New Haven, Connecticut, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This morning's drive to the Philadelphia airport to pick up Matt had been an ongoing subject of conversation during my entire time in New Haven; Mac and I discussed it plenty, and that one guy in the grocery store check-out line also had some good insight into the matter.

The trouble was that, although my GPS estimated a 3 hour and 40 minute trip, I would be driving straight through the morning commute of what seemed like the entire East Coast, including cutting right past New York City. How much extra to allow for this? One hour? Two? I finally decided on a one hour estimate, because, frankly, it would be easier for Matt to hang out at the airport an extra hour to wait on us than for us to hang out at the airport an extra hour to wait for him.

With that settled, we packed up the car, said goodbye to Mac, secured his promise to mail us all the things that we had surely forgotten under couches and behind bookshelves, and found our spot in the bumper-to-bumper traffic slowly edging its way down the East Coast.

It was by far my most stressful drive, sure, but I kept myself going by thinking, "I'm going to pick up Matt; I'm going to pick up Matt," and at one point Syd said from the backseat, "I like it best when you drive, Momma, because you let us help you look for exit signs!" I do, too. Even though a child has never actually been the one to say to me, "Oh, there's the exit there on the left--half mile!", somehow it makes me *feel* like I'm getting some navigational help when I tell them both to help me look out for it.

But in the end we made it! I didn't rear-end or get rear-ended by anybody, I DID make the wrong turn around New York City that I feared I'd make, but that wrong turn didn't then send me through the streets of Manhattan as I'd feared it would, I did have enough money for all the tolls (we avoided all the turnpikes before and after this one trip, but I was afraid to take the time to detour on this leg), I did figure out where the pick-up for Matt's airline was, and, running more like an hour and a half past the GPS estimate but about ten minutes out from the airport, I did get a call from Matt saying that he was off the plane, headed towards the exit, and could meet me out front in, oh, ten minutes?

And yes, I did pull up to the curb, get out of the drivers's seat, give Matt a hug, and then hop my butt right into the passenger's side. I felt a tiny bit guilty about throwing Matt into the deep end of city traffic right after his early morning flight, but oh, did my neck and shoulder muscles need to de-stress!

So that's how poor Matt, after a short night's sleep, an early morning trek to the airport, and a long plane flight with a layover, found himself driving his family minivan into downtown Philadelphia. I knew that I wanted to see some history, but I hadn't been certain enough of our timeline that day to actually make any reservations, so we only got to see Independence Hall from the outside across the street--

--but the Visitor's Center did have reenactors (Willow flat-out refused to walk up to the patriot and tell him that she was tired of British oppression and wanted to enlist), the most boring film about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ever made (seriously, it was so boring that it almost cycled back around to interesting, because you kept thinking, "HOW could this movie be so BAD?!?"), and a gift shop, where a certain little girl could continue her stuffed animal acquisition crusade by purchasing a stuffed bald eagle:

We were able, by waiting in line for a bit, to see the Liberty Bell up close:

--and fortunately, there's a lovely, grassy park right next to it, facing Independence Hall across a street closed to most traffic--

--and it was a lovely place to run around, catch up on all the accumulated gossip of a week apart, and, of COURSE, eat Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches:

There's a ton more to do in Philadelphia, of course, but we chose an early night of it, heading to our hotel for a swim, a movie, a take-out dinner, and an early bedtime, because tomorrow--

--we were headed back to Sesame Place!

New Haven, Connecticut, to Watch Hill, Rhode Island

Is it possible for me to go on a road trip to anywhere within 12 hours of a beach and NOT go to a beach?

Probably not.

On our final day in New Haven, Mac and I, talking over an audiobook of a Betty White autobiography (read by herself!), drove the kiddos up to Rhode Island to visit a famously kid-friendly beach there. Mac, who has lived on the East Coast long enough to develop such opinions, required for us a better beach, with better waves, than is apparently found near New Haven.

It WAS a great beach:

 There were gentle waves, a huge dune, two lifeguards who were vastly more invested in each other than in securing the safety of swimmers at the beach (they did glance at the water occasionally, but only in passing), a hermit crab and a snail who just LOVED the temporary sand castle home that Sydney created for them, and an absolutely epic carousel:

The horses are apparently vintage rocking horses, and they hang from the ceiling of the carousel; as it rotates, the horses don't bob up and down, but they do swing out mightily. That's not the best part, though.

The best part?

 Look at that girl who just grabbed herself a brass ring!

