USA

A Night in New Hampshire

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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.

Good morning!

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!

Marvelous Maine (Mane-O, Mane-O!)

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We visited Maine as part of our 2 week New England and Canada road trip. 

We were able to see several friends in Maine and explored mostly the coastal region of this state that we had never visited!

The title of this post hearkens back to a children’s board book, Good Night, Maine. One of our good friends gave this to Kiddo as a gift when we visited her in Northport and it quickly became an absolute favorite. We had to read it over and over again. He would let us know loudly that he wanted to read it by yelling “Mane-O Mane-O!”

What We Did

Our first stop in Maine was in Kennebunk. We used this time to catch up with a friend who experienced the Nepal Earthquake with us. We didn’t really get much of a chance to see Kennebunk except for a quick drive through. It looked like a beautiful town!

Portland

We spend one night in Portland. Our evening involved exploring downtown and struggling to find a place to eat that had no wait and seemed baby friendly! The town was quite cute. The following morning we explored Fort Allen Park on the Eastern Promenade. It was a lovely day and we all enjoyed the walk with a beautiful view of the bay. 

Bangor

We spent an afternoon in Bangor. We were mostly looking for a place that was halfway between Portland and St. Andrew’s (NB, Canada). But, Eric had read about how Stephen King lives in Bangor and how several of his books use it as an inspiration for location. We drove by the house and then ate a quick lunch in downtown which was also quite cute. We walked around briefly and then drove to another attraction we had heard about – the Paul Bunyan Statue. We wish that we had found another park to enjoy because Kiddo wasn’t really ready to be back in the car after our sojourn in Bangor, but we had to move on!

Steven King’s House
Downtown
Paul Bunyan

Machias and Wild Blueberry Land

After spending several days in Canada, we returned to the USA. We stopped for lunch in Machias where we enjoyed a Haddock Rueben and a Clam Chowder at Helen’s. In our attempt to find interesting things to do halfway between Saint John (NB, Canada) and Northport (our final destination for the day) Eric had explored the Altas Obscura and read about Wild Blueberry Land. We stopped at this unique locale for a short while so Kiddo could explore and stretch his legs. It did look like it had seen better days, but it is still a place to find wonderful blueberry everything. We purchased some preserves and a delicious slice of pie. We also watched the workers briefly doing some painting on the miniature golf course which was currently closed.

Northport

We spent 3 lovely nights with a friend in the town of Northport. Her family owns a cottage right on the water. We spent one relaxing day on her front porch taking in the scenery and then playing in ocean while the tide came in. It was also a nice place to stay that wasn’t too far away from our next day trip…

hanging out on the porch
view from porch during sunset
sunrise

Acadia National Park

Our first stop in Acadia was the visitor center to pay our park fees and get our bearings. From there we decided to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain. It was a pretty short drive. Upon reaching the top, we took a short walk around just taking in the views. Before heading out, we had a small picnic lunch on the rocks.

We headed back to the visitor center to drop off the car because we had decided to take the park shuttles for the rest of our adventure. There are several different shuttles that take different routes throughout the park and you can get all that info at the visitor center as well as view signage at the different stops. We headed first to Sandy Beach. We didn’t actually go to the beach, but instead walked along the Ocean Path to Thunder Hole. The walk was quite nice visually, but it was hot and right along the road so it wasn’t as pleasant as we had initially hoped. If we hadn’t been carrying Kiddo, we might have explored more along the rocky shore.

Unfortunately, Thunder Hole was very crowded and was not doing its thing. We understand that often the waves crash loudly over the rocks and explode up quite high so it is both visually and aurally interesting. However, at the point we were there it was really quite tame.

We caught a shuttle onward to Otter Point. This was one of our favorite spots of the day. It was quiet and pleasant with lovely views. Unfortunately, we were starting to feel a time crunch. Our host had a dog that she had left at home which was 1.5 hours away and we knew we needed to get back.

We made only one more stop at Jordan Pond where we only had a brief time to walk down to the pond and a few minutes around the trail.

Acadia was, as many national parks are, crowded so it didn’t really feel like we were getting out in nature. However, there were several less popular spots that we wish we could have spent more time exploring!

Traveling with Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

Our plan of driving morning and late afternoon really worked quite well. Kiddo was able to explore during the afternoon and slept during the car rides. This strategy lead us to some lesser visited and more unique places. We did decide that for the most part, stopping for just a lunch was not enough give Kiddo the time he needed to stretch his legs.

Our hook-on highchair was really useful for staying with friends who don’t have kids themselves!

While we were glad we saw as much as we did on the two week trip, it was really nice to spend an off day in the same place without a ton of sightseeing involved!

We had brought several books for Kiddo along with us on the two week trip, but we acquired a few more from different friends along the way and it was definitely a good thing to gain more options as the time went on. This kept it fresh and new for Kiddo.

