Thanks for everyone's contributions to help me get this vacation planned. I took over a year and a half to budget and plan for this trip; it was much anticipated.
Our background: we are in our late 30s and our children are 12, 10, and 6.
Our original plan was to take 16 days and visit Gettysburg, DC, Baltimore, Norfolk, Assateague Island, Philly, and NYC. I had lots of potential activities in mind, but I have learned that sometimes the spontaneous stops bring the most joy. That served us well for this trip!
Day 1: We headed out after work on Friday night. We wanted to stop at Gettysburg en route to DC Saturday so we needed to leave on Friday night to make it before the visitor center closed on Saturday.
We were delayed for about an hour of our 3 hour trip due to an accident. We rerouted with our gps and were 1 mile from the campground and the road was closed. Ok, it's after 10pm, and my 6 year old is exhausted and my 12 and 10 year old boys are hitting each other......let's find this place! 40 mintues later, we arrive at the campground. That 3 hour trip took us about 5.5 hours and we were toast when we arrived.
Day 2: We all slept well from Friday night. The drive to Gettysburg wasn't too far, 4 hours or so, so we slept in. We woke up happy and energized and ready to get the party started.
11:30am on Saturday on the Pennsylvania turnpike a car approached us and said, "Your camper tire is smoking!" Whoa. Ok, thanks to the person that alerted us. We pulled over hoping to fix a flat and continue on our way. No big deal, we have a spare and plenty of tools. Nope.
The bearings on the axle failed and when we stopped, it actually caught fire. Thank goodness for the fire extinguisher! We needed an entire new axle.
I made lunch and the kids were able to use the bathroom while we called and waited for a wrecker. Smart phones proved to be worth their weight in gold for this trip!
We arrived at the shop at 1pm only to have the mechanic tell us that he won't be able to look at it until Monday, then he'll have to order parts, then he'll have to fix it.........
That's life. I get it. I've had my share of broken furnaces and unexpected car failures while getting to work. But there's something so much more profound about having a poorly timed repair disrupt your only vacation for the entire year. If it had been Monday instead of Saturday, we would have been on our way that evening. But because it was Saturday, we were basically SOL.
I called every repair shop and camper store in a 2 hour radius and they all said the same thing, "Sorry, it's 1 on Saturday. We're all leaving and we don't work on Sunday." Let's just say that the kids all learned how to swear that day.
The first big day of our trip and now we're down for a few days at least. There is no pushing back the trip, our work schedules won't permit that. This is it, our only available time off. This is the only chance we'll have this summer.
We've decided our new family motto is, "Go big or go home!" We didn't want to go home, so we went big. We ditched the camper, went to Walmart for a cooler and totes for clothes, and headed off to stay in hotels.
This was not what we had planned and it cost a fortune. But having raised our kids in a camping environment, they knew very little about hotels and it was a fun experience for them.
Our background: we are in our late 30s and our children are 12, 10, and 6.
Our original plan was to take 16 days and visit Gettysburg, DC, Baltimore, Norfolk, Assateague Island, Philly, and NYC. I had lots of potential activities in mind, but I have learned that sometimes the spontaneous stops bring the most joy. That served us well for this trip!
Day 1: We headed out after work on Friday night. We wanted to stop at Gettysburg en route to DC Saturday so we needed to leave on Friday night to make it before the visitor center closed on Saturday.
We were delayed for about an hour of our 3 hour trip due to an accident. We rerouted with our gps and were 1 mile from the campground and the road was closed. Ok, it's after 10pm, and my 6 year old is exhausted and my 12 and 10 year old boys are hitting each other......let's find this place! 40 mintues later, we arrive at the campground. That 3 hour trip took us about 5.5 hours and we were toast when we arrived.
Day 2: We all slept well from Friday night. The drive to Gettysburg wasn't too far, 4 hours or so, so we slept in. We woke up happy and energized and ready to get the party started.
11:30am on Saturday on the Pennsylvania turnpike a car approached us and said, "Your camper tire is smoking!" Whoa. Ok, thanks to the person that alerted us. We pulled over hoping to fix a flat and continue on our way. No big deal, we have a spare and plenty of tools. Nope.
The bearings on the axle failed and when we stopped, it actually caught fire. Thank goodness for the fire extinguisher! We needed an entire new axle.
