The School of Hard Knocks Meets Ivy League: Connecticut to Pennsylvania

  It took me a while to get settled and post about our last few weeks on the road. We have been back home in KY for a couple of weeks now. If we had stuck to our original plan we would just be getting home this week. We had a few crazy mishaps along the way. I broke off the awning trying to pull it out. A crazy gust of wind blew it up over the top of TMSB and snapped both side poles. Complete loss. We just cut it off and threw it away. We are learning about rv life as we go. When we started, we didn't realize that freezing temps can damage your rig. (Busted sewer tank, anyone?) So we decided to cut the trip short as temps began to fall to protect our investment and the rest of the trip. We also have a few very expensive repairs we need to make before our next trip. (Stuff we knew was broken before we left.) So we may just stay parked for winter, depending on if we feel like coughing up a several thousand more dollars between now and spring. I did, however, fix my hot water heater all by myself. I replaced the thermostat with a little advice from a friend and You Tube. So that evens things out right?

      We left New Hampshire November 1.  It was a little sad, as we had made friends and felt very safe and comfortable at Saddleback Campground in Northwood. Nancy and Les, the owners, treated us like family, fussing over us and making sure we had everything we needed.  I fell in love with the beautiful scenery and warm people.  We will remember it forever.
     We arrived in Connecticut pretty uneventfully. We had originally planned on boon docking in a Wal-Mart parking lot that weekend, then heading to PA, but our generator was broken, and it was too cold. For those not familiar with rv lingo, boon docking is parking overnight for free. Many Wal-Marts allow rvers to do this, as do some rest stops. You are not "plugged in," so no running water or electricity. In the summer, that is okay for a night or two. When it's 30 degrees, not so much. We were scrambling at the last minute trying to find an rv park still open, so we wouldn't freeze. I found a place, but we would have to park in one spot on Saturday, then move to an overflow spot on Sunday. Beats freezing, so we took it. We were tired from breaking down and driving and setting back up in the rain, and the park was kind of depressing after our beautiful spot on the pond in NH. It was basically a big asphalt circle, with rvs nearly touching each other, and in the rain, it was a big dirty puddle. We were grateful to have heat though--so we closed all the blinds and relaxed with Redbox. The next day we switched spots, which wasn't that big of a deal, because we had to leave to go get propane anyway. The tank is attached to rv, so you can't just run the tank over to a filling station. Because it had been cold and pouring rain the whole stay, we hadn't investigated our next spot (the "overflow" spot.) It was a few inches wider than TMSB with a shed on one side and a trailer bed on the other. Plus there was another rv parked at an angle so I couldn't just pull straight in. People. We were a sight. Jacob, my 16-year-old son--barely driving himself--was trying to ground-guide me into this crazy spot. The owner looked a little disturbed when he came to collect payment the day before and realized I was traveling alone--and, um, driving alone. He must have been nervously awaiting our switch and came tearing through the parking lot offering assistance. (Smile) He did the ground guiding, and I nailed it, first time. There was about 2-3 inches of space on either side of my rig. Boom. Take that, Haters.
     Yale University was only about 15 minutes away, so we drove up on Sunday to check it out. It was amazing, every last gold-foiled, intricately ornate architectural detail. I'm now convinced I should have gone to an Ivy League school and become--I don't know--rich and famous. Just kidding. Sort of. I was swooning the whole time.

     We especially enjoyed the beautiful Sterling Memorial Library. The work that went into this building--I can't even imagine. I don't think I could actually study here; I'd be gawking the whole time. Not sure I could ever get used to it.

     The Yale University Art Gallery was our favorite. It is free to the public, and has a huge collection of paintings, sculptures, furniture, jewelry, coins, photographs, cartoons--all kinds of fascinating stuff from just about every time period and culture. Gabby has taken an interest in art the past year, and I was excited that she was excited and interested. I was proud that she picked up on a few examples of pointillism that we had studied previously in art and have plans to add this follow up activity to our curriculum in the next few weeks.

These are tiny hand-paintings!

