[Fieldtrip 14A of the QMII Project, North Maine Woods, May 17-21, 2014]. On this solo fieldtrip, I installed QM07, the last of the QMIII seismic stations, which is located about twenty miles north of the town of Allagash Maine, a few miles south of the Quebec border.

May 17, 2014. I left my home in Tappan NY at about 10AM – too late of a start, really, but I had last minute errands - and drove north towards Maine. The day was sunny and the ride was very scenic; the recently budded trees were still yellow-green. I stopped at Charleton Plaza, on the Mass Pike, but only briefly, for a snack. I was hoping to stop a at park, such as Wolf Neck, in southern Maine in the late afternoon, but I encountered fog banks once I passed Portland, and the weather became cold and grey. I decided to spend the night in Harpswell, at Seahaven Cottage. I sighted a fox in a field as I drove down Route 123. I had dinner in the cottage, but the internet there was down, so I drove up to the Starbuck’s in the Topsam Fair Mall, and used theirs. I doffed down a couple of lattes as I worked on the computer. I then drove back to Seahaven and spent the night on the couch in the living room, the warmest part of this unheated summer house.

May 18, 2014. The morning was grey and cold, with intermittent light rain. After stopping at a convenience store in Brunswick for a breakfast sandwich and coffee, I drove straight to Bangor. I bought last minute supplies at the Home Depot . I then headed up the road to Orono, where I loaded gear from the unit that we rent at Kelly Storage. I then continued on to Fort Kent, which I reached in the early afternoon. I checked into my hotel, the Northern Door, and then searched for the office of Irving Woodlands, so I would be able to find it the following morning. It proved to be about eight miles west of Fort Kent along St John’s Road. Returning to Ft. Kent, I had an oriental buffet at the China Garden, which unfortunately was not very good. I also did a bit of shopping at the local supermarket.

May 19, 2014. After buying a quick breakfast at the Circle K in Fort Kent, I drove out to the office of Irving Woodlands, where I met with Mr. Peter Tabor, the Regional Manager, together with another Irving employee, John. Irving had previously issued a permit for me to set up a seismic station on their land; this meeting made the final arrangements. I showed them a New England seismicity map and went over my plans with them. Once we agreed to a location, I drove west to St. Francis, where I met up with a third Irving employee, Mike. He and I drove our respective vehicles to the site in the Maine North Woods, off of Estcourt Road, about twenty miles north of the town of Allagash. We inspected the site and he approved the location I had chosen for the installation. By then, the time was about 10:30 AM. Intermittent light rain was falling. Spring has been late coming to the North Maine Woods. The trees are just barely leafed out – way behind Massachusetts and southern Maine.

I then unloaded my SUV and began to assemble the components of the station. The site was above the level of the car, over the crest of a small hill. During the course of the day, I huffed up and down that hill dozens of times. The geophone vault was my first priority, because the cement used to affix it to the ground needs several hours to set before it can be used. I screwed together the prefabricated plywood box and set it in a ground. I then drove back to a spot, a few miles away, where last year I had stashed sacks of concrete. Remarkably, the plastic bags that protected them had made it through the winter unmolested. After collecting some water from a roadside stream, I huffed the 150 pounds of QuickCrete, and bucketful of water, up the hill to the site. After mixing the concrete and laying it, I took a break for lunch, making hot chocolate on a Coleman stove and having croissants with jelly. I then assembled the solar panel A-frame, which is made of six two-by-fours and several lighter pieces of wood. Finally, I installed all the electronics. I finished the final programming of the data logger at about 7PM – rather later than I had hoped.

I decided to stay at the site overnight, for I did not want to risk driving the unpaved roads in the fading light. I made a simple dinner on the Coleman stove, corn beef and hash, together with fried eggs and English muffins. I slopped rather too much of the eggs on myself; I was more tired than I had initially realized. The light slowly faded and the chirping of frogs became loud. I set up a tent beside the car and went to bed early –around 9PM.

May 20, 2014. The morning revealed grey skies and intermittent light rain in North Maine Woods – much the same as yesterday. I cooked and ate a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, packed up my gear and headed out. I had encountered no animals yesterday, except for the frogs, a few birds (though the ground was full of the footprints of moose). I saw nothing remarkable today, either, though I did spot two rabbits along the side of the road. I drove out of the woods without incident and then stopped at Joe’s Store, in St. Francis, for coffee. I drove more-or-less straight back to Orono, where I offloaded the gear. I had decided to spend the night at Seahaven, in Harpswell, gain. It is about the half-way point.

I stopped in Brunswick, and after taking in a showing of Godzilla at the Regal theatre, I had a pizza at nearby Sam’s Italian Restaurant. I then drove down to Harpswell. The rain had finally stopped and the sky had cleared a bit. I walked around the grounds of the Auburn Colony and admired the views of Casco Bay.

May 21, 2014. I awoke early, for the morning was clear and the light was streaming into the cottage’s windows. I walked down to Ash Cove and admired the view; the trees along the opposite shore were reflected in the still water of the cove. I had breakfast– more eggs – and then drove up to Brunswick. I decided to take advantage of the clear weather to do a little sightseeing. I first walked across the Route 24 highway bridge, which offers a great vantage from which to view the dam and falls on the Androscoggin River. The dam is a long concrete structure, with a rounded spillway over most of its top surface. The falls below the dam are turbulent, but with relatively modest drops of perhaps five to ten feet. I then walked across the street to 250^th Anniversary Park, which offers nice view of the river below the falls. I watched cormorants hanging out on a large mid-river rock. Finally, I drove over to the Androscoggin Swing Bridge, a small suspension bridge, now used only for pedestrian traffic, that crosses the river about a half mile upstream of the dam. I walked out onto the bridge, so I could gaze down to the swiftly flowing water, below.

I then drove more-or-less straight back to New York, reaching my home at about 2:30 PM.