Eating with Kiddo at restaurants can be challenging sometimes – especially when he just spent multiple hours in a car and is much more anxious to be stretching his legs. We built a pretty good “keep kiddo entertained” strategy for eating as our trip went on. We always carried crunch snacks with us like Cheerios or other baby foods. As soon as we sit down in a restaurant, those come out. It normally keeps him entertained through ordering. As we are waiting for food to arrive, we often would take out a toy or two in addition to the crunchy foods. He currently is really into anything with wheels. If we were lucky, that would take us until food arrives, then he would be busy eating more and trying all the food we had ordered. As he got sick of that, we would pull out his bottle of milk. In order to give us the time needed to finish our meal and pay our check, our last strategy was to give him a baby squeeze pouch which he really enjoys. This got us through *most* meals with no problem!

Flexibility was key. While we did try to make sure that our journey gave Kiddo an opportunity for 2 naps, we never really timed anything. Occasionally, he had to be ready to go down for first nap as early as 9 and other times we ended up pushing it back to 11 or so. So, the fact that we did this trip when he still took 2 naps but probably only truly needed 1 was really helpful.

 

 

 

Hello, Boston!

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Boston was a part of our 2 week road trip of New England and Canada.

We flew to Boston direct on Southwest. Unfortunately, our flight was quite delayed so we didn’t arrive until very late. We were staying with some family friends in Belmont who were very generous to wait up for us.

Napping in the airport during our looong delay. Reclining stroller again to the rescue!

The title of this blog post hearkens to a children’s board book written by Martha Day Zschock. We had purchased this book for Kiddo a couple weeks before our trip and read it often to get him excited. Strangely, it was a great way to plan for the trip. We tried hard to hit all of the sites that were mentioned in the cute rhyming story!

Things We Did

Quincy Market and Fanuiel Hall

We were able to get a ride from our hosts to Alewife Station and then took the T into downtown Boston. We started by grabbing lunch at the iconic Quincy Market. There were an amazing amount of choices for food and it was quite crowded. After a short wait, we were able to grab a seat while Eric enjoyed a clam chowder and Della went for pizza. Kiddo had some munchies and a large glass of milk! We then went across the street to check out Fanuiel Hall. It was under construction from the the outside, so not too interesting to look at. But the inside was beautiful. We enjoyed checking out the hall itself which has held meetings, protests, and debate for 275 years!

enjoying lunch

 

Freedom Trail

We walked north from Fanueil Hall on the Freedom Trail through the North End. The Freedom Trail is a fun red brick path that you follow through the heart of Boston that takes you to several interesting, historic sites.

The next stop would have been Paul Revere’s house. We were interested to go in, but the line was awfully long and it didn’t look like it would easily accommodate our stroller so we continued on.

Then we were on to the Old North Church of Paul Revere “One if by land, two if by sea” fame. It is also the oldest church building in Boston, built in 1723. There is a lovely shaded park in front of the church that we hung out in for awhile, letting Kiddo run around. He enjoyed splashing in the fountain and then staring in wonder at the statue of Paul Revere.

We decided at this point to turn around and head back south on the Freedom Trail, but first we needed to refresh ourselves with a cannoli from Mike’s Pastry. Delicious!

Next we headed to the Old State House. The Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony in 1776. We enjoyed looking at the lion and unicorn statues on top. These two animals appear on the British Royal Arms. The lion represents England and the unicorn Scotland. We also looked at the monument on the pavement in front of the Old State House to the 5 people who were killed during the Boston Massacre.

We checked out the Old Corner Bookstore which is one of the oldest brick structures in Boston (1712). It is now a Chipotle!

Up next was the Old South Meeting House which is a church where those who planned the Boston Tea Party departed from.

We saw a monument to the Boston Latin school which was the oldest still operating school in America! It was started in 1635! It was no longer at this location, but we enjoyed the monument.

Next, we took a minute to get out of the hot Boston sun by stepping into King’s Church. We enjoyed looking at the enormous pews and reading about various people who had purchased each one.

We walked into the Granary Burial Ground in which many famous people are buried including 3 signers if the Declaration of Independence, Paul Revere, and relatives of Benjamin Franklin.

Finally we were to the Boston Common and the State House. Boston Common is the oldest public park in the US! It was created as a common space for grazing cattle and for people to meet. We mostly just took a little time to rest and do a failed jelfie.

At this point we had completed the majority of the Freedom Trail! Kiddo slept in our new reclining stroller from after we ate cannollis until we arrived at the Boston Common.

Boston Public Garden

Our next stop included a statue of the the ducks from the children’s book Make Way for Ducklings. Kiddo was awake now and ready to enjoy the time in the park. He is a big fan of ducks, though he was a tad scared of the statues. He liked watching the real ducks and seeing the big swan boats go by.

