As we were wrapping up our 2 week road trip of New England and Canada, we decided to mark one more state off our list: New Hampshire. As a reminder, previously on the trip, we rented a car in Boston, explored Maine, then headed into Canada where we spent some fun days along the Bay of Fundy, relaxed in Prince Edward Island (PEI) and enjoyed a Hot Day in Halifax. We adjusted our route back to Boston to add in one night in New Hampshire.

With just one night to spend, we decided to base ourselves in the tourist-focused town of North Conway in the White Mountains. We dropped our stuff off at our hotel, the Schoolhouse Inn (where we were pleasantly surprised to be upgraded to a standalone cabin with its own screened-in porch), and then went out to do a little exploration of the area before it got dark.

We first drove up a very steep road to Cathedral Ledge, where we peered off the edge back into the valley below. The view was a little sullied by a large amount of haze. Kiddo seemed to enjoy climbing around even more than the view!

We then went to the nearby Diana’s Baths, where a short hike took us to the series of pools. We let Kiddo wade around a little bit, but the water was too cold to want to leave him in there for long.

We had dinner at a restaurant within walking distance of our hotel called Abenaki Trail. One feature that drew us to it was that they were clearly family friendly, advertising that they had toys and books for kids to play with while waiting for food to come. The food was pretty standard fare, but we did enjoy our massive poutine appetizer.

The next morning we headed towards Boston along the scenic Kancamagus Highway. Using some brochures we had picked up along the way, we chose a few different places along the road to stop and take in further.

Our first stop was at Rocky Gorge, where we did a one mile loop around a pond.

The gorge itself

Kiddo enjoyed some hiking on his own

Kiddo fell asleep in the car, but we still decided to stop and take a short walk to see Sabbaday Falls. (Of course he woke up as soon as we put him in the carrier).

We drove through a number of scenic overlooks, stopping at one at the top of the pass to get some nice pictures (although still with some of the haze).

A little hard to get everyone looking at the camera…

After stopping in the town of Lincoln at the other end of the highway for lunch at a Thai restaurant, we drove through steady rain back to Boston. We were sad to be wrapping up our two-week roadtrip, but happy that it had gone pretty successfully! 

Traveling with Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

Our upgrade to the standalone cabin with porch worked out well, especially because it gave us a space to hang out and read after putting him to bed. Our room came with two beds, so we put his kilofly on top of the bed (with some borders around if we snuck out). He seemed to sleep quite well in this arrangement.

As mentioned above, the restaurant for dinner maybe wasn’t our first choice for food, but it worked out well to choose a place that had some extra kid-specific distractions to help the meal experience go more smoothly.

At this point of the trip, we were starting to feel pretty frazzled trying to keep up with all of Kiddo’s accessories. When we woke up in the morning, we realized we couldn’t find one of the lids to his bottles, which was kind of important since we hadn’t packed very many. We called the restaurant from the night before but they didn’t have it. When Eric went out for breakfast supplies, he tried to find an easy replacement in multiple stores, but was unable to do so. We were able to make do, but it still left a bit of a bitter taste in our mouth, feeling like we weren’t on top of things. We’d like to say we learned a system to never lose items again, but as I bet you can guess, we still have misplaced items since then – especially those pesky small kid things!

Overall, looking back at our roadtrip with Kiddo, we have fond memories of this first big trip as a nuclear family. We think we were able to navigate parenting while traveling fairly well. He won’t remember any of it, but the two of us definitely will.

As we write this post at the beginning of the summer of 2020, it makes us nostalgic and also a little sad that it seems like we probably won’t be able to do a big trip this summer. Hopefully we will feel comfortable taking another trip like this soon!