At this point I'm well used to not getting a chance to read the Sunday papers until Tuesday, and only get to skim them when I do...but today with Noodle home from school early, I got a chance to plop down on the couch with her and actually read while she half-watched My Little Pony.
And to my surprise and delight the Times travel section featured not the usual 1%er fantasy-journey pieces ("The Hamptons to Macchu Picchu, By Balloon and Sedan Chair") but an honest-to-goodness useful quick piece on getting around with kids in the city without causing a wallet hemorrhage.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
FOR YOU ROMANTICS
During our trip we noticed that the garden at the Notchland has grown in amazingly well. If it's just the two of you getting away for that weekend in New England...kick it, Barry...the missus and I can hugely, enormously recommend it. Heck, the innkeeper doubles as a justice of the peace...in a town with a population of 42 that kind of thing happens...and will marry you two crazy kids like he did me and the missus. If you're roadtripping, it's almost exactly halfway between Boston and Montreal.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
EIGHT DAYS THAT SHOOK - WELL, OUR BANK ACCOUNT
a/k/a the family vacation, from which we are now recovering - and in my own case we are literally recovering, because somewhere in the midst of repeated hoistings of Noodle and Beast into and out of cars, trains and theme-park rides, an occasional mild pain in my left wrist became a screaming needle of agony any time I picked up something heftier than the Sunday papers, and so I wait to see the doctor(s) while wearing a drugstore wrist brace that makes me feel like Earl Anthony. (Holy crow, that's a silly shirt Ernie Schlegel's wearing, even for 1981. I digress...)
New Hampshire is great for traveling with kids, and it'll get better once our little ones are more adept in the woods. The heavy rains kept us off the trails, but the mountains and waterfalls along 302 through Crawford Notch will keep the little ones plenty fascinated. And if you're sans kids or traveling with considerably older kids, right on 302 in the middle of the mountains in Hart's Location (population 40, tops) is the inn where Her Awesomeness and I got married, and it's a tremendously lovely and secluded place.
In New Hampshire there are still small-scale theme parks geared toward smaller children that are making a good go of it, from all appearances. We took in Santa's Village in Jefferson and Story Land in Glen, near our base in North Conway. Both will take up your full day quite nicely, and unlike more massive theme parks there's shade. From actual trees, even! Nothing like a 70-degree day in the mountains, even with drizzle, when you know your friends and co-workers back home are shvitzing through 85 and swampy.
The rain also washed out our planned trip to the beach, but the alternative was plenty good for kids: Boston. A great option is the Marriott in Cambridge across from MIT, which can be pricey as heck but often offers tremendous summertime deals, which we pounced on. The floor-to-ceiling windows could be a bit nervous-making at first, especially when Beast ran up to the window full-tilt before abruptly stopping. (Yeah, keep messing with mom and dad, kid.) With the T stop right across the street from the hotel, even at 22 bucks a day it's cheaper to leave the car in the garage for the duration. Get yourselves some CharlieCards from the MBTA and you're good to go. Most T stops have...get this, New York subway riders...actual working elevators! Amazing. Yes, some of them reek of urine, but still. It's a straight shot down the Red line to South Station, from which you can walk to the Children's Museum. The Red line also stops at Boston Common, and outbound it stops at Harvard in case you're doing college trips real early. Two train changes from the Red will get you to the New England Aquarium, and one will take you to Fenway Park.
Which my darling son mooned from the 12th-floor window. I'm so proud of him.
Photos and more info to follow...
New Hampshire is great for traveling with kids, and it'll get better once our little ones are more adept in the woods. The heavy rains kept us off the trails, but the mountains and waterfalls along 302 through Crawford Notch will keep the little ones plenty fascinated. And if you're sans kids or traveling with considerably older kids, right on 302 in the middle of the mountains in Hart's Location (population 40, tops) is the inn where Her Awesomeness and I got married, and it's a tremendously lovely and secluded place.
