White Mountains in the Summer

 We’ve been coming up to the White Mountains for many years (see my old posts here for evidence!) , but this year was special because we got to stay in our newly owned condo in North Conway!  My husband, son, dog, and myself all drove up from Boston during the last week of August to experience summer in the mountains.  It was a great trip!  In addition to regular visits to the Met for coffee, some highlights of the trip include:

 Cranmore Adventure Park 

Until this visit, I had never been to Cranmore in the summer, so I had no idea about the fun times to be had at their adventure park.  There were no lines at all since we were there mid-week.  The mountain coaster was so much fun!  We must have rode that at least 20 times.  My son also loved the giant swing and the soaring eagle zip line.  He didn’t love the bouncy houses, but we all enjoyed tubing through the water sprinklers!  Later that day, we hung out on the patio listening to live music and enjoying some beverages from Tuckerman Brewing. 

 

Saco River Tubing

We had a blast tubing down the Saco river!  We arrived at the tubing center and parked our car in the lot.  At the center, we all grabbed our life jackets and the employees threw our tubes into a truck.  We opted to upgrade our tubes to have a solid bottom.  This was a good decision since a lot of spots on the river are pretty shallow.   We sat in a shuttle and were taken to a drop off point 1 mile up the road.  We picked the 1 Mile Float, which lasted about 2 hours.  Along the way, there was a rope swing and plenty of opportunities for entertainment watching the other tubers.  We had a great weather day and the river was very calm.  We will definitely do this again!

 

Riding the Conway Scenic Railroad

And just for kicks, I will include a lowlight as well… 

Conway Scenic Railroad

This was a miss for us.  If you have a preschooler who loves trains, definitely check it out, but if not, go ahead and pass on this experience.  I signed us up for the 1 hour Conway Valley Train leaving from the very cute North Conway train station.  Per the website, “Conway Scenic Railroad’s Valley excursions to Conway allow you to experience the thrill of Golden Age of American railroad travel when trains connected towns and cities. Choose to ride in one of our variety of vintage rail cars and take a relaxing train journey back in time.”  It took us through town and to be honest, we didn’t see much of anything.  My son complained the whole time and my husband fell asleep.  I can’t imagine doing any of the longer trips unless you were stopping to hike along the way. 

Catching Pokémon in NYC

 I’ve been lucky enough to visit NYC multiple times in my life, but until last year, I never thought my primary reason for travel would be to catch Pokémon.  My son was 6 last year and very into Pokémon.  He loved to collect cards, action figures, and play Pokémon Go on his iPad.  I re-activated my account from 2006 and started to play with him – that is when we learned about the Pokémon Go festival in NYC.  We had such a blast last year that we wanted to go again this year, and so, I started to make plans for a 2-day trip on our drive back from Pennsylvania. 

This year, we took the commuter train from where we parked in Secaucus, New Jersey to Penn Station.  We stopped by our Doubletree hotel in  Rockefeller Center to drop off our bags and then went back on a train out to the festival in Randall Island.   We learned some lessons last year and really maximized our time to complete the challenges while we were there (do NOT walk over that bridge!).  Unfortunately, the heat kept us from walking around too much and checking out the different tents.   It was a very hot weekend, nearly 90 degrees both days!  We were done with being outside by 6pm and road back toward Times Square to get a quick dinner before seeing the Lion King that night at 8pm.  We tried Raising Canes for the first time, and while I wasn’t blown away, it was good enough, and got us to the show on time.  After the theater let out, my son looked up and said, isn’t it night-time?  Why is it still bright out?  😊  New York is the city that never sleeps!  

Empire State Building

We walked around Times Square a bit and made a pit stop in the M&M store before going back to the hotel for bed.  The next morning, we had tickets to go up to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building at 10 AM.   There were not too many people there and I don’t think we really needed the VIP passes at that time, but it might have saved us 15 minutes or so.  It was fun to see the King Kong animation in the window and watch the movie play inside of the elevator on the way up.  Unfortunately, we had to leave after that to drive back to Boston.  

 

NYC is a great place for a family trip.  I have a strong feeling we will be back again next year.

