Road Trip to Cape Cod - Day 2

Day 2 - Monday June 25, 2018

We stayed in bed late this morning after a bit of a rough night with some noisy neighbours. 

After doing so much driving yesterday, our first stop was to spend some time outside and get our legs moving.  We headed out to the Dr. Seuss national memorial sculpture garden.  The garden is located amongst some gorgeous buildings in one of the historic areas in Springfield, MA.  The garden has a lovely path leading around several sculptures featuring well known Seuss characters.  We enjoyed looking at them all, and Logan especially loved pointing out all of the pink flowers and butterflies that he thought I might like to take home for my birthday (which is in October).

When we were finished at the garden we headed to Forest Park.  A large park that reminded us of Central Park in NY.  It had lovely ponds, boats, trails, and a zoo.

We did a little walk around the water garden area where we spotted fish, frogs and turtles!

Then went to the playground to burn off some more energy!

We decided to check out the zoo while we were there.  But i didn’t feel like it was a must-do.  The zoo was okay…small enough to see in an hour and had a large variety of creatures.  

Logan was captivated by the spider monkey and asked us if he could shoot webs (like spider man). 

By the time we finished at the zoo, we were ready for lunch and a good car nap as we continued on to Cape Cod. 

We reached our hotel around 4:00 and checked in before going out again.  We finished our peanut butter sandwiches and headed back out to explore an area that I heard is popular for spotting seals.  Theres a fishing pier in Chatham where the Seals like to hang out in hopes of finding scraps.  No wonder there are shark sightings here every year! There were so many seals! …and They’re really big!!!

My phone died before we left.  But the kids were beyond thrilled.  This was the highlight of the day for sure.  I think there’s truly something magical about seeing wild animals in their natural habitat (vs the zoo from earlier today).  Every time a seal lifted it’s head, both Logan and Hamish would squeal with excitement.  

We headed down to the sand beside the pier where the boys started working on throwing hand fulls of sand and sea shells back into the water.  They were soaked, and filthy! It was a blast!

Wrapped in towels, we headed back to the hotel for the night!

Road Trip to Cape Cod - Day 1

Day 1 - Sunday June 24, 2018

We have been talking a lot over the past few weeks about planning to go away again this summer.  After looking at our schedules, and our very small budget, we decided to hit the road this week, and make our way to Cape Cod.

The total driving time to Cape Cod from our house is about 10 hours.  So we have broken our trip up into a great little family vacation!  

When we left our house today, it was rainy and quite miserable.  Perfect weather to leave behind!  We managed to get out the door by 8am - which is super early for us! 

Our first stop was at the duty free at the border for a bathroom break and to stretch our legs.  It continued to be quite rainy there, and we just played in the store in and around the candy displays!

On our way out of the store, Logan asked if we would take his picture with the "fancy man"

After a quick check in at the border, we made our way to Rochester.  Our first plan was to stop and play at the Strong Museum….the museum of play.  This museum was absolutely perfect for our 4-year-old and 1-year-old.  the first area in the museum was set up like Sesame Street with Sesame street themed activities.  The biggest hit four our guys was the music key board.  

One of the coolest things we did in the museum was play in the children’s sized Wegman’s (grocery store).  The shopping carts were kid size, they had children size counters, all the sections set up (produce etc.) and then the cash register where the kids could check out their items (including scanning them) and printing out their receipt.  Logan loved it!  He decided to buy: sushi, apples, bananas, cauliflower, Swiss cheese and hamburger patties. 

We also played in the many play structures, rode the little toy train and explored the robots and ray gun displays.

We were at the museum for about 2 hours and probably only saw half of it.  But it was enough time for us. 

We enjoyed our dinner at the museum, before heading back out on the road.

We had quite a bit of driving to do to get to our hotel and made a quick stop to stretch our legs at a rest stop.

While on the road we drove into and out of the rain before arriving at our hotel in Springfield, MA.  

It was 9:00 by the time we checked in….so straight to bed we went to get ready for tomorrows adventures!

Drive Me To The Moon - Day 6

Thursday

We woke up this morning and wanted to do a little bit of exploring in Pittsburgh.  We were staying downtown and headed into the market square where we had breakfast on a patio in the middle of the farmers market. 

We went for a little stroll around the neighbourhood and walked out on to the 6th street bridge.  From the bridge we could see 2 stadiums and Logan counted 5 bridges!

We headed back to our hotel to check out and made our way to the Carnagie Science Centre.  There Logan had a blast exploring the space exhibit, as well as a water exhibit, body exhibit and eventually making our way out to the USS Requin Submarine.

the submarine was very exciting for Logan as we walked through, he was eager to try to understand what all the gadgets were for, and was excited at the idea of being under the water.

After lunch we decided to head back out on the road to make the 5 hour drive home (which actually took more like 8 hours with stops).

We were sad to conclude our road trip today, as we’re never really ready to stop exploring! We’re already planning our next adventure!