Commonwealth Mall to Copley Square

We next wanted to head to Copley Square where we knew there was a statue of the Turtle and Hare (thanks Hello, Boston book!) We walked through the beautiful Commonwealth Avenue Mall. It is 32 acres designed in the French Boulevard style and it is lovely, shaded, and has many statues lining it. We spent a little time in the sunny, crowded Copley Square checking out the statues before deciding to head back toward our lodging.

We’ve joined the race!

Harvard

We stopped at Harvard on our way back out to Belmont. We were a little tired at this point, so we just walked around Harvard Yard and read about some of the buildings. We laughed quite a bit when Kiddo said a huge “Wow!” right as we entered the quad. He doesn’t talk a lot yet, but something about Harvard clearly impressed him!

Boston College

On our second day in Boston, the weather was a tad dreary. We also had a few social activities planned – meeting up with the family of our hosts, and enjoying a lovely lunch with college friends! Our friends work at Boston College and Della’s father attended there, so we decided to do a walkabout on campus. We enjoyed the tour by our college friend and trying to take pictures of things that Della’s dad might remember from his days there. Kiddo napped in our reclining stroller while we enjoyed chatting with our friends!

JFK Library

We had a busy final day in Boston. We met up with different college friends for brunch and then rushed through the JFK Presidential Library before heading back to the airport. We started getting into Presidential Libraries in the last year and were excited to add another one to our growing list. We really wish we had more time as the library was well laid out in a creative way. Unfortunately, kiddo wasn’t really into being in his stroller at the time. We had hoped he would nap, but he never really was able to relax. Therefore, we missed out on most of the videos which would have really enhanced the experience.

Picture of JFK’s famous speech at our alma mater. “Why does Rice play Texas?”

Traveling with Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

As mentioned above, using children’s books (even board books) can be a good way to get kiddos excited about travel destinations. They can also be useful in helping you plan out good kid-friendly activities and sights for when you get there!

We’ve mentioned above and in other posts how the reclining stroller is a game changer.

We struggled with which car to rent when traveling with Kiddo. We ultimately booked a compact car which we may have been able to fit in. However, we got upgraded when we picked up to a full-size we think and it was probably much more comfortable. Also- driving in Boston is insane!! Not even just in downtown, but everywhere! The streets make NO sense and have no discernible pattern. We realized quickly that you need a full time navigator AND google maps step-by-step driving instructions to get anywhere.

There is a ton to do in Boston and, like many places we’ve visited, we wish we had more time to explore. We look forward to visiting again when Kiddo is older.

 

2 Week Itinerary: New England and Canada

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This was our first international trip with Kiddo! It was also the first trip we were to embark upon with him where we were not completely visiting friends/family or taking family with us. We were a bit nervous, but ultimately, it worked out really well!

At this point in time, Kiddo was still taking two naps per day – though to be fair, he mostly didn’t need them both. We were holding on to the 2nd nap because we liked it for ourselves! However, it did give us an outline for how we would plan this trip. Initially, we decided to fly to Boston because there was a direct flight on Southwest. (We currently hold a companion pass!) We knew we had a few friends scattered throughout New England that it would be fun to see. We also each had a few states up there that we had not been to. In addition, we saw that you could easily drive up to Canada, and in particular, to Prince Edward Island (PEI). We were excited that Kiddo could cross an international border and Della has been a fan of Anne of Green Gables so has always wanted to get to PEI. We decided to plan around those locations. We knew that Kiddo would nap in the car in the morning but then need something to interest and excite him in the afternoon before he would sleep in the car again in the afternoon. So, our goal was to never drive more than about 3 hours at a time and to always pick somewhere interesting to be in the middle of the day.

The 2 week itinerary was as follows:

Day 1: Arrive Boston
Day 2-3: Explore Boston
Day 4: Boston to Portland, Maine. We spent the middle of the day visiting a friend who we had experienced the Nepal Earthquake with us in Kennebunk, ME.
Day 5: Portland to St. Andrews, New Brunswick (Canada). We spent the middle of the day in Bangor, ME.
Day 6: St. Andrews to Summerside, PEI. We spent the middle of the day exploring Fundy National Park.
Day 7-8: PEI: one day exploring Charlottetown and one day exploring Cavendish
Day 9: PEI to Halifax, Nova Scotia. This was only a 3 hour drive.
Day 10: Halifax to Saint John, NB. We spent the middle of the day exploring Hopewell Rocks along the Bay of Fundy.
Day 11: Saint John to Northport, ME where we met a good friend of Della’s. We stopped for lunch in Machias, ME and then we explored Wild Blueberry Land near Columbia Falls, ME.
Day 12: Northport, ME
Day 13: Explored Acadia National Park
Day 14: Northport, ME to North Conway, New Hampshire. We stopped for lunch and a playground in Bridgeport.
Day 15: North Conway back to Boston via the scenic Kancamagus Highway.
Day 16: Boston with an evening flight home!

