Thursday
Kids, Cars and Clams
So we survived. Epic traffic jams, sold out events and rain. Two hyperactive little boys in one small hotel room and even a blackout. We actually had, on balance, a fine time up in Mystic. It really is the quintessentially all-American-summer-car-trip destination.
We started out with a little bit of dinosaur action at Dinosaur State Park, where they have a small but entertaining museum built over a large set of Dinosaur tracks. Of course it rained on us, but no matter, the family went on the accompanying nature walk with barely a whine. Well, with rather a lot of whining really, but I’m just concentrating on the positives today. I’d say the folks and kids agree: it was an average 3 out of 5 on the family fun scale.
We then moved along to Mystic itself and had a fab seaside lunch at, go figure, the Sea View Snack Bar. Fried clams, extra tartar sauce and root beer, all with a great view of the harbor and about twenty or thirty youngsters learning to sail in the afternoon breeze. Its was the kind of scene that sort of sneaks up on you and reminds you out of the blue just how damn lucky we are to be Americans living in the twenty first century. Really almost enough to make you wonder what everybody in the world is so pissed at us about. Almost. But anyway, it was time to amuse the kids, so off to the hotel we went for mandatory jumping on beds and pool time.
The next day greeted us with a shining sun and a chance to visit the Mystic aquarium. It turned out that the "penguin contact" floating-around-and-touching-penguin-thing was already sold out, but I figured it was just as well since they look kind of like big Central Park pigeons to me anyway. The aquarium itself is really top notch, though. They have a great big outdoor Plexiglas-sided pool with beluga whales, and lots of indoor tanks with appropriately creepy whatevers swimming around. They have all the requisite sharks, sea lions and jellyfish, and, best of all, unlike Coney Island’s, this aquarium is a clean and pleasant place to be. In fact, when it came time to hide from the sun and have some lunch, there’s even a quiet, shaded café with quick service, decent food and reasonable prices. Oh, and the behind the scenes private tour is very cool. All in all, I’d say it gets an enthusiastic 4.5 out of 5.
Now of course because things were going so well, I decided that we would have to close out the day with an activity that I wanted to do but was sure to make the little ones wriggle with despair. So off we went to see the Nautilus.
"But you see, it’s not just a submarine, but the world’s first nuclear powered submarine." I said in a well-practiced enthusiastic tone.
"Awwww…" came the inevitable reply. "We’re exhausted!"
"Yes," I said, "Do you know why you’re exhausted?" I knew not to wait for a reply. "Because both of you were up last night fighting about beds and pillows until eleven o’clock." At this point I’m completely familiar with that blank look of total incomprehension in the back seat. "Good. So now we’re going to go see a big, impressive submarine."
Well sort of. If you’ve ever been in a submarine, you know that they’re small inside. Tiny really, and the Nautilus is no different, especially because they don’t even let you see most of it. In the end, the attached museum is more interesting, if only because you can look through some real periscopes. I’d say a 3 out of 5 for me and barely a 2 of 5 for the kids.
After that, we made it back to the room just in time for the lights to go out.
"Cool." said the boys.
"Yeah, great." said the folks. But, it turned out that, dinnerwise, Abbots still had both power and lobsters to offer us, so off we went. After a great deal of direction asking and spousal tension we finally arrived at the well secluded Abbots, only to find that of course everyone else in the state had already decided to go there and enjoy the power and lobsters. So off we went. Again.
As unlikely as it may seem, we did eventually find dinner, the world kept turning, and a bright, sunny new morning invited us to visit Nature’s Art. Nature’s Art is a place that is an amazing synthesis of kid activities, museum and bastion of capitalism. In fact it was sort of refreshing that they had given up any pretense that the whole enterprise was anything else than a finely tuned machine designed to relieve parents of their money. Their roadside marquee reads, I kid you not, "An Interactive Science, Nature and Shopping Experience".
Well, the kids of course were in heaven. They can dig for fossils. They can pan for gold in an indoor stream. They can dig for gems with lighted miner’s helmets. There’s a real paleontologist who will talk to you about anything you want to know. The kids can pick their own whole geodes of any size and have them cut open on the spot to reveal what’s inside. So, in other words, the place really is a lot of fun, which only exposes me for the curmudgeon that I am. Parent rating: 4 out of 5, kid rating: an enthusiastic 5 of 5.
There was of course mini golf played on this trip also, but Lord knows there isn’t a single interesting thing to say about that… suffice to say that we finished up the trip with a stop in New London to see Fort Trumbull. It’s pretty much what one would expect: newly refurbished visitor’s center, big granite fort, big iron cannons, big flag. Re-enactors in period costume firing muskets and such. All in all, a pleasantly mild way to spend an hour or two. Kids and parents agree: 3 out of 5.
So here’s my favorite part of the trip though: we’re siting stopped in traffic on I-95 going back south. God does 95 suck. If you’re from California, just imagine sitting on the 405. But anyway, I couldn’t for the life of me remember if I-84 meets 95 as an escape route, so I hopped off at exit 65 to look for a map. While there, it occurred to me that the Merritt Parkway couldn’t be that far, and sure enough, after fifteen minutes of wiggling our way northwest we found ourselves on the Merrit, speeding home at a satisfying 75 mph.
I was very proud of my self indeed, and despite getting my Lovely Bride’s "Um, yeah sure, you’re a real hero" look, I decided that I was suddenly ready to do the whole thing over again. And in fact we are. It seems that next week we’re going to the Land of Make Believe somewhere in New Jersey. Now I just know to bring a map.