I made lunch and the kids were able to use the bathroom while we called and waited for a wrecker. Smart phones proved to be worth their weight in gold for this trip!
We arrived at the shop at 1pm only to have the mechanic tell us that he won't be able to look at it until Monday, then he'll have to order parts, then he'll have to fix it.........
That's life. I get it. I've had my share of broken furnaces and unexpected car failures while getting to work. But there's something so much more profound about having a poorly timed repair disrupt your only vacation for the entire year. If it had been Monday instead of Saturday, we would have been on our way that evening. But because it was Saturday, we were basically SOL.
I called every repair shop and camper store in a 2 hour radius and they all said the same thing, "Sorry, it's 1 on Saturday. We're all leaving and we don't work on Sunday." Let's just say that the kids all learned how to swear that day.
The first big day of our trip and now we're down for a few days at least. There is no pushing back the trip, our work schedules won't permit that. This is it, our only available time off. This is the only chance we'll have this summer.
We've decided our new family motto is, "Go big or go home!" We didn't want to go home, so we went big. We ditched the camper, went to Walmart for a cooler and totes for clothes, and headed off to stay in hotels.
This was not what we had planned and it cost a fortune. But having raised our kids in a camping environment, they knew very little about hotels and it was a fun experience for them.
Day 15, Friday:
Our last day of vacation. Bittersweet.
The kids were saying they are so happy we made them continue on a go to NYC. They really enjoyed the Statue and the entire experience. But at the same time, they were all homesick.
We slept in a little and wanting to take advantage of the entire day, we took the subway to our first destination. We had already passed this area yesterday on the bus tour and it probably cut our travel time by half. The kids needed to take a subway anyway, they had never done it before.
Subway ride in NYC. Check. Sorry, it's blurry.
We got off in the upper west side in a residential area. This part of town I really enjoyed. It wasn't overcrowded, it just seemed more pleasant and less touristy.
We went to visit the American Museum of Natural History. It was pretty awesome.
We did that for a couple of hours, (we completely skipped the diorama portions) and got back on the bus hungry. We did have a goal of eating pizza in NYC, b/c isn't it famous for pizza? When we got on the bus we asked the tour guide about where to get good pizza. Of course she knew, bc she's local. It happened that her favorite place V&T, was just at the next stop. Perfect! We got off and it did not disappoint. Best pizza ever! We ate every morsel.
We got back on the bus to finish up the tour. We noticed that we were driving right past the tomb of Ulysses S Grant. The kids had to go to the bathroom, so we got off to check it out. We didn't have our passports with us to get stamped so we just stamped paper and put it in our backpack to tape into place later. Interesting stop. My daughter couldn't figure out where the dead guy was, who he was, why he had a house, who lived here, what a tomb was.....
We got back on the bus, and found it was standing room only. No fun. We passed by Central Park and got off, my son had to pee again anyway. We got back on a less crowded bus and took that one to the closest stop to the 911 Memorial, then my son had to pee again.....
We had to walk just a little bit to get to the Memorial. Seeing as how it was a place where a horrific terrorist attack took so many lives, I felt that the smiling pose would be inappropriate. I got a pic of the kids' backs while they pondered the moment.
We had to high tail it back to the ferry to make the last one of the night.
This was a yacht in the harbor that my son loved. I told him I really hoped he would have one of those one day. ๐
Our last day of vacation. Bittersweet.
The kids were saying they are so happy we made them continue on a go to NYC. They really enjoyed the Statue and the entire experience. But at the same time, they were all homesick.
We slept in a little and wanting to take advantage of the entire day, we took the subway to our first destination. We had already passed this area yesterday on the bus tour and it probably cut our travel time by half. The kids needed to take a subway anyway, they had never done it before.
Subway ride in NYC. Check. Sorry, it's blurry.
We got off in the upper west side in a residential area. This part of town I really enjoyed. It wasn't overcrowded, it just seemed more pleasant and less touristy. We went to visit the American Museum of Natural History. It was pretty awesome.
