Planning a summer trip to Maine?

That would be a tragedy if those summer camps didn’t make it through the summer.
We’re in the Boston area and I doubt our six year old will be able to attend camp this summer, but they are waiting until June 1st to make an official call.

I also saw that Old Quarry Campground is up for sale. Two million price tag. I hope the owner/operator gets his price, but I doubt anyone kayak guide related will be scratching up 2 million, to keep it running in it’s current state. I was looking at the property on Google earth and all I could think about were all the McMansions going up on that spot. I really hope I’m wrong and someone can take it over and keep it running as is. Would be a real loss to loose that funky place. As it would be a shame to loose all those summer camps.

That 50 is a tough number. This will probably make life very difficult or impossible for the Family and the Girl’s camps on Lake Medomak in Maine, similar measures could shut down a bunch of camps north of me in the Adirondacks. Not the ones for the rich kids, the ones for the families that can just make the bucks to pay for it.

NY is not going to announce things like crowd counts until we have hit the CDC recommendation of 2 weeks with decreases in a few key numbers. Which the Adirondacks already have but for the number of days. But most of those camps could be stopped just by capacity limits.

The biggest loss that will likely be seen by a private sale of that campground could be loss of shoreline for paddling. Southern Maine already has a huge issue with beachfront that has become problematical because private property owners call the sheriff every time someone lands for a couple of minutes to fix a stuck skeg. I suppose it was only a matter of time, but midcoast and up has not had that particular problem so badly. Until now.

One of my first calls if I ever win the lottery would be to MITA to tell them to identify shoreline access points that I could buy and hand over to one of the conservancies to leave undeveloped for public use.

How did you discover that potentially awful news about Old Quarry? Such a great launch spot.

Camps are supposed to open for Maine kids and those who have somehow done their 14 days if from away.

On my lake we have four kids camps and one commercial campground… One of the camps is for the rich only… The next lake over also has five . One is a Boy Scout camp. It would be a shame not to have kids camps open.

Camp thing may be clear as mud to operators.

A wording issue w the quarantine similar to elsewhere, unclear exactly how that is supposed to be executed. If in the camp but in isolation, that really means no camp since most are 2 week sessions.

Also the limit of 50 on gatherings. A camp group say separated by age and in a cluster of tents or bunk houses may be under 50. But once you get to the dining hall, or beach etc there will be more than 50 campers. Officially they could be kept more segregated but tat would be a huge shift in how activities were managed.

50 is a CDC recommended number so it is likely to be a problem everywhere.

Statement from Johnson, Commissioner of Economic Development, in an article yesterday that they “may have misunderstood” the difficulties of the quarantine rule with lodging and summer camps. Apparently it took less than 48 hours from the release of the plan for motels to call the gov’s office saying they were receiving cancellations that threatened their entire season. In fact I know a couple of the ones mentioned in the article, have stayed at them off season for music stuff. One is like my regular place, some people have been coming there for decades.

Expect quarantine area to see some clarification. Perhaps by talking more about mandating masks, which are currently not specified in the recovery plan. Might be part of the solution.

Here’s an article in the Portland newspaper indicating that we’re not the only ones questioning the 14 day quarantine rule. The Maine CDC director is quoted as saying:

"Quarantine “casts a very, very broad and wide net, and as a result, it’s going to be a bit over-inclusive,” Shah said. “Our goal is to try to come up with a more targeted, more finely refined and defined approach to how we can target individuals who are coming into the state.”

Here’s the article:

This is not just about Maine. Other states already have imposed quarantine rules or will as summer advances. Everyone is going to have the same dilemma actually doing it as Maine.

Though Maine’s quarantine rule as written needs fixing up, it really doesn’t make any sense.

I know of only one instance where the behavior was what Maine’s language says. A family was moving back north to Maine from Florida in late March in their trailer, I believe carrying FL plates bur don’t quote me on that. When they hit the Georgia border they were stopped and directed to go to a nearby camp site or similar and stay for two weeks without moving before they could proceed.

In that case, yes there was a quarantine first.

But unless someone pulls unforeseen resources out of Alladin’s bottle between now and June or July, there is no capacity to do this kind of thing for renters coming into Maine or anywhere else. People have to get to their rental and once there they need to get food at the least.

Celia it is NOT The final say. It is a work in progress. Of course it sounds draconian. No one has ever done this before and we are starting with that phrase I hate “an abundance of caution”
Everyone at the news conference on Tues said it was a piece of evolution and would be tweaked as they learned more what would and would not work.