We really enjoyed the trip and our strategy of having Kiddo nap twice a day in the car worked almost flawlessly!

Spring Break Trip to Tennessee: Nashville

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As we mentioned in prior posts, we’ve had a recent addition to the family and we’ve learned a lot about how to travel with a baby! We are attempting to visit US states that we haven’t yet been to. So, for spring break we decided to do a bit of a Tennessee/Kentucky road trip. We were joined on this trip by Della’s parents Peggy and Wayne. We started out in Memphis and then drove to Mammoth Cave in KY and then headed back into Tennessee to check out Nashville!

While in Nashville, we stayed in an AirBnB in the West End. It was a private suite in someone’s home. We got their entire second floor and it was lovely to have three bedrooms, a sitting room, and a bathroom all to ourselves. They even had some toddler friendly toys!

What We Did

Bicentennial Park – It was a little cold, so we didn’t spend too long here though we thought it was quite lovely. We checked out some views of the capital and read some of the information spread throughout the park.

Country Music Hall of Fame – This was very crowded! We ended up standing in line for a little while. At the time we visited, there was a special exhibit about Emmylou Harris. We then spent quite awhile exploring the main exhibit which follows country music from its roots to the present day. We enjoyed another special exhibit on the outlaw country scene from Austin in the 70s. We thought the museum was fairly well organized but a little hard to follow. Audio guides might have helped but they were out, unfortunately. We had to take turns keeping Kiddo entertained as he wasn’t content to sit in his stroller. None of us are huge country music fans, but we found it interesting all the same. 

The outside is supposed to look piano keys.

Downtown Highlights – We spent the evening wandering the streets of downtown. We walked Broadway, Second Ave, and the riverfront. There were so many different bars that had live music going and we enjoyed walking by and listening in. Many had open windows to the street. This is another time where we might have enjoyed our time a little bit differently if we hadn’t been traveling with Kiddo. 

The Hermitage – Last year, we visited the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, AK. We hadn’t ever been to a presidential library and we thought it was really interesting. We decided we wanted to visit more throughout our travels! We have since visited LBJ in Austin and Bush in Dallas. So, we decided to stop by The Hermitage on our way to the airport.

The Hermitage is Andrew Jackson’s residence and functions as a museum and historic site. It has a lot of information about the life of Andrew Jackson and you can walk through the historic farm and home. There was an audio guide to bring you through the site which was quite good. In addition to the self-guided audio tour, they also do an in-person tour of the mansion. Unfortunately, there was a long line of people waiting for this part. We did want to see it though, so we waited in line.

Unfortunately, this is where the day got a little bit messy. Kiddo had not napped on the drive to the Hermitage as we had hoped so he was a little antsy and grumpy. Della was a little frustrated that she missed out on a pretty good introductory film and most of the museum area. Kiddo did enjoy trying to walk through the grounds, but wasn’t too interested in stopping to listen to the audio guide! It was also a chilly day, so the long wait outside the mansion was a little trying on all of us.  The worst part was when it was our turn, he melted down once he put in the carrier so Della stayed outside while the rest toured inside. Eric took over and got him to sleep with a lot of help from Peggy so that Della could still rush through the mansion. Due to our time constraint of getting to the airport on time for our flight, we only had time to go quickly through the gardens -and unfortunately missed most of the rest of the fields. We enjoyed the visit and would recommend it – though doing it with a baby who has missed nap time is not ideal. 

Where We Ate

Farmers Market House – this was an extensive food hall with all kinds of food! We each got something from a different stall: Eric got fried catfish, Della a burrito, Wayne Jamaican, and Peggy gyros. We all enjoyed our food. Kiddo enjoyed eating off all of our plates.

Edley’s – We had intended to go to the classic Hattie B’s Hot Chicken for dinner but it turned out it was closed on Sunday night – which is the night we were there of course. We still wanted to try hot chicken, so after a little research we ended up at Edley’s. The line was a bit long to order and several of the sides we wanted were already gone, but we did enjoy the food we did get. Della got Hot Chicken and while it was probably not the classic experience, it was still a good one. 

Vegetarian Indian Restaurant at the Woodlands – One evening, we met an old friend of Wayne and Peggy and he took us here. We were a little tired of BBQ at that point so this was a welcome change. We shared some appetizers, dosas, and curries. All of us enjoyed the meal, even Kiddo who was mostly content to hang out and chow down!

Traveling with Kiddo (lessons learned)

Kiddo was about 13 months old and about a week away from walking! It was hard to schedule days around appropriate nap times and we had only brought a small cheap umbrella stroller with us. He did not nap easily in it. We learned we had to buy a bulkier but reclining stroller which would have made things easier!

Bringing our hook-on high chair was great for several meals, both out at restaurants and in the Airbnb!