The carousel has a device with an arm that the kids can juuuust reach if they stretch, which dispenses brass rings--and one gold one! Each time they pass it, the kids can grab a ring, hoping for that gold one; the rings, as Willow discovered through careful study so that she could mimic it, are stored by the children on the ears of their horses until the ride is over.

Will could have ridden that carousel all day (it makes my heart so happy that my great big girl of almost nine still loves the little joys of small childhood), but Syd was worn out from the day, and a worn-out Syd is a grumpy Syd who does NOT love the little joys of small childhood, so the girls rode the carousel only once, walked briefly with us up and down the shopping area--Mac bought postcards, and I bought a butterfly net--and then spent an exhausting amount of time at the car changing out of their suits, making themselves sandwiches (yes, Willow DID manage to get apple butter all over my jeans that I had just taken to the Laundromat the night before, sigh), requesting endless snacks, and getting comfy. I swear, part of the fun of my friends who don't have children is the look of horrified amazement that they sometimes wear while clearly making internal observations like, "Holy crap! It seriously takes those kids half an hour just to get in the damn car!"

With the girls fortified with sandwiches, clementines, granola bars, peach lemonade, and Putumayo Sesame Street, Mac and I could have headed straight home, but...

Did you know that Taylor Swift recently bought a house in Watch Hill, Rhode Island? Obviously, we had to drive by it.

NOW we can head straight home!

Next stop: Philadelphia. We're going to pick up Matt from the airport!

Easton, Pennsylvania, to New Haven, Connecticut

After four days on the road, we planted ourselves in New Haven, Connecticut, for a bit, staying with a close friend of mine. He's one of those friends so great that I've taught my children to call him "uncle," and Uncle Mac patiently played host, showing us to the grocery store so we could pick up the ungodly amount of food that two children go through in three days, buying us New Haven-style pizza (which is a thing), finding the little kid another place to sleep when it turned out that the guest room he'd prepared for the children contains a "scary closet," and escorting us to all the particular spots that my particular kids see as kid fantasyland, including not just playgrounds and beaches but the Yale Peabody Museum:

all my buddies in one place, studying the mosasaur

Although there are definitely sections of the museum that are dusty and old-school (which is not a knock, because we LOVE a dusty, old-school museum!), the Yale Peabody is gorgeously laid out, impeccably catalogued and organized, and has a pretty great little hands-on kid area, too, with tons of artifacts to handle and study--

Ruffed grouse! Cool to see, since we'd studied Pennsylvania's state symbols, so the kids recognized it and were interested in inspecting it up close like this.

--lots of books, our SECOND colony of leaf cutter ants in less than a week, and this secret view back down to the dinosaur gallery:

We found lots in this museum to add context to our studies. The museum is currently running a temporary exhibit on Egypt, for instance:

canopic jars!!! We've read about them!

In this gallery was one of my absolute most favorite things upon the Earth: a docent, walking around, accosting people to ask if they had any questions.

My fantasy docent, basically.

He accosted us near the diorama of a mummy unwrapping, so I egged him on into telling us more about the process, then explained to him that we were so interested because one of my kid's books that she'd recently read, Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris, begins with a mummy unwrapping. Another woman standing near asked me to repeat the book, because her granddaughter might like it ("She's smaller than your daughter," she said, "But she reads at an eighth grade level." Don't you just love grandmothers? I congratulated her, and withheld information about my own child's equally precocious reading skills, lol, as well as the tidbit that hyperlexia is an autism signifier), but repeat as I might, she just couldn't get the title into her head. So the docent, still standing with us, pulled out an ipad, asked for her email address, copied the title of the book as I dictated it, and then emailed it to her!

You might not be aware, but I have MANY opinions about the (mis-)use of ipads in education, and I collect instances of valid, appropriate, useful uses. This was a great one to add to my collection.

The museum also has a large bird collection--

--and, best of all best things, it's organized transparently by the order of classification! So valuable for my kids, who have been studying the order of classification as it is used to categorize and identify creatures for months now, to see:

dodo!

Another exhibit on the evolution of mammals--

--included skeletons of horse ancestors, which the kids could identify by sight at this point, and of human ancestors, which the big kid studied long enough ago that I think she's forgotten how obsessed she used to be by it, but we'll delve there again when we finally dial down to human biology (after we finish up chickens, and spend time with praying mantises, butterflies, frogs, cats, and mealworms).