Very cool viewing the John Trumbull American Revolution collection after doing the Boston Freedom Trail

Andy Warhol, Eggs

Roy Lichtenstein, Blam

     The students we met were friendly and fun, and the Yale University Dueling Association even let us play foam sword fights with them. We dueled with the brightest young minds in the country, y'all, Be jealous.

   Monday we left for Pennsylvania. The trip took longer than we expected. I have an app that tells us where low bridge crossings are so we can avoid them, but 20 minutes from our destination, our GPS took us to a bridge that we were too heavy to cross. No rv's allowed. No problem. We'll just turn around and go back to the highway and find an alternate route, right? Wrong. We were towing our car behind us. You can't back up using this kind of tow bar. It will snap. It was a little mountain road, and there was no where to turn around, so my worst rv nightmare occurred. I was stuck and had to disconnect the car, turn TMSB around, and reconnect the car. Thank God there was no traffic. The workers at the bridge tried to be helpful, and gave us directions. After the bridge debacle, these guys sent us on a tiny one lane road with a mountain on one side, a cliff and river on the other, and a tiny wisp of a guardrail. Thankfully, it was only 5-6 miles. We arrived, white knuckled, but none the worse for wear. Our new parking place was lovely and quiet. We had big plans for the Mid-Atlantic region, some of which, we accomplished.  Some of it got axed, but I'll leave all those juicy details for next post. 
    

Massachusetts: Waterfronts, Witch Hunts, and Political Stunts

People in the Boston/Salem area really like to honk their horns and flip people off. Pretty sure a cop gave me the bird at one of those terrible "round abouts" New England is so found of. At first I thought it was me, but after I parked and got out of my car, I realized people were still honking. A lot. When Eden asked me why people "stick their finger up to you," I said it means, "Have a nice trip." Let me apologize now if one of my kids gives you the bird; just smile and say, "You too!" They mean it in the nicest way possible. ;-)

Salem was actually a spontaneous, piggyback trip on the way back from Rhode Island. We passed the sign and saw how close it was and thought it would be interesting to visit the site of the Salem Witch Trials. It was already late when we got there; the museum was closed. We decided to go to the Salem Witch Trial Memorial. Being October, there was a lot going on in Salem: Candlelight guided tours to the memorial and adjacent cemetery, where many of the accused witches are buried, a carnival, and typical Halloween shenanigans. We aren't Halloween haters. My kids enjoy trick or treating as much as the next guy.

 But I wanted to focus on the somber side of the Salem Witch Trials tragedy. We read the names on the memorial benches, when and how they were executed. I tried to talk to the littles as gently as possible about fear mongering and false accusations. We talked about what people mean now when they say "witch hunt." I hope it left an impression. I would have loved to find some good books on the subject--even some historical fiction, but we do not have a library card in our temporary NH home, so we are limited to kindle and what we can get digitally from our library in KY. We did watch a history channel documentary on line; although, some of it was pretty intense for younger children, and we had to fast forward through some spots.

Sorry for the terrible quality of these. It was very dark.

We knew we wanted to come back to see Boston. The Freedom Trail seemed like the perfect way to do it.

We parked in Charlestown and paid $5 for the whole day. There is a subway station right across the street. You can ride to the Visitor's Center in Boston Common to start the tour there. It's $2.65/adult one way; kids 11 and under are free. It's only about a mile from Charlestown to the Bunker Hill Monument, which is traditionally the end of the tour, but the order isn't that important as long as you see all 16 sites, so we decided to do it backwards and just walk the extra mile to the monument, then take the train back to our car when we got to Boston Common. The trail is about 2.6 miles, plus the added mile from where we parked. (There is closer parking, but there was an event, and it was even more crowded and expensive than usual, $30 for 4 hours.) I do wish I had borrowed a stroller. It was a little too much for 3-year-old Eden, and we wound up carrying her a lot, and Boston is hilly. You can do the Freedom Trail a few different ways. There are actual guided tours where you buy a ticket and someone walks you through all the sites, giving the history behind each one. I had little kids who would have a hard time keeping up with a group, and my brood is kind of loud. I felt like that would just be a waste of our time and tick other people off, so I downloaded an app (there are several, some free) that guided us through the tour via GPS and gave us all the background info on each site as well. The trail is clearly marked by a red brick line on the streets and sidewalks, so we never got lost. We were able to take our time and enjoy each site at our leisure. Among our favorites was the Old North Church, where Paul Revere hung his lanterns. We were surprised to see private pew boxes that would seat 6-10 people. They are enclosed on all four sides. Prayer closet? Not sure what purpose they served.