 

 

 

 

 

Spring Break Trip to Tennessee: Jaunt to Kentucky via Nashville

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As we mentioned in prior posts, we’ve had a recent addition to the family and we’ve learned a lot about how to travel with a baby! We are attempting to visit US states that we haven’t yet been to. So, for spring break we decided to do a bit of a Tennessee/Kentucky road trip. We were joined on this trip by Della’s parents Peggy and Wayne. We started out in Memphis and then drove to Mammoth Cave in KY with a short stop in Nashville on the way!

We drove 3 hours from Memphis to Nashville in the morning. Luckily, Kiddo napped most of the way. We had planned to stop at Belle Meade for a break, but unfortunately all the tickets were sold out when we got there. We went with our backup plan of visiting the Parthenon. It was really fun to see this full scale replica of the one in Athens. The replica was built for Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Exposition. It also includes a re-creation of the 42-foot Athena statue inside. Peggy took Kiddo to a playground across the way while the rest of us went inside. We really enjoyed the information about the Centennial Exposition, a special exhibit of interesting modern mosaics, the Athena statue, and Elgin marbles inside.

Good to know we can occasionally still get a jelfie…
Athena
Mosaic skull made from…
keyboard keys!

We continued on through bad traffic to our hotel in Cave City, KY stopping to eat at the White Squirrel Brewery in Bowling Green. Everything was decent, but not fantastic.

The following day we awoke early and headed to the main event: Mammoth Cave National Park! We had signed up in advance to participate in the Historic Tour. The tour group was quite large (over 100 people!) The historic tour goes through the areas of the cave that were first discovered and explored. There were not too many spectacular formations on this part of the tour because it is not actively exposed to water. We ultimately wished for more historic content by the guide on our tour so were slightly disappointed. Kiddo rode with Eric in the carrier. He ultimately seemed less than impressed! The most fun aspect was that there were a few parts where you really had to squeeze through narrow areas! Eric made it even with Kiddo on his front!

descending into the cave

Following the tour, we rushed through some exhibits in the visitor center. We wished we could have spent more time because there was a lot of good content. However, you’re probably noticing a pattern, Kiddo was not really feeling it.

We ate a quick lunch in the parking lot before getting back on the road to head back toward Nashville.

We were in Kentucky though – so we really thought we needed to try some bourbon! We stopped in Franklin to visit the Dueling Grounds distillery. It was a pleasant place with both inside and outside seating areas. We were able to request a tasting and tour when we got there and a very nice and knowledgeable worker took us through a tasting of their offerings: “the clear” which is not aged virtually at all, a 2 year bourbon, the Apple Pie which is clear mixed with spices, and then three fruit liqueurs.  We liked the all but particularly enjoyed the bourbon and the Apple Pie. The worker also gave us a tour of the distilling process in back which was very educational. Kiddo was being pretty antsy and fussy again so we had to take turns holding him and missing parts of the tour. 

We finally got back on the road to Nashville.

Traveling with Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

Kiddo was 13 months and about a week away from walking when we visited Mammoth Cave. We are big fans of baby carriers and they allow you to do a lot of things that a stroller wouldn’t including visiting Mammoth Cave.

Kiddos at this age are pretty squirmy… Thank goodness we had some extra adults to help out when we had to step out of touring situations.

Kiddo’s favorite activity at this age is almost always playgrounds!

 

Spring Break Trip to Tennessee: Memphis

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As we mentioned in prior posts, we’ve had a recent addition to the family and we’ve learned a lot about how to travel with a baby! We are attempting to visit US states that we haven’t yet been to. So, for spring break we decided to do a bit of a Tennessee/Kentucky road trip, starting in Memphis. We were joined on this trip by Della’s parents Peggy and Wayne.

Packing for a trip with a baby is more arduous than just packing for ourselves and we often end up having a lot more stuff! With this trip, because we weren’t meeting anyone we knew there, we brought a light umbrella stroller, an infant carseat, a hook-on highchair, and a pack n play. It was a short trip, so were able to pack all of our clothes in one large checked bag. It definitely helped having Peggy and Wayne there for carrying all the stuff though.

We followed all our tips for flying and the flight went smoothly! Kiddo slept for only about an hour, but enjoyed looking out the window for the rest of the time. We rented a car (it was cheaper at a location outside the airport so Eric and Wayne took a Lyft over to get it while Della, Peggy, and Kiddo played on the stairs in the airport). We were, it turns out, very lucky to get upgraded to a minivan for free. This ended up making us much more comfortable on all of our drives throughout the trip!

For accommodations, since there were four of us we thought it would be best to book a place through Airbnb. We were able to find a nice two-bedroom house about 10 minutes away from downtown. Having our own kitchen, dining area, and bedrooms separate from the living space were all helpful for making the stay with Kiddo easier.