We did that for a couple of hours, (we completely skipped the diorama portions) and got back on the bus hungry. We did have a goal of eating pizza in NYC, b/c isn't it famous for pizza? When we got on the bus we asked the tour guide about where to get good pizza. Of course she knew, bc she's local. It happened that her favorite place V&T, was just at the next stop. Perfect! We got off and it did not disappoint. Best pizza ever! We ate every morsel.
We got back on the bus to finish up the tour. We noticed that we were driving right past the tomb of Ulysses S Grant. The kids had to go to the bathroom, so we got off to check it out. We didn't have our passports with us to get stamped so we just stamped paper and put it in our backpack to tape into place later. Interesting stop. My daughter couldn't figure out where the dead guy was, who he was, why he had a house, who lived here, what a tomb was.....
We got back on the bus, and found it was standing room only. No fun. We passed by Central Park and got off, my son had to pee again anyway. We got back on a less crowded bus and took that one to the closest stop to the 911 Memorial, then my son had to pee again.....
We had to walk just a little bit to get to the Memorial. Seeing as how it was a place where a horrific terrorist attack took so many lives, I felt that the smiling pose would be inappropriate. I got a pic of the kids' backs while they pondered the moment.
We had to high tail it back to the ferry to make the last one of the night.
This was a yacht in the harbor that my son loved. I told him I really hoped he would have one of those one day. ๐
Day 14, Thursday:
I had purchased crown tickets to the Statue Of Liberty back in February. Being completely unfamiliar with the area and mode of transportation, I had some reservations about how to get to the ferry for the statue. I just asked at the desk and she told me which ferry to take and by the end of the day I feel like I had the whole "How to get into NYC" figured out. We didn't do the PATH train at all, but I think I could have figured that out as well.
Anyway, our tickets were for 10, and I didn't want to be late, so we erred on the side of caution and arrived early. I really wasn't sure if the 10 am time was for the ferry ride over, or the entrance to the crown. I thought maybe they wouldn't let us board the ferry until 10 and we arrived at 9. In the end it didn't matter what the time said to the ferry people, they just let us on, they never checked for a time. We must have had the best timing ever because we never waited for more than two minutes for transportation this entire day. We ferried over to Liberty Island without issue.
Originally, (before this trip started), I had wanted to visit Ellis Island. My attitude toward this trip changed considerably after the axle broke. I relaxed a LOT. The trip is different than what I thought I wanted, and that's not bad; just go with it, it will still be great. Nobody wants to go to Ellis Island? Ok with me. I explained what it was, took a picture from the ferry, and went directly to the statue. That was the biggest priority anyway.
We all agree that this was the second best part of the trip, with Assateague being #1.
View from the crown
We hiked up 340 steps in a tight spiral to reach the top. Not unlike going up a very tall lighthouse with better steps and handrails.
You can get this shot if you lay on your back in the far corner of the walkway. Another couple and I exchanged the task. Maybe this will be on my Christmas card as well.
We had an unexpectedly pleasant lunch on the island. There was fresh fruit and yogurt and sandwiches. We didn't have to eat fries and burgers again. It was sunny but not hot, there was a breeze, we had just completed a hike up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. We felt triumphant. What a great day!! We went to the gift shop and the boys wanted a souvenir that was a box with a pic of the statue on it and their name. I think it cost $2. No problem boys, no problem. We also got pencils. This turned out to be a big pencil as a souvenir trip. They're cheap and when you have 3 kids it works. The kids had brought their own money for souvenirs and not surprisingly, when they had to spend their own money, they were very conservative. I offered tshirts, hats; nope they weren't interested. Great, savings for me then.
We ferried over to Battery Park in NYC. I'm not opposed to subways, I've managed to not get lost in Paris and London, but you don't really see much when you're underground, so we splurged and bought a two day on/off bus tour for everyone. It was worth it. We got off the ferry, and saw a bus at the curb. No waiting for us again. Score!
It was quite an experience. The kids were quiet I think because they were trying to absorb and process everything.
Our first stop was the American Girl Store. My daughter had been saving money that her grandpa gave her at Christmas last year. That's a long time when you're 6! The store is 3 stories tall and she was overwhelmed and excited, like a 6 year old on crack! We let her run wild for 30 minutes then had to settle her down to focus on what doll she wanted. Here she is.
We decided to take the boys to Toys R Us since they were patient for their sister. We were close to it so we just walked. We walked through Time Square. Why do people do that on purpose repeatedly? I'll never understand!
