For me, October is when I start to wind down my RV season.  Here in New England, the fall season brings some cooler weather, but it’s still nice enough to take some short trips in my RV.

During this time, I usually take a trip up to Maine in early October to get in one more visit in with my family.  This fall, I’ve gone up a few times to help my brother and sister pack up my Mom’s condo.  At age 91, she’s still doing good but had to recently move into a long-term care facility so she’d have 24 hr care.

J. Dawg with his Mom at her recent 91st birthday party

Packing up and dealing with my parents belongings has been a huge job.  My brother and sister, who live nearby, still work full-time so I offered to start the job.  Just figuring out where to start and what to do with items is daunting.  Which items do we keep, sell, donate, or trash?  Fortunately, my Mom just had a 2 bedroom condo.  So, I broke the big job into several smaller tasks by just focusing on one room at a time.  During September and October, I’ve made a good size dent.

The Fryeburg Fair

During my last visit to Maine, I timed my work on Mom’s condo so I could spend some time at the Fryeburg Fair.  This fall fair is one of the biggest and best in Maine.  The week-long fair attracts over 300,000 visitors each year.  There are numerous competitions for cooking, livestock, show animals, horse racing, lumbering, and arts and crafts.

The Fair has two huge on site campgrounds that can hold over 3,000 RV’s.  I called the week before and I was able to snag a site for a 3 night stay.

This wasn’t my first visit to the Fryeburg Fair.  Over the years, I’ve visited several times as a day visitor and last year did a three-day stay over for the first time with my RV.  You can read about last years visit in this blog post – Having a Wicked Fun Time at The Fryeburg Fair.

For this year’s visit, I was on a quest.  I wanted to attend the Woodsmen Day competitions which are held on Monday.  These competitions run the whole day and include things like block chopping, log-rolling, axe throwing, springboard chopping, skidder loading, and chainsaw cutting.  The Fryeburg Fair Woodsmen Day competitions are one of the biggest lumberjack events east of the Mississippi.

I also wanted to see the Women’s Skillet Toss, the Men’ Anvil Throw, the Tractor Pulls, and a least one of the four Pig Scrambles.  Also on my agenda was wagering on some horse racing, watching the draft horse hitch competitions, see some of the music entertainers, and sampling some unique “carny” food.

My favorite “carny’ food dish from 2017.  Called a “Piglet in Paradise” – it’s barbecued pulled pork served over french fries with some bbq sauce. It’s topped with some shredded cabbage, pineapple relish, and a light drizzle of vinegar. Yum!

I took a lot of pictures over my three-day stay.  I decided to put them into a slide show video so others could see what I got to see.

Overall, I had another great time at the Fryeburg Fair.  There is so much to see and do at this Fair.  With my narrow agenda, I’m sure I missed much.  But each day was filled and rewarding.

The best event was watching over 50 women toss a 2 lb steel skillet.  The winner threw it for almost 60 ft.  The other highlight was watching the women’s block chopping.  The lady pictured in the slide show won the event in the past 4 out of 5 years.  She chopped through the block within 20 seconds.

This is a picture of all the oxen teams at the 2017 Fryeburg Fair. There were 159 teams – a new fair record.

A Great Fall RV Destination

Attending the Fryeburg Fair is a great fall RV destination.  The Fair is held every year during the week before Columbus Day.  The on site campgrounds are just a short walk from the entrance gates.  Campground reservations are easy to make by accessing the Fryeburg Fair website.  Each RV must be self-contained as there are no shower or bathroom facilities in the campgrounds.  The RV sites are narrow and close together but do offer water and electricity.  There’s also is a dump station and trash pickup.