carrying it. Carol mentioned that at least I wasn't carrying an extra 20 pounds that I might have been if not for my diet. With a couple of water stops and a snack break it took us 2 and a half hours to get up there. 
Once we got more that half way along we had patches of ice to navigate around, guess it hasn’t been that hot up there yet. Nothing unusual to see along the way, a few moose tracks – though there we several vehicles parked at the trail head we didn’t see anybody until about 2/3 of the way, some guy sitting on the rocks reading a book. Like a lot of 
steep hikes there are times when you wonder if you’ll ever get to where you are going. A short distance beyond reaching that point as I led us along the trail I had my head down then looked up and a guy was sitting to the side of the trail eating a sandwich and beyond him I then caught our first glimpse of the peak of Cranberry Mountain. From where the picture on the left was taken it took only about 10 minutes to reach the peak. What a big change once we got there. We had worked up a quite a sweat but once at the peak the wind was howling across the top.
Carol had a sweater and I brought a windbreaker so that worked out well and we were pretty
comfortable and able to enjoy our lunch. A gray jay joined us about the time we broke out the sandwiches, he hopped a circle around us before figuring out we weren't dropping any food then took off - I'm not a believer in feeding animals out in the wild and this guy was picking the buds off the conifer bushes, 
he was pretty healthy. I have about a dozen pictures of him. He was scared off by my socks which needed drying, an environmental disaster in the making. It was quite hazy in the distance but I still loved the view, That's the Bigalow Mountain ridge in the background. Alas, it was time to head back.
Sunday we started out by hanging around the campsite until about 12:30 then we headed out to visit Carol and Lois' cousin David and his wife Karen, his brother Earl came up with their mother Marie as well. We did see a moose on the way, our future directions we give anyone looking for their place will include "take your next left after the moose on the side of the road". David and Karen are well along in building a house as a vacation home and where they can come hunting and snowmobiling.
The view in the distance is the same Bigalow Range we saw from Cranberry Peak. The wine and beer were flowing as were the stories we were swapping.
Karen laid out some great snacks and Earl started a "small" campfire.
After awhile David started grilling some deer steaks and deer sausage burgers with some chicken Lois had brought, add in potato salad, beans, a garden salad and a few things I forgot and you can guess that the diet took a direct hit - that's fine, I'll get right back on track now that I'm home. We left after dark had settled in (saw another moose just off the pavement) and got back to the campground safe and sound.We had a good rain during the night and this morning I got up at 6:30am and took a walk down to a nearby pond in the fog.
I had a moose preceding me on the way back but because of the thickness of the fog I couldn't get a picture of it and as I tried to close the gap between us it left the road and was out of sight along an old trail by the time I got there. Grabbed some breakfast back at the camper and we packed up and hit the road. Almost an uneventful ride home until some guy tried to pass us then swerved toward us, I had to swerve pulling a 4400 lb trailer to avoid tagging him then he takes a left turn down a road we were passing and was out of sight before we knew what happened. None the worst for it thank God but it could have turned out badly. Otherwise we had a nice weekend and I'm looking forward to our next, as yet unplanned, trip.