Anyway, they choose a video game. They had to pay with their own money again. Usually it's $50 for one game. Without any suggestions from us, they decided to split the cost of a $40 game. Yep, lots of lessons learned on this trip for everyone.
We got back on the bus and rode it to the ferry. Waited 5 minutes and ferried directly over to the campground. We were toast.
He's pounding on the door right now, "Let me in!" ๐
We ended up getting take out from the restaurant right on the harbor side at the end of the campground. We figured we ate healthy for lunch, let's have some garbage. It was all really good.
All in all, we had a really good day!
I had purchased crown tickets to the Statue Of Liberty back in February. Being completely unfamiliar with the area and mode of transportation, I had some reservations about how to get to the ferry for the statue. I just asked at the desk and she told me which ferry to take and by the end of the day I feel like I had the whole "How to get into NYC" figured out. We didn't do the PATH train at all, but I think I could have figured that out as well.
Anyway, our tickets were for 10, and I didn't want to be late, so we erred on the side of caution and arrived early. I really wasn't sure if the 10 am time was for the ferry ride over, or the entrance to the crown. I thought maybe they wouldn't let us board the ferry until 10 and we arrived at 9. In the end it didn't matter what the time said to the ferry people, they just let us on, they never checked for a time. We must have had the best timing ever because we never waited for more than two minutes for transportation this entire day. We ferried over to Liberty Island without issue.
Originally, (before this trip started), I had wanted to visit Ellis Island. My attitude toward this trip changed considerably after the axle broke. I relaxed a LOT. The trip is different than what I thought I wanted, and that's not bad; just go with it, it will still be great. Nobody wants to go to Ellis Island? Ok with me. I explained what it was, took a picture from the ferry, and went directly to the statue. That was the biggest priority anyway.
We all agree that this was the second best part of the trip, with Assateague being #1.
View from the crown
We hiked up 340 steps in a tight spiral to reach the top. Not unlike going up a very tall lighthouse with better steps and handrails.
You can get this shot if you lay on your back in the far corner of the walkway. Another couple and I exchanged the task. Maybe this will be on my Christmas card as well.
We had an unexpectedly pleasant lunch on the island. There was fresh fruit and yogurt and sandwiches. We didn't have to eat fries and burgers again. It was sunny but not hot, there was a breeze, we had just completed a hike up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. We felt triumphant. What a great day!! We went to the gift shop and the boys wanted a souvenir that was a box with a pic of the statue on it and their name. I think it cost $2. No problem boys, no problem. We also got pencils. This turned out to be a big pencil as a souvenir trip. They're cheap and when you have 3 kids it works. The kids had brought their own money for souvenirs and not surprisingly, when they had to spend their own money, they were very conservative. I offered tshirts, hats; nope they weren't interested. Great, savings for me then.
We ferried over to Battery Park in NYC. I'm not opposed to subways, I've managed to not get lost in Paris and London, but you don't really see much when you're underground, so we splurged and bought a two day on/off bus tour for everyone. It was worth it. We got off the ferry, and saw a bus at the curb. No waiting for us again. Score!
It was quite an experience. The kids were quiet I think because they were trying to absorb and process everything.
Our first stop was the American Girl Store. My daughter had been saving money that her grandpa gave her at Christmas last year. That's a long time when you're 6! The store is 3 stories tall and she was overwhelmed and excited, like a 6 year old on crack! We let her run wild for 30 minutes then had to settle her down to focus on what doll she wanted. Here she is.
We decided to take the boys to Toys R Us since they were patient for their sister. We were close to it so we just walked. We walked through Time Square. Why do people do that on purpose repeatedly? I'll never understand!
Anyway, they choose a video game. They had to pay with their own money again. Usually it's $50 for one game. Without any suggestions from us, they decided to split the cost of a $40 game. Yep, lots of lessons learned on this trip for everyone.
We got back on the bus and rode it to the ferry. Waited 5 minutes and ferried directly over to the campground. We were toast.
He's pounding on the door right now, "Let me in!" ๐
We ended up getting take out from the restaurant right on the harbor side at the end of the campground. We figured we ate healthy for lunch, let's have some garbage. It was all really good.
All in all, we had a really good day!
