Our last pit stop on our Sweep through New England was Mystic, Connecticut, and the main activity I had planned for the day was...another museum! Hahahahahahaha. The Mystic Seaport Museum showcased all things seaport related (obvis) with several different types of displays throughout various buildings along with interactive areas, a recreated 19th-century village, and a shipyard. Before we headed to the museum that morning, however, I hauled everyone over to the Olde Mistic Village (which was conveniently close to our hotel) for the sole purpose of getting a felfie with a gnome. And yes. I'm serious -- that was pretty much the only reason for the detour. As an added bonus (I guess) there were a couple of fun shops to pop into but -- once again -- it was already really hot for the day and no one was interested in wandering around for very long.
This dragon was outside of one of the shops -- The Cloak and Wand.
The hair. 😆
We found the gnome! And Isaac very specifically wanted this to be his pose in the picture. Hahaha.
Mission accomplished -- we got that felfie with a gnome!
After the requisite pictures were taken, we drove on down to the Mystic Seaport Museum, and honestly, this was one of my favorite museums of the trip. Call me odd, but I find the history of whaling kind of fascinating and -- amongst other things -- I really enjoyed looking through the exhibits on display that focused on whaling both in general and in relation to the village. Unfortunately, thanks to the heat of the day, we had more than a few unhappy campers who were not super stoked about the idea of wandering around outside and would have much preferred sitting indoors where it was nice and cool. Grace, at least, was on board and was once again my most cooperative child {words which never would have come out of my mouth even 5 years ago}, humoring me me with plenty of posing for pictures and popping in and out of the the various old-time-y buildings around the shipyard. We did our best as a family to explore the "village" and interactive kid areas, but it wasn't long before Sophie and Jane were completely done with the heat and the boys were not too far behind. Isaac, in fact, won the award for most Rage Towards the Great Outdoors when he angrily exclaimed at one point that there was no air-conditioning outside and he hated it. Hahaha. Thankfully, we've learned throughout the years that the best cure for hangry and irritable children is to get some food in their systems and let them take some time to sit and chill.
Scott took the younger ones to the children's museum area while I was walking around outside with Grace. Sophie, I'm pretty sure, hiked back to the main building to sit and enjoy the a/c.
Rope making building. It was kind of crazy to see how incredibly long it needed to be in order to adequately stretch out the rope.
(Sweet peas -- so adorable.)
In the old General Store, there were a few old-time-y games out on display for people to try out. Alex and Isaac were surprisingly intrigued by the Jacob's Ladder and this peg board thing were you had to move squares around in a certain order. Grace took over for Isaac trying to figure it out, but I don't think they managed to solve it before we left the store.
(In case you're wondering, Grace used the semaphore flags to spell out her name.)
THIS thing right here was Isaac's absolute most favorite part of the whole experience. Lol. He begged to go back to it over and over again throughout the afternoon.
The museum was also home to a planetarium, so one of our last activities of the day was to catch one of the shows. The fact that it was nice and cool, not to mention quiet and dark inside, was just a little lagniappe. Hahaha. {Isaac was surprisingly intrigued by the night sky and even now will excitedly point it out when I ask him if he can find Orion's Belt. Lol.} Of course, nothing ever goes off completely without a hitch in this family, so Alex needing to go to the bathroom halfway through and knocking Sophie's can of Coke (which she was NOT supposed to even have in there) over and onto the carpet was just about par for the course. *insert face palm emoji*
Really, it was only a matter of time before that precariously perched Coke ended up all over the floor.
And that was our day! Knowing we had to wake up really early the next morning for our flight back home, we kept things low-key once we left the museum and basically just chilled at the hotel for the rest of the afternoon/evening. With everyone worn out from another day of fun in the sun, it was the right call. Haha.
Up at dawn to catch that flight.
We had like a 6 or 7 hour layover in Chicago which was shockingly uneventful as far as kid meltdowns went. They were strangely self-sufficient doing their own thing to pass the time without needing a whole lot of interference from me or Scott.
As you can see above, Grace used her time to coerce Isaac into allowing her to detangle his rat's nest. She really does have the magic touch when it comes to him (and honestly most kids) and after setting him up with the Switch for a distraction, she went to work on that hair. LOL.
Hahahahahaha.
And she did it! His hair was completely brushed out and tangle-free for the first time in WEEKS once Grace was done with him. Hahaha.
Almost home!
What a trip! Lessons (re)learned this time around include: road tripping for a full two weeks is a tad too long, I really need to book more airbnbs next time around, staying put for at least 2 nights wherever we may be is for the best, and perhaps -- in the future -- I should to sign up for the bus/train/trolley tours much more sparingly. Hahahaha. Now that the road trip recaps are done, I can finally move on to other things -- like birthdays, back-to-school, Grace going to college, and the advent of spooky season. (And hopefully, it won't take another 3 months before I'm finished with all of those!)
