Escapade 2026, a Wicket Good Time! And a Riley Roller Coaster.

Sunset drone shot of Escapade.
(Photo by Bill Zhang - thanks for sharing!)

Whew! It’s been a crazy couple weeks and I’m not even sure where to start. We arrived at Fryeburg, ME Fairgrounds on Friday, 6/12, for the Maine Event (lol) of our trip – Escapade, the Escapee’s annual RV rally. The official event dates were Sunday, 6/14 to Friday, 6/19, but experience (this is our third Escapade) has taught us that coming in a few days early to prep and staying a few days after to decompress is invaluable. During Escapade there are nonstop activities from early morning until late into the night!

Whoohoo! We made it!

The parking team is an incredible group of volunteers.
Check out the lobster accessories. Lol. 

We were escorted to our spot, got parked, and then checked in to claim our swag. 😁

We had a long list of chores that we wanted to get out of the way before the official opening ceremonies on Sunday afternoon. I hit the laundromat and, to give you an idea of the herculean task (or maybe it is Sisyphean, Lol.), I used five regular washers and three triple load washers. And I’m going to say most of it was dog related! I swear Riley and Raney generate more laundry than Rog and I do, and they don’t even wear clothes! Unfortunately, we arrived during a heatwave, and it was wicked hot with humidity over 90% and the laundromat was not air conditioned. Ugh. Now that was a miserable chore. Add housecleaning, a trip to the grocery store, CVS, the carwash and giving both the pups a bath. Suffice it to say, it was a busy two days.

Bath time for the babies!

Saturday evening, we attended the SNEAK (Saturday Night Early Arrival Kickoff) Party. The caterer had some issues and we ended up standing in line for an hour and a half in the hot sun for two red dogs, cold beans, cornbread and lettuce (salad). The cornbread was good! Lol. Hey not every event is a home run. It was still fun to connect with folks we haven’t seen in forever. We saw old friends and made new ones. It was great to see Laurie again, although Raney was not quite so enthusiastic. We met Laurie at our first Escapade and she was our house and petsitter when we went to Africa in 2023. Raney blamed Laurie for our absence and still holds a grudge. Which is just crazy because Laurie is one of the nicest, most patient dog people I've ever met. Nancy and Aaron had been Boondockers Welcome guests at our house in July 2025 and we instantly connected as kindred spirits. We were super excited to see them at Escapade and we spent most of the week hanging out together.

The line for food at the SNEAK party was ridiculous. 

We reconnected with Laurie while waiting in line.
Can't believe I didn't get a pic, so here's one from 2023,
before Raney started giving her the side eye. Lol, 

Thrilled to see kindred spirits, Nancy and Aaron again. 

There was a flea market Sunday mornings just across the street from the fairgrounds, so you can guess where Nancy and I were. Lol. During the week, we attended seminars and socials, and checked out the vendor booths. I tried my hand at a few craft classes. We joined a Taproom Takeover at Saco River Brewery, which was a blast. And I started off most mornings with pickleball! Although the courts were set up in a livestock arena with a textured concrete floor that made for some truly interesting play. Lol.

Starting the day with coffee and donuts at Hospitality. Whoopie pies too!

Raney heading to the Xscaper's Social.

Craft class - I made this!
Cindy wasn't even signed up to teach, but we begged. Lol.

Saco River Brewing Taproom Takeover!

A takeover is more fun with friends.

Obligatory Escapade prop pics. Wicked Good Fun!

And don't forget the pickleball!
Check out the textured concrete floor - that was entertaining. Lol. 

My kind of people. Lol.

Every evening there was fabulous entertainment. Hats off to the crew that organizes and books the acts because they were all different and all excellent. On Sunday we had great rock ‘n roll with Bad Habit, followed by the always fun Silent Disco party. Monday was Keys to the City, a dueling piano act that played requests and threw in plenty of jokes and props. On Tuesday evening, our favorite Escapee professional musicians, The Status Crowes, played an incredible variety of music well past the official end time. Unfortunately we missed Wednesday’s Escapee’s Got Talent Show (more on that in just a minute).

Don't kick this Bad Habit, they were great!

Silent Disco is always a hit!