Nashville Family Weekend

 The musical prodigy has returned to the motherland… wait, that most definitely did not happen.   Try again. 

Andrew Jackson's Hermitage House

I finally made it back to Nashville after 11 years!  Eeek!  I definitely had to go back and check the date on my last blog because 11 years is looking a little foggy by now.  This time around was a bit different as I had my 7 year-old son in tow.  As long as he has snacks and his iPad, he doesn’t complain too much when I bring him on adventures these days, and thankfully, this trip was no different.  After our last plane ride back from Italy, he was actually disappointed to hear that we would only be flying for 2 hours down to Tennessee.  We got on an absurdly early flight (thanks to my husband) and made it into Nashville by 7:30 AM.  After grabbing an Uber from the airport to the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center we spent the next few hours checking out the resort.  It was just as gorgeous as I remembered from my last trip and now has a very cool indoor/outdoor waterpark.  We grabbed a quick breakfast and coffee from the Delta Marketplace and Logan and I took an enjoyable short indoor boat ride around the Delta atrium.  Our guide pointed out different plants along the way.   It was a fun way to kill some time, but surprisingly pricey for such a short ride.  Our room was ready by around 10:30 AM.  We had a very nice balcony overlooking one of the atriums in the Cascades part of the hotel, near the lobby.  

Delta Riverboat Dock at Opryland

After a little nap, we grabbed the free shuttle from the Cascades Canopy to Opry Mills mall.  The shuttle runs every 30 minutes and the mall is very new.  It has a lot of fun “experiences” and restaurants, like the Aquarium Restaurant, Madam Tussads, Escape Game, Dave and Busters, Regal Movie Theater, etc.  It would be a great (albeit expensive) place to spend a rainy day with kids!  After walking around a bit, we decided to grab dinner from Mission BBQ.  The jalapeno and cheddar sausage is a clear winner!  I also had the pulled chicken with the Smokey BBQ sauce. 

View inside Sound Waves at Opryland

The next morning, we ate breakfast from the grab-and-go café near the lobby before proceeding to SoundWaves Waterpark.  We purchased our tickets well in advance since it is often sold out.  Logan had a blast!  He loves swimming and was really entertained by the not-lazy river, with small rapids that move you along through caves in a rapid manner, dodging obstacles along the way.  We spent HOURS in there.  After I finally convinced him to take a break, we switched to the multiple water slides before checking out the wave pool.  Unfortunately, our visit coincided with a giant swarm of Cicadas taking over Nashville.  They were everywhere and we didn’t stay outside for too long before coming back inside and back to the river.  Later that evening, we went back to Opry Mills to watch a movie and play some games and Dave & Busters.

Wagon Tour at the Hermitage House

We enjoyed room service for breakfast on Saturday morning before setting out for our educational portion of the trip.  An Uber took us 20 minutes from Opryland to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage House.  I did come here on my trip last time and enjoyed it very much.  (Sad news… they no longer have the belted Galloway cows on the property)  Logan is just starting to learn about the Presidents of the United States at school, so I thought it would be a nice tie-in to his learnings.  Did I mention the swarm of Cicadas everywhere?  Yea… they were here too.  We started off with a wagon tour around the property to learn about slave life on the plantation.  Unfortunately, I don’t think either of us was paying much attention between the masses of bugs flying at us from all angles.  We did laugh a lot!  After our wagon tour and obligatory shaved ice, we toured the mansion.  This was a nice and short 20 minute tour around Andrew Jackson’s home.  We ended our morning we a stop for souvenirs and a snack at the café, including some “hard” sweet tea.  After returning back to the hotel, we got our swim gear back on and enjoyed the hotel pools and some pizza for dinner.

I purposely did not bring Logan downtown on this trip.  He doesn’t know too much country music and would not enjoy long walks in the heat or endless hours in a bar.  With that said, we did have a fun little getaway and still have lots to do on our next visit to Nashville!

2020 Didn’t Happen…

Let’s just pretend that post didn’t happen.  In fact, let’s skip the whole year and try again 4 years later. 

Any objections, speak now…