As we finished up our museum trip, I began my rant to Mac about how I'm always disappointed by museum gift shops, how they never stock what I want to buy, how they never have enough truly educational resources, how they never stock materials that permit you to continue studying their exhibits at home, how they pay no attention to adding context and value to your exhibit. I went on and on and on, giving specific examples from museum gift shops that we've visited together (how could the Creation Museum NOT have a truly wonderful Noah's Ark toy?!?)

Serves me right, then, that the Yale Peabody museum gift shop? 

Is amazing. 

The big kid bought a book on unlikely animal friendships and a small stuffed wolf (named Lord Woof, he is a VERY naughty puppy who is always getting into mischief), and I bought several postcards of the museum's exhibits, a book on the museum's Hall of Mammal Evolution, a book on the museum's Hall of Prehistoric Life (both of which go into great detail about each of the exhibits, include new information, and add context), a poster showing the organization, classification, and evolution of life, a kit to make your own papyrus paper from strips of real papyrus (we own a few sheets of papyrus paper, and I've seen DIY projects for making fakey papyrus paper from strips of white paper, but I've never seen a real kit like this before), and a couple of erasers that are supposed to be hiding little plastic fossils inside (with which I plan to bribe the kids, since they'd rather scribble over even penciled mistakes than erase them).

We came home to a lovely, quiet evening of bubbles, spinach lasagna, Model Magic, and homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. The little kid, lured with Bill Nye on my computer, was convinced that maybe the closet in her room wasn't SO scary. My partner telephoned to assure me that the chickens were well and the cats missed us. 

Next stop: Watch Hill, Rhode Island.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Hershey, Pennsylvania, to Easton, Pennsylvania

Did we hit all the kid-friendly factory-esque stops or what?!? The day after Hershey, we nuked some oatmeal, packed up the car, hopped in, and drove straight to Crayola Experience:

crosswalk between the parking garage and Crayola Experience

Admission is VERY expensive (thank goodness for coupons!), but to be fair, you do come home with bags full of stuff at the end, all included in the cost, including crayons in custom-designed wrappers--




--and markers that you can watch being made, complete with your choice of color combination:


There's a factory show during which you can watch a demonstration of crayons being made (including receiving one of the crayons at the end!), but everything else is hands-on:

You can paint with melted crayons--


--including your finger tips, if you're that brave, I suppose:

You can draw with glowing markers in a dark room:

You can make spin art with more melted crayons in a complicated (and often broken, a docent admitted to me) wax melting and paper plate spinning machine:

Figuring out how to recreate this project is a new obsession of mine.

You can paint in a sunny spot--




--and,  in case you're worried that you'll have to carry around a wet painting all day, you can send it through the dryer:

You can make various craft projects (a puzzle and a treasure box, on the day that we were there):

You can make yourself into a coloring page--




--and color it to make yourself look funny--


--or your sister:

I'm framing this picture that Sydney colored of Willow. 

I'm probably not framing this one of Sydney that Willow colored.

You can decorate sculptures with dry erase markers:

And if you've got any leftover tokens, you can exchange them for Model Magic:

I splurged on a couple of more complicated kits for the girls to put together at my friend's place later.

Thank goodness that the Crayola Experience also had tons of active, gross motor activities, too. I possibly have two of the more crafts-oriented kids on the planet, but I doubt that they could sit around for a full day doing nothing but art activities. Now, a couple of art activities, a visit to the two-storey indoor playground--

--a couple of art activities, a trip outdoors for a picnic lunch and a good climb all over the crayon statues, a couple of art activities, an art activity that also involves running around and playing with your art--

--a couple of art activities, some time messing around with some big, open-ended manipulatives--

--a couple of art activities, a while goofing around on the interactive floor--

(we stayed in this room for a LONG time, until Willow could predict the cycling of each of the different programs, and could master each one)

--a couple of final art activities, a trip to the gift shop, where Sydney bought a Tinkerbell coloring book and I bought Twistables, Model Magic, and purple bubbles, a trip to the bathroom, and a walk to the car, where I got the girls settled, made sandwiches and passed out fruit and strawberry milk and granola bars, called my friend to get his address, programmed it into the GPS, fiddled with the GPS for an excruciatingly long time until I could make it route me around New York City, discovered that I couldn't find my planner, looked for my planner, called Matt to ask if he could call our last hotels and ask about the planner, and then finally remembered that the garage had one of those walk-up kiosks to pay for your parking, which it had probably been at least twenty minutes since I had visited, and if I didn't book it they'd probably make me pay even more to get out of the place.

Next stop: New Haven, and the Yale Peabody Museum!