Also the pulpit was amazing.

The Bunker Hill Monument (We climbed all 298 stairs to the top.),

View from the top

Colonel William Presott

The Old South Meeting House

The cemeteries. We saw Paul Revere's grave, Cotton and Increase Mather, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and many others.

Most colonial graves are decorated with a skull with wings. The cherub is unusual. It is referred to as a soul effigy.

Other notable stuff included the statues along the trail--Paul Revere on his horse was our fav, a key-tar playing bear, the skyline as dark fell,

and the subway ride back, a first for all of us. If you've never done it, let me say that just figuring out what train to take and when to get off was an accomplishment. Public transportation is not for sissies, y'all. It's complicated. I wanted to cry looking at the map trying to figure out what color line I needed to take, but we did it, and we made it safely back to our car, by the grace of God. One of my favorite trips so far.

We followed up the next day at the library with a rereading of Paul Revere's Ride, and some books on colonial life and the Revolutionary War, all of which was suddenly way more interesting. ;-)

Be looking for Connecticut's post this weekend. Two more days in beautiful NH.

Rhode Island

     It was about three hours from our home base in NH to Rhode Island. The drive was made even longer by dark clouds, rain, and melancholy moods. We had just heard terrible news that some friends of ours had lost their son while he was serving our country.
     We arrived at Easton Beach in Newport around one. Even though it was cold and rainy, the ocean view didn't disappoint; in fact, I think winter on the East Coast has a special beauty all its own. There's something fierce about it: Angry waves crashing against the rocks and cliffs, the wind and cold. It seems so scary and uncontrollable. Dangerous. I thought of the song, Master the Tempest is Raging.

"The wind and the waves obey Thy will. Peace be still. Peace be still."

 Surely the God who can calm the sea can comfort our friends' hearts.

     We ate our lunch in the car and watched the seagulls a while. They are very different than the Texas Gulf Coast gulls we have seen. These guys are huge. And bold. This guy stayed on the hood of our car, two feet from my face the whole time we were eating.

     The Save the Bay Aquarium and Exploration Center packs a lot of fun and learning into a small space. I think the best thing about the aquarium is the people who work there. These guys not only know their stuff, they also had great rapport with the kids. They asked excellent leading questions, and knew just how to pique the kids' interest. I was super impressed and pleased. AND it was just $18 for all of us to get in. I was sad we won't be there when the seal-watching boat tours begin in November. We saw all kinds of things we've never seen in real life: Horseshoe crabs (which are more closely related to scorpions than crabs.

Smooth dogfish sharks. We touched sharks, people!

The aquarium also had eels, starfish, crabs, anemones, assorted interesting-looking fish, and even a tiny octopus! I couldn't tell you everything we saw and learned about. 

We had fun playing interactive learning games, like investigating the contents if a beached dead seal (She was stuffed, but had all her stuffed innerds for the kids to explore, including a zippered stomach that you can empty the contents of.)

The littles made a paper sailboat and pirate hat. So fun.

   
It had warmed up enough by the time we were done to spend a few minutes combing the beach, where we found shells, mermaids' purses (horseshoe crabs' eggs--we had just learned about these in the aquarium and were very excited to find some.)

And some jelly-creature that we were not sure about. It didn't have tentacles like a jellyfish would, plus it was a perfectly round disk. Any guesses?   

The houses along Narraganset Bay are amazing. Who gets to wake up to this view everyday?

      As I watched my oldest son run and chase his brothers and sisters on the beach, my thoughts returned to our heartbroken friends. I was painfully reminded of how little time I have left with my sixteen-year-old baby, of how my days of protecting him will soon be over. I know he'll be ready to face whatever God's will is for his life. And I know God's will is best. The same God who calms the sea can keep my son safe and well--but if not, He is still my God.

     In loving memory of Brenton Dodgen. We are so thankful for his sacrifice and that of his family.