*tap*tap*tap* Is thing still on? Hahahaha. I know everyone has been waiting with bated breath for this year's road trip recaps, so I'm bound and determined to get them up before the year is through! LOL. But seriously. It's a daunting task and I'm behind in all aspects of my blogging life right now, so I can only promise to do my best.
To ease our way into the telling of our East Coast tale, I thought I'd start out with a broad overview of the road trip based on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of our New England Sweep 2023...
THE GOOD
* so many opportunities for selfies with a seagull --
Pretty self-explanatory, but being along the coast gave us an over abundance of seagulls with which to take some selfies. Hahaha. Grace started the whole "selfie with a seagull" bit back in 2017 on our OG east coast road trip, so it felt like a real full-circle moment as we swept through New England this summer snapping seagulls left and right. Haha.
* our Eras Tour Playlist --
Taking a page out of Taylor's book, we created our own family version of an "eras tour" playlist for the road trip and it was the bomb. LOL. After modifying an idea I saw on Instagram of a list of activities to make road trips with kids more palatable, we started with the year that our first child was born (Ethan -- in 2003) and had everyone choose a song from the Billboard Top 100 for that year. From there, we moved up through the years -- or Eras as I liked to call them -- repeating the process until we reached the present. I think the boys may have contributed a song choice here or there, but the bulk of the playlist was curated by the girls and myself. And since it was impossible to pick just ONE song from each year, we may or may not have included a whole bunch of extras. Hahaha. The end result was an absolute bop of 20 years worth of music! (And with 7 or 8 hours of running play time, we almost never had to skip repeats while listening.) Feel free to steal the idea for your own future road trips! ;)
* the trees of New England --
It has been documented often enough throughout the blog's history, but I just love trees. And I especially love to see what trees are the same and what trees are different from coast to coast and region to region. Pine trees are unsurprisingly prevalent in Maine, and maples are a staple of Vermont, but New England obviously contains a wider variety than just those two. A highlight of the road trip for me, was the Shade Tree Walking Tour I went on all by myself in downtown Kennebunkport while Scott so generously kept the kids entertained. Hahaha. Fun fact followed swiftly by a sad fact -- the town residents quite literally saved the trees here! Thanks to the efforts of a handful of valiantly working volunteers, the Dutch elm disease that ravaged the country beginning in the 1930s was thwarted at least a little bit in Kennebunkport, where about 100 of the original 2,000 elms that once lined the streets were saved. Sadly for the rest of the country's elms, more than 35 million had succumbed to the disease by the 1980s. 😢
* getting a felfie with both a Paul Bunyan statue AND a gnome --
Along with seagull selfies, we've made it a thing to get felfies with statues of Paul Bunyan whenever we encounter them on a road trip. (Which for the record has been 3 times total. Hahaha.) After finding the World's Largest Concrete Gnome last year in Ames, Iowa, it was a no brainer to find the gnome in Old Mistick Village in Connecticut and snap a couple of pics for this year's trip.
* so many rocks to climb and water to play in --
Way back on our very first cross-country road trip (in 2016), I made an important discovery: give my kids rocks to climb on and/or water to play in and every single one of them is a happy camper. Every road trip since then has been planned with that tidbit in mind. The beauty of our New England adventure this summer was that almost every single pit stop along the way had one or the other to hold their interest. Acadia National Park probably had the greatest abundance of both these elements, but being mostly on the coast ensured that there was at least plenty of water to go around. Hahaha.
* recreating some Bar Harbor pics from our 2017 East Coast road trip --
Again with the self-explanatory, but I quite like these side-by-side comparisons: 2017 vs. 2023
The "Jane is My Moonbeam" Edition
* learning how to lumberjack --
The Great Maine Lumberjack Show was exactly what it proclaimed to be -- great, a lumberjack show, and in Maine. Lol. The boys thought it was especially great to take a turn on the cross-cut saws, while the girls thought a selfie with the lumberjacks was even greater. And all I've got to say about that is: YO HO! (An actual lumberjack cheer. Allegedly.)
* stunning vistas --
For the beauty of the earth, amiright?? Pictures don't even come close to capturing the true majesty of Mother Nature. There's just something about a coastline that fills me with awe and I loved every glimpse of it that I got. As for the more inland areas, I apparently never got any shots of the glory that was the Green Mountains, but you'll have to take my word for it that driving through Vermont was an absolute feast for the eyes. (And that's without it even being Leaf Peeping season. Hahaha.)
* beautiful gardens --
If you were to ask my children (or Scott), they'd probably assure you that I'm well on my way to becoming the crazy plant lady. Hahaha. What can I say?? I love flowers just as much as I love trees, and my plant identification app got quite the workout while we were on the road. Everywhere we went, I had my eyes peeled for potential flowers to go in MY garden back home.
