Day 4 - Cliff walk and Provincetown

After a run, we started the day with breakfast at Gary's Handy Lunch, a cute little retro cafe. We then packed up the car and headed to do some of the Newport Cliff walk, a 3.5mile walk along the cliffs which overlooks some of the famous mansions. We only walked a short part but some of the views were incredible.

We then drove to Provincetown, about 130miles away which is our stay for the next four nights.

We had a fun dinner at a restaurant called Canteen. During dinner the heavens opened and it was raining really hard so we went next door to a dessert shop for ice cream. 

View on my run...

Walk to breakfast

Cliff walk

Day 3 - Dinosaurs, cars and boats

Today we left our first hotel and headed off to Newport in Rhode Island.

Our first stop en route was The Dinosaur Place. Suggested by a couple of people we decided to visit. It was random and expensive for what it was but the boys had fun. http://naturesartvillage.com/the-dinosaur-place/ (it looks better online than it was!)

We left there and drove to Newport. Matt had read about a car museum he wanted to check out. http://audrainautomuseum.org I think it's fair to say it was the best car destination he'd ever been too. 4 wealthy individuals have a combined private collection worth $0.5bn and rotate the vehicles for private use but also exhibit them in a museum.

Then we checked into our hotel. We're staying at a hotel called Forty One North on the water. It has its only marina which provided more entertainment at dinner looking at the boats.

A random but fun day. Tomorrow we're driving to Cape Cod.

Day 2 - Mystic

One of the challenges of such a long road trip is how to fit in exercise and also eat fairly sensibly when you have around 50 consecutive meals being eaten in restaurants.

So we started the day as we mean to go on (check back in next week!). I went for a run then Matt the gym before breakfast. Which is pretty easy when Joshua is awake from 5.15am. After breakfast after a quick swim for he boys we headed to Mystic Aquarium.

The aquarium is something I've heard recommended many times. It's only a two hour drive from our house but was always too far for a day trip and we never made a weekend of it. Thus why we decided to stop off on our trip.

It was a great aquarium, trumped the one in New York and also the one in Boston. A big space, lots of outside exhibits andfelt like the animals had a good amount of space (relatively for captivity).

After the Aquarium we drove to downtown Mystic. We headed to a recommended ice cream shop on the drawbridge. Walked along the river. Went in a few shops and went to S&P oysters for dinner which was situated on the river. We managed to see the drawbridge go up four times which added excitement for the boys.

It was a great day. The sun shone, the boys had fun and we actually enjoyed being relaxed with no move stress.

Photos below...

The whales

Selfie with a sleepy toddler. Who of course didn't sleep.

Matt entertaining the boys by trying to kiss a fish.

Turtle fascination

Joshua heard an employee say 'you can touch the crabs' and was straight in before we could say anything 

Sharks

Ice cream (sssshhhh don't tell Joshua who finally fell asleep in the car). I had a shop special 'Mystic chocolate' which had choc chunks, brownie pieces, fudge and m&ms in. It was delicious!

The view while eating our ice cream.

Ethan loved the local fire boat (this is his 'thumbs up' pose)

The drawbridge

Day 1 - And we're off

We departed Mamaroneck after a crazy morning and very little sleep to drive to Mystic, our first stop.

The car was full to the brim. As ever we had overpacked coupled with random things that we wouldn't ordinarily have with us but due to the move were. Forgotten things like Joshuas dressing gowns. Leftover alcohol. And luxury items that we figured we'd have space for like foam bed guards for the boys and Thomas toilet seats. Thankfully we'd upgraded to an SUV the weekend before otherwise stuff would have been left behind!

It was a low key day. We stopped at Macdonalds for lunch. It had a small play area which made Ethans's day. This was near an outlet and given the volume of small bags of crap we were carting around we decided to stop and buy a new bag. Which turned into two new suitcases. Then the heavens opened and it rained incredibly hard. It was quite entertaining getting two boys (Ethan who insisted on going on Matt's shoulders while he also pulled the cases, and Joshua who despite the monsoon wanted to walk at toddler pace) back to the car which was typically parked at the furthest spot. Then having to rearrange the car to fit stuff in the boot. Which we did, just.

Given the rain and the lost shopping time we decided to bin tourist activities and head straight to our hotel, The spa at Norwich. It's actually about a 25 minute drive from Mystic but felt like a nice setup to spend a couple of nights. Matt took the boys to an outdoor swimming pool in the rain (I remember swimming in the rain outside as a child and it being so much fun) whilst I got to do the fun unpacking job/reorganizing bags jobs. After a quick dinner in the hotel we all succumbed to sleep. Zzzzzzzz.

The car started pretty full....

Which was even worse after the new bag purchases....

Thankfully Macdonalds saved the day for the boys.

Goodbye Mamaroneck! Hello road trip!

It's been a stressful few weeks to say the least. Two rounds of removal men (sea freight and air freight), vacating the house, transporting Bruno (the hardest thing ever admin wise!) along with normal life of mothering two young boys and Matt's busy job. Throw in some emotional goodbyes and I'm impressed we made it to the other side.

But we did and that means one thing. Road trip!

Ending our time in the USA on a high with a 16night, 8 hotel (yes I'm not sure what I was thinking either!) trip up through New England going up to Arcadia National Park and then back to Boston where we depart on Tuesday June 21. I'll blog on our adventures as we go.

Brooklyn

With a week left in NY and a long weekend I was determined to tick the last thing on my 'bucket list'... the Brooklyn bridge. Having lived here for 2y 8m and also with two previous trips to NYC it felt wrong to leave without visiting.

We drove down early last Sunday. We walked the bridge, went to Brooklyn park and the boys played and went on the Carousel. Then we went and got pizza at a famous local destination, Grimaldis. Had a great day and even better, a break from packing!

Truck show

We were very pleased we got to do the truck show again this year in White Plains. Ethan loved it again and this year we had the double bonus of Joshua appreciating it. Here are some photos!