Boston to NYC
Possibly the most entertaining part of the entire DRIVING portion of the road trip happened en route from Boston to New York. In what could have potentially been a horribly miserable situation -- there was tons of traffic thanks to construction {?} about an hour outside of the city, which slowed us down and made irritable kids more irritable -- but thanks to a BMW convertible full of ridiculous teenage boys, we passed the time in the blink of an eye! Hahaha. This little bimmer was weaving in and out of the traffic with panache while the boys in the backseat were trying to interact with/get the attention of every car and truck they passed along the way, using a phone the whole time to -- Video? Live stream? Selfie? SnapChat? (we don't really know) -- the entire thing. For about 20 minutes, our cars went back and forth between passing each other, and each time we did, the kids would dab or dance like maniacs to humor them. And in the process humor ourselves. Hahahaha. It was a lot of fun and certainly helped to make an aggravating situation enjoyable. :)
But before that happened in the afternoon, we spent a couple of hours in Boston that morning visiting the USS Constitution Museum and learning all about Old Ironsides. Our initial plan for Boston was to attempt the Freedom Trail with the kids, but after talking it over with Scott, we agreed that there was no way our kids would be able to handle something that long and probably "boring" {to them}. At the suggestion of a friend from our ward, we opted for the museum instead and it was a hit! The ship itself wasn't open for tours until the afternoon, but the museum itself had lots of interactive things to do to keep the kids entertained and happy. As a bonus, they may have even gleaned a little history from the outing! Hahaha.
By noon, however, it was time to hit the road once again and brave the streets of Manhattan. And in all honesty, it was one of my favorite surprise hits of the road trip! I think what REALLY helped was that, a.) we've {mostly} learned our lesson about trying to pack in too many things at one time, and b.) we've gotten pretty good at reading the moods of our kids and discerning how much more they're able to handle, and therefore stayed in the city for just the right amount of time.
Once we finally made it INTO the city, it took another 45 minutes or so of circling around before we found a parking spot outside of Central Park. The initial plan was to let them run around and play for a bit, so that they could stretch their legs and enjoy their freedom from the car, but once we got out and saw that we were relatively close to Times Square, we decided to make a run for it to check that off our list first thing that afternoon.
Between the time it took to walk down there and back, however, combined with the inevitable stops for shopping along the way, we ended up using the entire 3 hour block with the parking meter before we had a chance to frolic in the Park. Everyone was so worn out at that point -- it was HOOOOOOOT and humid that afternoon {dangerously so} -- that I think I was probably the only one who was bummed that we didn't fit it in before leaving. The traffic getting out of the city and over to our hotel in New Jersey was so horrific, that we made the executive decision to skip out on returning the next morning for the Statue of Liberty and Empire State before leaving for Pennsylvania. It was a good call.
Our time in the Big Apple may have been brief, but it was pretty awesome and exciting regardless. There really is just something about the energy of the city that's exhilarating. And even though on paper it sounds insane to traipse around Manhattan with 6 kids in tow, it was actually really quite fun. :) I highly recommend it. Hahahahaha.
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