What We Did

March of the Ducks at the Peabody Hotel – There is a fountain in the lobby of this hotel which features live ducks swimming around. This tradition began in the 1930s and continues to this day.  The story goes that, in 1940, a bellman who was a former circus animal trainer named Edward Pembroke taught them to march into the pool and out each day! The ducks live in the penthouse of the hotel and visitors can watch them make the march to and from the elevator at 11 am and 5 pm each day. It was incredibly crowded so we only go small glimpses of the the ducks, but it was still kind of fun! Kiddo is currently duck obsessed, so we think he liked it!

Kiddo pointing out the ducks!
ducks in the fountain

Explore Beale Street – We spent one evening soaking up the sights and sounds of this historic avenue. This is one time where having Kiddo join us did cramp our style a little. We didn’t eat at the restaurants because of the longer wait and didn’t really go inside any other music venues. But the general feel, murals, and statues were still fun.

National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel – We felt lucky that Wayne agreed to stay back at the Airbnb with Kiddo so the rest of us could really enjoy this museum. We found the museum, located at the site of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., very engrossing with moving exhibits and information about the Civil Rights movement.  The exhibitions were in good chronological order so for those of us who weren’t alive during the time period, it gave us a lot of good context and made us feel the emotions of the time. We found the whole experience quite powerful. 

Rosa Parks

Rock N Soul Museum – This museum takes you through the musical history of Memphis. It was done via guided audio tour which was pretty cool because there were many snippets of music to listen to. It was really neat to read a bit of history and then be able to listen to songs by the artists described. There was a tremendous amount of information and music and Kiddo was unfortunately getting pretty fussy so we didn’t get to do as much there as we would have liked. This was when we really wished we had made a better stroller choice (see tip 9.)

Pedestrian Bridge Over the Mississippi River – This bridge is apparently the longest pedestrian bridge in the country at almost a mile long! We didn’t go the whole way though. We took a very pleasant walk out to the approximate middle where there is a line to show that you’re crossing into Arkansas. This was a fun place to straddle the border of two states! Kiddo was just learning to walk with support and enjoyed his time on the bridge. It offers some good views of Memphis as well.

Longest pedestrian bridge!
Enjoying the view
Straddling the state line.

Dinner in Mississippi – We mentioned before that we are trying to capture US states that we haven’t been to. At the pedestrian bridge, we realized that we were only about a 15 minute drive from the border of Mississippi. Given we’d never been and weren’t entirely sure when we might be back, we decided to cross the border for dinner! We found a little place pretty close to the state line called Crawfish Haven where we shared jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, gumbo, and shrimp and grits. Then we headed back to Memphis after the sun went down!

Where We Ate

Rendezvous BBQ – This is a Memphis tradition. It is the birthplace of an entire style of BBQ: Memphis-style dry rubbed ribs. However, we ultimately weren’t too impressed. It was quite crowded and we had to wait for a table. This might not have been too bad because there’s a bar area upstairs with tables where you can drink while you wait, though Kiddo wasn’t really having it. We also found the food only OK. We actually found the brisket to be the most interesting!

Getting a little antsy…

Central BBQ – We actually picked up some BBQ to go from here and ate it back at our AirBnB. We enjoyed everything we got here!

Traveling with Kiddo (lessons learned)

Kiddo was about 13 months old and about a week away from walking! His biggest challenge at the beginning of this trip was sleep. For some reason, he went crazy the first several times we put him in the pack n play. If we were doing it again, we probably would have had him sleep in the pack n play several times in the days/nights leading up to the trip so he was more familiar with it.

Bringing our hook-on high chair was great for several meals, both out at restaurants and in the Airbnb!

 

 

Ten Tips for Traveling With a Baby

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We took our kiddo on his first flight about 3 months after he was born. We continued to travel several times throughout his first year. It was intimidating to figure out how to get back to traveling with a young baby, but here are some ideas that helped us get back on the road.

