After our successful somewhat impromptu trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras back in February I decided to plan another trip for us. Gabriel is still pretty new so we decided to stay closer to home. New England has a lot of options for families so we went with a New England Road Trip as our next family vacation.
Like with our trip to New Orleans I made a loose itinerary based on places to visits. There were places we would venture out to and then smaller stops/other things to do if we had the time and/or energy for them. Traveling with children isn't always the easiest thing to do if you want to pack everything into a trip. I figure a few highlights and fun stops for them is the way to go. I always plot local eateries into our trips as well.
The one concern we had was Gabriel. Gabriel hates the car. The minute he hits the car safety seat it's full on crying. We don't go out much these days for more than a 15 minute car ride because of it. The past few days we've seen a slight improvement so we took the chance. Perhaps not the smartest decision to make but it was the one we made. Going along with our "this is a trip for the kids, not just with the kids" attitude I planned for extra stops along the way if we needed to.
Our first stop was Mystic, CT. If you think Connecticut you may think "Oh that doesn't seem to far." Well it is. (Not really, our destination was only 3 hours from home) Especially when you have a newborn, a toddler and a school age child in a sedan. Fortunately Leah and Louis are great car travelers. We headed for Mystic Seaport. The weather started off a bit overcast and there was a chance of light rain in the forecast. A good seafarer weather day.
Gabriel handled the ride pretty well until the last 20-30 minutes. I've never been happier to get some place before.
Mystic Seaport is a recreation of a 19th Century seafaring village, complete with homes, businesses and collections of sailing ships and boats. More than 60 of the buildings on the property are original and have been restored to their old glory.
After this photo was taken we bumped into pseudo reality tv star Kourtney Kardashian with her son. Her son and Louis share the same birthday. She had camera crews with her. We forgot ours at home. :D
We left Mystic Seaport for Downtown Mystic hoping I could stop a local restaurant and have some lunch and walk around the town. This did not go according to plan. As we made it to Downtown Mystic we found that 2 of the municipal parking lots were full of contruction workers tearing up the streets along the way. It was difficult to get around and at this point Gabriel began to cry because he was hungry so we scrapped the search for parking and headed back towards Mystic Seaport where I knew there was a McDonald's near by. I am not proud of how much crap food we eat while on our trips but at times like this? I'm happy for whatever works. I sat in the car and nursed Gabriel while Matt grabbed some food with the kids.
Our next stop was The Dinosaur Place in Oakdale, Connecticut. By the time we reached our destination it became quite clear by the ominous clouds creeping up around us that rain was on its way. Still we decided to tour the Dinosaur Place. The latter? Pretty much makes us a crazy family I think. I don't know why we thought we'd beat the rain! So we paid and in we went. Within 10 minutes it was pouring out. Still we had a good time. In some ways it was a bit how I imagine walking around the prehistoric ages would've been like.
The ride to the hotel was uneventful even though the downpour worsened at this point. Our hotel was located in Foxboro, Massachusetts, home of the Patriots. We booked a one bedroom suite and when we got to the hotel found out management had upgraded us to a 2 bedroom suite. Perfect for us! Louis and Matt took one room while Leah, Gabriel and myself stayed in the other one.We had 2 bathrooms w/showers & tubs. A full service kitchen w/fridge, dishwasher and microwave. I packed us enough drinks and snacks for the trip (and then some) so the fridge came in handy. My favorite feature? The ice maker.
Our first night we winded down, watched Alice in Wonderland (Burton) and went to sleep (Louis as you can see in the photo knocked out as soon as he hit the bed), ready for our early morning.
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