* going to the world's largest arcade --
For the boys, I'd have to say that spending a day at Funspot by Lake Winnipesaukee, NH was one of the highlights of the trip. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Funspot is the largest arcade in the world and it certainly lived up to the hype! Alex and Isaac loved it so much that they managed to convince Scott to take them back not once but twice more before we left the area. Haha.
To wrap up "The Good," I asked everyone what they would add to the list...
* Scott: being able to trade out our rental car for something bigger at the Bangor airport --
The car they initially put us in -- a Nissan Pathfinder "or similar" -- had barely enough room for our bodies much less our luggage. Luckily, there was a Suburban on the lot and once we switched over, we were able to set off on our merry way to the easternmost town in the United States.
* Grace: all the places, race around the world, and YouTube --
She and Jane have been obsessed with playing this Race Around the World game on Roblox.
* Sophie: Bar Harbor
* Jane: the beaches and the hotels with actual TVs
* Alex: finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows --
Reading every spare second he could get -- and we're talking on buses, on trollies, on trains, and even while we were out eating -- Alex finished the last book in the Harry Potter series towards the end of our road trip.
* Isaac: the one hotel we had with a smart tv that made YouTube available on the screen
THE BAD
And now, we get to the Bad. Dun dun dun. In all honesty, there wasn't too much that was overly terrible, but if I had to make a list, I would say that the only bad things about the trip were hopping around too quickly during the second week on the road (moving to a new city/hotel each night got rough towards the end); not having more time/occasions to put all of the museum family pass memberships we accrued to good use (I'm looking at you specifically Plimoth Patuxet and you Newport Mansions Preservation Society); and trying to track down a pharmacy along our route that had Alex's ADHD meds in stock (two states -- and almost a whole week -- later, we finally found some at a Rite Aid in New Hampshire). Funnily enough, there was a lot of overlap between everyone else's take on what was Bad and Ugly about the trip. Lol.
* Scott: the Newport Motel 6 --
Oh my goodness, this place was the worst. (And it actually makes it on my UGLY list.) The place smelled so strongly of chemical cleaners or something that it made me nauseated, and the very air in the room was dank and gross. This was one instance that I was very glad we left after a single night.
* Grace: Alex unmedicated and the fighting (you might even say that one fueled the other) --
Oh my goodness. It was bad, y'all. The inherent chaos of being on vacation and off our normal schedule and routine fanned the flames of hyperactivity, poor impulse control, irritability, and sensory overload that came part and parcel with an unmedicated Alex. Thank goodness for Foclin.
* Sophie: Motel 6 --
You could say the Newport Motel 6 made a lasting impression. Hahaha.
* Jane: Motel 6 --
Ditto
* Alex: Motel 6 --
And ditto
* Isaac: all the bus tours --
I may have gone a little overboard this year on the bus/train/trolley tours in the various cities we visited and Isaac was NOT a fan, as he let us know repeatedly throughout the trip. Oof.
THE UGLY
And finally, there was the Ugly. My list would include the now infamous Motel 6 stay along with Sophie's sunburn and subsequent sun sickness that knocked her down for the count for a couple of days while we were at Lake Winnipesaukee. As for the others, here's what they had to say:
* Scott: the afternoon heat and humidity --
It WAS hot and humid. Like dangerously so in some cases.
* Grace: Motel 6 --
It was so, so bad.
* Sophie: sunburn and sun sickness --
Poor Sophie. She was the only one to get sunburned the day we frolicked at the beach in Kennebunkport and she paid the price for it over the next couple of days of our trip. I'm pretty sure it's because she hadn't really spent any time in the sun for much of the summer and the sunscreen was most likely not applied adequately, but all's well that ends well I guess.
* Jane: sitting in the back row with Alex and Isaac the entire trip --
Poor Jane. It really was horrible for her. At least 80% of our driving time consisted of us trying to get Alex to stop talking/be quiet and the boys to stop fighting and you can just imagine how effective those efforts were.
* Alex: so much walking --
What can I say? We did a LOT of walking around.
* Isaac: the Salem Witch Museum --
Not gonna lie, the narration and visuals for the museum's presentation were pretty freaky. If you have younger kids or kids who scare easily I would suggest skipping the museum if you're ever in Salem. 😬
And that's all for today, folks! If the amount of time it took to finally get this post finished is any indication of how long it will take to cover the whole trip, it might be a little optimistic to think about having these recaps finished before the year is out. Haha. Until next time...
2 comments:
Great post!
^Granny/Mama
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