In New Hampshire there are still small-scale theme parks geared toward smaller children that are making a good go of it, from all appearances. We took in Santa's Village in Jefferson and Story Land in Glen, near our base in North Conway. Both will take up your full day quite nicely, and unlike more massive theme parks there's shade. From actual trees, even! Nothing like a 70-degree day in the mountains, even with drizzle, when you know your friends and co-workers back home are shvitzing through 85 and swampy.
The rain also washed out our planned trip to the beach, but the alternative was plenty good for kids: Boston. A great option is the Marriott in Cambridge across from MIT, which can be pricey as heck but often offers tremendous summertime deals, which we pounced on. The floor-to-ceiling windows could be a bit nervous-making at first, especially when Beast ran up to the window full-tilt before abruptly stopping. (Yeah, keep messing with mom and dad, kid.) With the T stop right across the street from the hotel, even at 22 bucks a day it's cheaper to leave the car in the garage for the duration. Get yourselves some CharlieCards from the MBTA and you're good to go. Most T stops have...get this, New York subway riders...actual working elevators! Amazing. Yes, some of them reek of urine, but still. It's a straight shot down the Red line to South Station, from which you can walk to the Children's Museum. The Red line also stops at Boston Common, and outbound it stops at Harvard in case you're doing college trips real early. Two train changes from the Red will get you to the New England Aquarium, and one will take you to Fenway Park.
Which my darling son mooned from the 12th-floor window. I'm so proud of him.
Photos and more info to follow...
Friday, June 27, 2008
STAGGERING TO 200 (POSTS, THAT IS)
Staggering to the end of the school year as well - and that's only with Noodle and the Ravenous Maw in nursery school. Once the K-12 years begin, oy. On top of it, coming up we've got an overnight weekend trip to Woonsocket (from the ancient Wampanoag term for "place to plug in your woon") for the great-grandfather's 90th birthday celebration. Noodle is named after his late wife, which is what we like to think has helped keep him chugging along. The guy's got more hair on top of his head than I do, and can still pull off the white sport coat / yellow shirt / plaid pants look. Chicks dig him.
So we drag out the air mattress for our son, and amazingly the cheap Chinese electric pump, she no work. He's still a little small for sleeping on the big bed with me, so it's either lots of laboring over the foot pump on a hot summer's evening after a six-hour drive or a trip to the sporting-goods purveyors today for another pump.
Yeah, that's what I thought too.
So we drag out the air mattress for our son, and amazingly the cheap Chinese electric pump, she no work. He's still a little small for sleeping on the big bed with me, so it's either lots of laboring over the foot pump on a hot summer's evening after a six-hour drive or a trip to the sporting-goods purveyors today for another pump.
Yeah, that's what I thought too.
Monday, March 10, 2008
SPRING FORWARD, FALL FLAT ON FACE
Not for a moment do I envy anybody with an infant this time of year. All that work to get the li'l critter on a schedule and WHOMP, you lose an hour. Here's a trick that worked well for us yesterday. Two words:
Road trip.
Since your kid's schedule is screwed anyway, might as well accept the inevitable and make something of the day, thus:
An hour or so after breakfast, pile the kids into the car and head for a destination that's about a nap's length away. They'll have their zonk-out in the mid-to-late morning, wake up in time for lunch, have a bit of fun, not nap in the afternoon, and with any luck they'll be sleepy an hour early.
It has to be better than trying to noodge the kids' schedules by 15 minutes every week for a month, twice a year.
Bonus: if you take the kids to a museum or a zoo and spring for a membership, the two trips a year generally pay for themselves and then some, plus you get a tax deduction.
Road trip.
Since your kid's schedule is screwed anyway, might as well accept the inevitable and make something of the day, thus:
An hour or so after breakfast, pile the kids into the car and head for a destination that's about a nap's length away. They'll have their zonk-out in the mid-to-late morning, wake up in time for lunch, have a bit of fun, not nap in the afternoon, and with any luck they'll be sleepy an hour early.
It has to be better than trying to noodge the kids' schedules by 15 minutes every week for a month, twice a year.
Bonus: if you take the kids to a museum or a zoo and spring for a membership, the two trips a year generally pay for themselves and then some, plus you get a tax deduction.
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