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So we survived. Epic traffic jams, sold out events and rain. Two hyperactive little boys in one small hotel room and even a blackout. We actually had, on balance, a fine time up in Mystic. It really is the quintessentially all-American-summer-car-trip destination.
We started out with a little bit of dinosaur action at Dinosaur State Park, where they have a small but entertaining museum built over a large set of Dinosaur tracks. Of course it rained on us, but no matter, the family went on the accompanying nature walk with barely a whine. Well, with rather a lot of whining really, but I’m just concentrating on the positives today. I’d say the folks and kids agree: it was an average 3 out of 5 on the family fun scale.
We then moved along to Mystic itself and had a fab seaside lunch at, go figure, the Sea View Snack Bar. Fried clams, extra tartar sauce and root beer, all with a great view of the harbor and about twenty or thirty youngsters learning to sail in the afternoon breeze. Its was the kind of scene that sort of sneaks up on you and reminds you out of the blue just how damn lucky we are to be Americans living in the twenty first century. Really almost enough to make you wonder what everybody in the world is so pissed at us about. Almost. But anyway, it was time to amuse the kids, so off to the hotel we went for mandatory jumping on beds and pool time.
The next day greeted us with a shining sun and a chance to visit the Mystic aquarium. It turned out that the "penguin contact" floating-around-and-touching-penguin-thing was already sold out, but I figured it was just as well since they look kind of like big Central Park pigeons to me anyway. The aquarium itself is really top notch, though. They have a great big outdoor Plexiglas-sided pool with beluga whales, and lots of indoor tanks with appropriately creepy whatevers swimming around. They have all the requisite sharks, sea lions and jellyfish, and, best of all, unlike Coney Island’s, this aquarium is a clean and pleasant place to be. In fact, when it came time to hide from the sun and have some lunch, there’s even a quiet, shaded café with quick service, decent food and reasonable prices. Oh, and the behind the scenes private tour is very cool. All in all, I’d say it gets an enthusiastic 4.5 out of 5.
Now of course because things were going so well, I decided that we would have to close out the day with an activity that I wanted to do but was sure to make the little ones wriggle with despair. So off we went to see the Nautilus.
"But you see, it’s not just a submarine, but the world’s first nuclear powered submarine." I said in a well-practiced enthusiastic tone.
"Awwww…" came the inevitable reply. "We’re exhausted!"
"Yes," I said, "Do you know why you’re exhausted?" I knew not to wait for a reply. "Because both of you were up last night fighting about beds and pillows until eleven o’clock." At this point I’m completely familiar with that blank look of total incomprehension in the back seat. "Good. So now we’re going to go see a big, impressive submarine."
Well sort of. If you’ve ever been in a submarine, you know that they’re small inside. Tiny really, and the Nautilus is no different, especially because they don’t even let you see most of it. In the end, the attached museum is more interesting, if only because you can look through some real periscopes. I’d say a 3 out of 5 for me and barely a 2 of 5 for the kids.
After that, we made it back to the room just in time for the lights to go out.
"Cool." said the boys.
"Yeah, great." said the folks. But, it turned out that, dinnerwise, Abbots still had both power and lobsters to offer us, so off we went. After a great deal of direction asking and spousal tension we finally arrived at the well secluded Abbots, only to find that of course everyone else in the state had already decided to go there and enjoy the power and lobsters. So off we went. Again.
As unlikely as it may seem, we did eventually find dinner, the world kept turning, and a bright, sunny new morning invited us to visit Nature’s Art. Nature’s Art is a place that is an amazing synthesis of kid activities, museum and bastion of capitalism. In fact it was sort of refreshing that they had given up any pretense that the whole enterprise was anything else than a finely tuned machine designed to relieve parents of their money. Their roadside marquee reads, I kid you not, "An Interactive Science, Nature and Shopping Experience".
Well, the kids of course were in heaven. They can dig for fossils. They can pan for gold in an indoor stream. They can dig for gems with lighted miner’s helmets. There’s a real paleontologist who will talk to you about anything you want to know. The kids can pick their own whole geodes of any size and have them cut open on the spot to reveal what’s inside. So, in other words, the place really is a lot of fun, which only exposes me for the curmudgeon that I am. Parent rating: 4 out of 5, kid rating: an enthusiastic 5 of 5.
There was of course mini golf played on this trip also, but Lord knows there isn’t a single interesting thing to say about that… suffice to say that we finished up the trip with a stop in New London to see Fort Trumbull. It’s pretty much what one would expect: newly refurbished visitor’s center, big granite fort, big iron cannons, big flag. Re-enactors in period costume firing muskets and such. All in all, a pleasantly mild way to spend an hour or two. Kids and parents agree: 3 out of 5.
So here’s my favorite part of the trip though: we’re siting stopped in traffic on I-95 going back south. God does 95 suck. If you’re from California, just imagine sitting on the 405. But anyway, I couldn’t for the life of me remember if I-84 meets 95 as an escape route, so I hopped off at exit 65 to look for a map. While there, it occurred to me that the Merritt Parkway couldn’t be that far, and sure enough, after fifteen minutes of wiggling our way northwest we found ourselves on the Merrit, speeding home at a satisfying 75 mph.
I was very proud of my self indeed, and despite getting my Lovely Bride’s "Um, yeah sure, you’re a real hero" look, I decided that I was suddenly ready to do the whole thing over again. And in fact we are. It seems that next week we’re going to the Land of Make Believe somewhere in New Jersey. Now I just know to bring a map.