  1. When you’re deciding on where to travel – pick a place where you will visit family or friends. Extra hands for baby watching are always appreciated! In our experience, family and friends were more than happy to give us a few minutes break now and then to snuggle with our new addition. We were able to even do some traveling type things (go to a wedding baby-less, go on a couple hour segway tour, waterski in a lake, etc.) We have definitely come to a conclusion that the ideal adult-to-baby ratio is at least 3-to-1. 😉
  2. When you’re traveling by plane – less stuff means less stress! We were surprised on our first trips that, if you ask, you can find people at your destination that have many of the baby items you need. For example, on our first trip, which was to TX where Eric’s family lives, they were able to provide a carseat (already installed when they picked us up from the airport), a pack n play for sleeping, and a stroller for any walking we needed to do while there. We were lucky because Eric’s sister has a child and so many of these things were easy to find.  *Of course, we made sure that the carseat was not expired. We were able to do something similar on our second trip to Wisconsin where we also have family. Again, all of the essentials were provided for us! We were surprised because the youngest children out there were considerably older than our Kiddo, but they still had many of the items and were happy to let us borrow them. We took another trip to TX in the fall – no family support this time, but we’re of an age that many of our friends either have children or know others who have children. On this trip, we had to bring our own carseat and stroller, but our friends were able to get their hands on a pack n play for us to borrow.
    (Random note – we have now also been the random people who have a pack n play in our town for borrowing when friends’ friends come in to town!)
    Regardless, if you’re going somewhere where you know people, it never hurts to ask! (Many hotels and some airbnbs also can provide a crib/pack n play.)
    On that note, if you don’t need a stroller at your destination- don’t feel like you need it just for the airport! Carry baby in a carrier – it’s much less bulky and is attached to your body – one less thing to worry about!
    Carrying Kiddo through airport
    Borrowed carseat for the win!
  3. If you can’t go to a destination to visit friends or family, bring some with you! We started to explore new places when Kiddo was about 7 months old. We weren’t yet ready to face a long flight with a baby. (We realized too late that the easiest time to travel is when they are smallest and are in the eat, sleep, poop phase. By the time they are awake more and almost crawling, it felt like shorter travel times were better!) So, we decided to start hitting US destinations that we have never been. We each have a goal of visiting all the US states at some point, but neither of us are there yet. First on the list: Arkansas! Della had never visited and Eric had some wonderful childhood memories from there, so off we went. Hot Springs, AR is only a 4 hour drive from where Eric’s mom lives, so she drove up to join us (bringing a pack n play and carseat!!) This meant we had an extra pair of hands and less stuff to travel with. Again, baby carrier to the rescue – we didn’t even need a stroller.
    On another trip, we visited Tennessee, Kentucky, (and sort of Mississippi). This time, we brought Della’s parents along with us. We had to bring all the items, but because we had two extra adults flying with us, it wasn’t too bad!

    Grandma support while waiting for rental car!

  4. Schedule direct flights around nap times if possible. As your baby grows and *maybe* starts falling into a schedule, do your best to make sure they sleep on the plane. This is less stressful for everyone. We have literally chosen our destinations based on where we can fly direct (that’s affordable).
  5. Feed baby on take off and landing. Apparently the sucking motion helps with natural ear popping and can help keep baby calmer and in less pain while the plane goes up and down. We live by this rule, though luckily our Kiddo has not seemed to have trouble with the pressure changes. Della found breast feeding challenging and therefore breastfeeding in the confines of an airline seat almost impossible, so we always used a bottle (but many other women find breastfeeding on the plane easy). We start the bottle shortly after the plane starts taxiing. Kiddo normally falls asleep shortly afterwards. Luckily, for many of our trips, Kiddo slept all the way through and we didn’t actually have to feed on the way down. Note: You can take breastmilk, regular milk, formula, and even small amounts of water through security, but plan for them to pull it off and do an extra testing. It takes a bit longer, so make sure you get to airport early! In order to make it go most smoothly, pull out all food or liquid items that you have for baby and put them all together in one bin. In some cases, TSA officers have told us that they need to remove the lids from the milk and other times not. But, they always have do a separate test of all liquid items. This has always gone smoothly for us though it often does take extra time!
  6. Bring some toys! For the plane ride itself, if Kiddo does wake up, we have some favorite toys and books along for distraction. We also now carry a variety of snacks for Kiddo to feed himself if necessary (like Cheerios!) Also, if your destination doesn’t have any, you’ll be grateful for the small breaks they’ll provide you. We always pack in packing cubes and have started to take one medium sized cube full of his favorites when we travel.
  7. Bring a hook-on high chair! If you know you will only be eating at regular restaurants on your trip or that the family member or friend that you’re visiting has a highchair already, you can ignore this one. However, we’ve found that it is invaluable in airbnbs, hotels, at some fast casual restaurants, for picnic lunches, or if we’re visiting friends that don’t have highchairs (or need their own for their own kid!) We have 2 hook-on high chairs, one is called an Inglesina Table Chair. This works great for many restaurants, picnic tables, or counter tops. However, we prefer a very old one that we have (it was Della’s when she was a baby) that hooks on much more easily and also folds up much better. It looks more like this. However, we can’t find any new ones like it! It works much better for tables in peoples’ homes. (If a table has any kind of lip underneath, our other chair simply doesn’t work.)
  8. Use an old device for a white noise sound machine! Our Kiddo uses a sound machine at home to sleep. It is generally just a good cue for letting him know it’s time for sleep, but we don’t want to lug it with us! So, we’ve started to use Della’s old tablet which we occasionally bring for reading purposes anyway. It is so easy to download white noise apps and then play them all night. You could also use your phone – but we tend to want those even after baby is asleep!
  9. Invest in a travel stroller that has a reclining seat. This is something we have learned over time. Initially, when traveling to visit family, it was easy to set aside nap times or when baby was really small, he could sleep anywhere (like in a carrier). When we did our first real sightseeing trip when he was a bit older and had more FOMO it became more of a challenge. First, it became hard and annoying to plan our days around napping – impossible really. That first trip we had a very small umbrella stroller. Kiddo would not nap in it really at all. It was very small and light and therefore easy to travel with, but it ultimately was not the best option. For later trips, we got a bigger umbrella stroller. It doesn’t compact nearly as much, but it reclines and is more comfortable for Kiddo so he can easily fall asleep in it. This was a game changer for sightseeing trips because he can nap on the go!
    Too cool for naps… and too uncomfortable.
    Easy nap on the go
  10. Find the shortest travel time! You’ll notice that we have talked mostly about flying trips in this post. We found out early on that flying was easier for us than road-tripping even though our kiddo was pretty good in the car and tended to sleep well. The problem was when he woke up! Even if he slept for 3 hours, he was pretty grouchy when he got up and wanted out of the car. Driving anywhere typically takes longer! Of course, flying takes time too, but there is generally a little bit more flexibility. We would find areas in the airport with fewer people and let him crawl around while waiting for planes. He would typically sleep for a few hours on the plane and even if he woke up he wasn’t constrained as much and was able to interact with both of us for entertainment. Also – of course, when they are under two they can fly for free on your lap! We will likely change our mode of travel when he gets a bit older to be much more road trip oriented.