You got me digressed to look at the timeline among the 9 summer camps on the two lakes within five miles of home… Most all are seven week sessions or two three and a half weeks. With tuitions that exceed what I paid for college. The only two week camp is for Maine Boy Scouts ergo no quarantine… and they have the most paddle craft! (woohoo!)

So pay attention if you can to the mud pool of regs and see what will work for you. Like an amoeba it will change

So when they crossed into Georgia they were ordered to stay immobile for 14 days rather than continue their drive through the state towards Maine?

If true, I’d like to see the science supporting that decision.

Me too. Our neighbors are due to arrive May 10 from their winter home in FL… Being older they do not need that quarantine…

we got off paddling again…
I can’t wait to go to CT. My daughter has been working in NYC as a paramedic brought in by FEMA. She has been there 5 weeks working seven days a week… She wants to come here to unwind but who knows how and when that will happen… I miss my kids and sons in law. They are all working front line and have of course been exposed every day for over six weeks. They all live in CT

I would be happy to have them here in quarantine for all of us.

It sounded so irrational I checked the State of Georgia travel site and found no such directive. Georgia beaches are open to the public and restrooms at 11 Visitor Information Centers along the interstates are open. I don’t think your neighbors will have any issues.

Hope you’re reunited with your family soon.

@kayamedic, @Rookie

Yes, I am pretty much saying they have to modify the current quarantine thing. Since there is no way to make it work as written.

If you check articles from late in March you will find stories of non-commercial travelers being stopped at the Georgia border. They each were given a card and, if from a state of concern, instruction to go self-quarantine for 14 days. It does not seem like Florida was one of them, so it must have been some other plate of that trailer. Georgia has since lifted that.

The people I spoke with had specifically waited to start north, to avoid their friends’ experience. In fact I believe they will be starting back up to Nobleboro this weekend.

I am not going to argue about what is currently on the state’s web site. May be that their friends had additional issues because of having a large and hard to miss trailer, at least compared to a sedan. It did happen.

I assume the science behind it was related to the 14 day incubation period, the same window as Maine is using in its planning. But frankly I assume no responsibility for knowing how anyone in the state of Georgia thinks. It is well up there on my list of states I would not live in.

I also do not understand what being older has to do with needing a quarantine, since old folks can pick something up as they travel as easily as younger folks. But if age helps on that one I will take it.

Wonderful thing your daughter is doing! Just looked at the NYC trends, it is a big and crowded place but aside from the religious community in Brooklyn is coming along. Better than either county on LI.

Just curious (and none of my business :)), do you know if your neighbors are going to make an overnight stop somewhere? The need to stop seems like a source of concern for any long drive right now.

of course. Not all hotels are closed. This varies state by state. And they have friends enroute. with extra bedrooms and baths.

Things change day to day and what happened then may not happen now.

They are not just starting out willynilly with out forethought as we were going to do to travel cross country starting Mar. 19… Uncertainty about where to camp and shop brought a screeching halt to that!

The deer and the birds have been so enjoyable during our recent paddles on the few non icky days we have had! It really impresses me how bad we as humans trample our world and how resilient it still is

Friends are good for a long drive. We can make it in one long day so that’s what we’ll do when we come out.

Not till she rescinds the order that prohibits friends from being in the same car. For now it is households only. Enforcement? Maybe. I haven’t been on the turnpike lately.

Be careful if you have out-of-state plates. Was astounded to read this report about Maine residents harassing and confronting those with out-of-state plates. Unbelievable.

Thanks for the heads up. I’d seen that report before. Hopefully it’s a somewhat isolated incident that’s been re-reported a number of times.

A cute cop asked me at our county check point (road block) as I showed her my drivers licence “Going Home?”… just kind of eerie…

Who would of thunk these might have been the good old days.

Why are you relaying this now? It is not current. Yes it did happen. We were pretty unnerved by the outbreaks in Southern New England and New York. We still really do not want to see out of staters gamboling around

We have had three major storms and CMP had to bring in outside help and trucks with out of state plates. We have 600,000 utility customers and in one of those storms about half were without power for days. Half the state was without during two other shorter duration outages

Frankly I am tired of you flatlanders cherry picking your news and relaying it like Fox does.

The purpose of my post was simply to keep paddlers who might be contemplating a trip here up to date on current requirements not to start speculation and conjecture. Yes we have people that are not rational. Every state does.
Every state also has law enforcement too.

Not cherry picking. Given your question about enforcement I looked for the Maine State Police site to see if they had a statement about it. That was the first hit