Dueling pianos + jokes + props = fun!

The Status Crowes are the heart of every Escapade.

Feel free to skip this part if you’re not a dog person. On Wednesday afternoon, 6/17, Rog was back at the RV after attending a seminar and looked down and had a WTF moment. Riley’s left front leg was swollen to about twice its normal size all the way from his shoulder to his toes! He had been perfectly fine that morning.

Riley's whole leg was swollen!

We took him to an urgent care clinic about 40 minutes away. However, it was a single vet with no advanced diagnostic resources. She examined Riley and could find no wound or reason for the swelling, next step was X-rays. She wanted to sedate him for the X-rays, which did not make me happy given his size and age. She freely admitted she was not equipped to deal with any complications and did not have the best drugs to sedate him. She didn’t even charge us for the exam and referred us to the Maine Veterinary Medical Center (MVMC) in Scarborough, a little over an hour away.

The urgent care clinic referred us to Maine Veterinary Medical Center.

We managed to get in contact with our regular vet and sent pictures and notes from the discussion with the urgent care vet. Dr. Pam recommended 50mg of Benadryl every 8 hours. That should reduce the swelling if it was caused by an allergic reaction to a bug bite or plant. (And trust me, Maine is buggy!) We started the Benadryl right away. Riley was still eating, drinking and acting like his usual self. You could tell the leg was uncomfortable, but he was still walking on it without any major issues.

Thursday we waited to see if the Benadryl would work. It did not and by late afternoon the swelling had gotten worse. His leg was 11 inches around and his wrist was 9 inches. He looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! We called MVMC, explained everything, and they said just bring him in through the ER. We debated taking him in that evening, but figured the specialists would not be in house and they would just keep him for observation. I’d rather have him at home and, other than the swelling, he was still behaving normally.

We were hoping the Benadryl would do the trick. Sadly, it did not.

We withheld his breakfast on Friday morning and took him to MVMC. They got him in fairly quickly and did an exam. The vet found diffuse pitting edema and pain on elbow extension. She recommended a CT scan as it would give them a clearer image of the soft tissue and if they didn’t see anything on the CT, then they would do a needle aspiration of the elbow joint fluid. Potential causes they wanted to rule out included a tumor or mass that was impinging on the lymph node and causing the swelling or a septic (infected) elbow joint.

MVMC - my feelings are mixed.

The surgical department does the CT scan and she couldn’t say when they could fit him in, so we had to leave him. We went back to the RV and waited. They didn’t do the CT until after 4pm, and we finally got a call from the vet around 6pm. Good news: no masses or lumps. The elbow joint was clear, no infection. His blood work was “pristine”. So, we still had no idea what was causing the swelling. They put him on IV antibiotics and kept him overnight to see if he responded. The vet made noises about keeping him another day, but I was not ok with that.

We hated leaving him behind.
He looked far worse when we picked him up 24 hours later. 

I called Saturday morning and they wanted to give him another dose of IV antibiotics at noon, so we agreed to come get him at 2pm. I’m not exaggerating when I say they broke my dog. Poor Riley barely recognized us and was so weak he couldn’t even maintain a squat to piddle. We paid the ridiculously large bill and got him out of there. We started going over the paperwork and they were giving him a bunch of sedatives, including a powerful opiate via IV. He’d had three doses of the narcotic and that’s why he was so gorked. They sent us home with amoxicillin that needs to be administered with meals. He had refused to eat the whole time he was at MVMC, so Rog cooked him chicken and rice, but he wouldn’t touch it.  

Sunday we were leaving Fryeburg and heading to Vermont and Riley still wouldn’t eat. No amount of cajoling or coercion was working. We tried offering him all kinds of treats and snacks – chicken, pizza, hamburger, pot roast, French fries, turkey. He was having none of it. You know that is not our boy! We finally got him to eat a few bites of hamburger and some jerky treats. We talked to the staff at MVMC and they said not to give him the antibiotics without food as they could upset his stomach. But he needs the meds, so if he didn’t start eating by the next morning, we were to call and talk to the vet. I also asked why he was given three doses of the IV narcotic. She finally said she didn’t know why and would not speculate and she’d leave a note for the vet. I said to make sure she let him know that Momma is not happy. Lol. I think Riley’s loss of appetite can be largely attributed to them overmedicating him. No wonder he could hardly walk when we picked him up.