So, there you have it! Some ideas about how to get back to traveling with your new addition! Our travel style has definitely changed and we’re still getting used to that, but it definitely feels good to be back on the road!

We’re Back – But Something’s Changed!

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We’re back! It has been a long while! Those of you with eagle eyes may have noticed that we subtly announced something special in our Summer Trip to Iceland post quite awhile back. So, yes indeed, we had a baby.

Fear not – our travels have not stopped, but they have definitely changed. And unfortunately, posting about them fell a little bit by the wayside. However, we still want to keep a record of our journeys and share hopefully useful tidbits of information about traveling.

So, we are introducing a new traveler to our family and we have a lot to share about how to travel with a baby and now a toddler! Stay tuned for some upcoming posts about our *mostly* US domestic travels (so far) as a traveling family.

 

 

 

 

Gliding Through Green Bay… on a Segway!

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We were happy that we got to visit some family in Green Bay, WI during the summer. Della’s extended family live there, so we visit fairly often. However, we don’t always get to be tourists!

This trip, Della’s uncle and aunt decided that there was a new activity that we just had to try. We were going to see historic downtown Green Bay… via Segway!

We had never ridden Segways before, and to be honest, had been a little annoyed by them zipping around everywhere in Prague. At the same time, we were quite curious what it would be like.

We chose to do a Segway the Fox short tour which was a quick 50 minute intro to Segways and downtown. In retrospect, we do wish that we had more time with the Segways because that 50 minutes included introduction, practice, and then a very abbreviated tour. It would have been nice to have more time to play around on the Segways, and definitely fun to get a more in depth tour of old Green Bay.

We were impressed with the area! We hadn’t experienced downtown Green Bay before and we thought it was very cute. We enjoyed gliding around to the museum, over the river, and through some of the newly bustling streets. Downtown Green Bay seems to have had a lot of new development during the recent years, so it was even entertaining for Della’s family who live there!

Group shot at the museum
Group shot with the statue of Zachary Taylor, commander of Fort Howard for several years prior to being president
Learning how to correctly mount and dismount the segway
Excitement!
Our guide giving us some info

Other Things to Do in WI

We enjoyed a visit to the National Railroad Museum as well. It was a large complex with multiple interesting exhibits. It also houses several full historic trains which you can enter and explore. We had fun learning more about the Union Pacific Big Boy, which was the world’s largest steam locomotive.

The museum with full size trains to explore
Riding the narrated train
Eric became the engineer
The Big Boy

In addition to the exhibits, the museum offers a video about the history of the Big Boy, as well as a narrated train tour around the grounds.

We probably would have enjoyed looking at the museum in a little more depth, but this ended up being a slightly different kind of museum trip. Della’s cousins have some young children who joined us. It was refreshing to look at the museum through the eyes of kindergartners and to feel their excitement during the train ride and through exploring the full size display trains. However, it did change our normal museum pattern!  It was a fun way to spend an afternoon, with activities for adults and children!

We also took the weekend to visit Della’s relatives’ land “up north.” We visited the lovely lakes near St. Germain which is about a three hour drive northwest of Green Bay. We spent time biking through the area, enjoying the scenery, and swimming and water skiing the lakes.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip to a familiar state. We hope to explore Green Bay as tourists even more next time we’re there!