Riley has a funny haircut.
They shaved his swollen leg and parts of the other three too. 

I’ll fast forward a bit, since we’re continuing our travels, but I don’t want to leave you hanging on Riley’s condition. He has finally started eating and we’ve been able to get him back on the antibiotics.  His swelling is going down, slowly but surely. His affect is so much better now that the drugs are out of his system. He is looking and acting more like his old self.

Because his leg was so swollen when they did the CT scan they could not see into the muscle tissue very well, so he could still have a mast cell tumor. We’ll talk to Dr. Pam when we get home and see what diagnostic tests are available to rule out mast cell cancer. So that was our emotional roller coaster for the last half of Escapade week. It was ride I could happily have done without!

So happy to have our boy back!

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Even with all the Riley drama, we did our best to participate and enjoy the last days of Escapade. Closing ceremonies on Thursday afternoon is one of my favorite events because they give us the numbers. Here are some highlights from this year: 565 rigs and 1248 attendees; total fundraising for CARE $11,429, morning coffee and donuts - 528 gallons of coffee and 3288 donuts (plus some whoopie pies!).  After the closing ceremonies, all around us people's phones started beeping. Tornado Watch! The rain turned into a deluge, water ran in streams, and the storm drains had whirlpools! What a crazy day. 

That's a lot of rigs! The red arrow is where we were parked.

Oxford county - that's us! Lol.

The food trucks got hammered and the water was nearly a foot deep in places.

The final entertainment was Salty Seaside Circus themed activities and live music by Rek’-lis who played classic rock, punk, reggae and more. We were told the arena was the safest place to shelter (although no tornado materialized). So folks just hung out. We made sure the pups were fine and then returned for the evening festivities. 

Fun circus theme acts circulated through the crowd.

Rog was a ringer on the arcade games.
No giant stuffed animals to bring home though. Lol. 

Lots of games, face painting, photo booth - big kid fun!

Talented performers!

Rek'-lis kept the tunes going. 

We had hoped to kayak the Saco River, but between running Riley to the MVMC and the weather, it just wasn’t in the cards. A lot of folks pulled out Friday, so we repositioned the rig to give us and our neighbor a little more space. It was nice to just kick back and relax for a bit. After picking Riley up and getting him settled back in the RV on Saturday, we did manage to bike the Mountain Division Trail with Nancy and Aaron. It felt good to get out and stretch our legs and, of course, we couldn’t pass up a stop at Froagies Ice Cream Shop!

We deployed the screen room in self defense.
The mosquitoes were voracious!

It was a great place to relax and host happy hour.

On the Mountain Division Trail.

Beautiful day for a ride!

It's always a good day for ice cream!

Rog had scheduled an appointment with Kleen Tanks at 9:30am Sunday, our checkout day. We hustled to get everything put away and move the rig to the dump station where they were set up. Kleen Tanks uses special equipment to do a thorough cleaning of the black and gray tanks and provides advice and products to make the stinky bits less so. We got a B grade for our tank condition; we figure they don’t give out A’s since that would put them out of business. Lol.

While Rog hung out at the coach, Nancy and I hit the flea market again. A few things managed to follow us home, including a new rug for the RV to make it easier for Riley to get up and down on the slippery laminate. We’ve tried smaller throw rugs, a yoga mat, and Laurie gifted us a large crate liner, but he is a master at rucking up whatever we put down. Who knew he was such interior design critic. Lol.

I finally found a rug that Riley approved of. Lol. 

The girls!

Shelby had birthday too!
She and Riley both turned nine this month.

All in all, it was fabulous week (minus the scary Riley bits which caused us several sleepless nights). This was our first Escapade without Bob and Carole, and they were sorely missed. But we did get to spend lots of time with Laurie, Nancy and Aaron, and made some new friends too! We left the fairground around noon heading to a Harvest Host site in Vermont. I’ll keep you posted on Riley, but I think our boy is going to be just fine.  

Bonus Pic: This painting was in the arena where we played pickle ball.
I felt judged. Do you feel judged? Lol.