First rate interactive
museum, which I may have seen more of if my then 3-year-old wasn’t dead
petrified of automatically flushing toilets. I was able to tour the part of the
museum where we sit in a town hall meeting while colonists argue about what to
do about the taxation-without-representation issue, and I was able to be part
of the tour that goes on the deck and looks at the blocks of tea and my older
daughter got to actually toss one overboard! That’s what I saw of the museum,
and it was great up to this point – really great. We were ready to enter the
museum proper, but my little one had to use the potty. I made it into the first
room of the museum building and that was the end of the museum experience for
me. The rest of my time there was spent in bathroom turmoil. I know the post-it
note trick. All moms know the post-it trick. Every helpful mom I’ve met has
suggested the post-it note trick. Doesn’t work for my Little Bit. Holding her
above the toilet? Doesn’t work. I go first and she can personally witness that
I survived the experience? No. Bribery? No. She WILL pee in her pants rather
than sit on the Spiraling Death Vortex of Water Suckage. So, this is a new
museum, and the only toilets in it were automatic. Can you hold it, baby? No.
Will you stop crying while the awesomely cool HOLOGRAPHIC characters are
discussing the oncoming war? No. Are those other museum visitors staring at us?
Do I really have to leave in the middle of a hologram? A HOLOGRAM I tell you.
Yes. Will I be able to find a non-flush toilet and rejoin the rest of the
family? No. The entrance times are staggered, I would only be able to re-enter
at another time slot. Is the museum in the middle of downtown Boston and there
are no nearby buildings to duck into because most of them have now closed? Yes.
What is a mother to do? Pee over the side of the boat, baby. I will hold you,
try to aim off the deck. What? Did you spray urine onto your shorts and shoes
from that angle? Is that even geometrically possible? Oh, so now I need to find
a sink to rinse your clothes in, and hopefully an air-dryer. Yay! There is one.
This only takes forever. Oh, hello family. Yes, this is a nice gift shop. Glad
I could join you. And THAT is my experience at the Boston Tea Party Museum. It
seems like it was probably really cool.
According to their website, Mega Cavern was originally a limestone quarry turned storage facility turned indoors recreation center. It has an underground bike park, a tram tour, a zipline cave tour, and what we came for, an aerial ropes course. And one day, my sister, Liz, and I, decided to take all of our kids, plus two other cousins to check it out and have some climbing fun.
Our party of 8, kids ranging between the ages of 5 -13, plus my sister and I, arrived for our 7pm check-in time – and were pleasantly surprised to find the course to be fairly empty for a Friday night. We got checked in, signed all the documents to acknowledge that at least some of our party would likely become seriously injured and it would be all our fault, and then went to the harnessing station. Here, two guides personally harnessed up each and every one of us and then we went through a practice belaying station. Mega Quest uses a double belay system, where you can’t unhook both your belays at once, only one belay will open at time, so that at all times, you are hooked on to the guidelines at all time by at least one belay. In addition, there was a guide stationed on the floor in the middle of the obstacles whose job it was to go to anyone who said, “help”, and get them through the obstacle they were stuck on. Also, there’s no place on the course you can unhook – you need a special unhooking station to do this and those are only found at the entrance and exit of the course. So I actually felt like all the cousins were very safe on this course, even considering their ages.
The older two cousins
took off with the youngest one between them, and my sister and I headed onto
the course with the other three; she in the back, me in the lead. We took a low obstacle of wobbly wooden beams
suspended end to end, over to a rope netting that went at an easy angle up to
the second level transition platform that looked like a crow’s nest. Now the rule is that only one person can be
on the obstacle at a time, and only three people can be on a transition area at
a time. So I went up first, then slowly
up came one of the girls. Then as she
got up to the transition station with me, a story up from the floor, I realized
three things:
1) that our next obstacle
was extremely wobbly wooden beams, set parallel to each other
2) that in order for our
whole group to move across was for me to start on the next obstacle while
leaving three little girls hunkered together on what was basically a narrow
wooden surround on top of a telephone pole
3) that it was pretty unnerving for ME to look down while traversing the wobbly boards and I could not foresee the girls attempting this as their second obstacle and then doing any other obstacle on the course.
So we aborted that
mission and about-faced back down to the first level obstacles where we stayed,
and which went great – my sister and I congratulating ourselves on providing
the kids with this memorable experience that was also character and skill
building. The kids had to judge the best
way to get across an obstacle – and they were tough – and then get a sense of
pride and accomplishment when they completed one, and encourage each other
across, and also, its great physical exercise.
We were superstars
But then…
We headed over to the
zipline.
That was the beginning of the end. Now, I should mention that there was a mini zip line on the first level. One that had very little slope downward, but a rope so if you got stuck half-way through, you could drag yourself to the end. We did not do that one. We went for the Big One. My sister had been zip lining before, the girls seemed all in after their first few obstacle successes, and so off we went. All the way to the back corner of the course. The corner you could only get to after doing multiple obstacles, and, may I remind you, that there is no way off the course unless you go all the way back to the entrance, via multiple obstacles. Consider this foreshadowing.
The kids were troupers all the way up the climbing apparatus to the zipline. This took an extraordinary amount of time b/c by this time, the oldest cousins had transferred custody of the youngest one back over to us, so Liz and I had all 4 little guys and their short-reaching arms couldn’t reach the guide ropes very well, so my sister and I had to help each one move their belays and get up onto the platform. We got all 4 kids up, Liz went across the zip line to show them how and also to man the end of the line to help them unhook. Then, the unnaturally brave 6-year-old went zooming across, whooping it up and having a great ride. Then, the others began to cry. So down the rest of us went. Liz was already on the other side, but the small tween girl birthday party group that was waiting for the zip line were able to help me get the rest of the kids down – two of which were crying fairly heartily, because although they had gone up the ladder just fine, something clicked and looking down as they descending was too much for them.
For brevity’s sake, let
me just say some time passed and we ended back at the course entrance where we
unhooked all the kids and got them settled at table so that Liz and I could
traverse some of the upper-level course.
Little kids are easily occupied by lollipops and we adults could see the
kids from our vantage point. It was a fun
and memorable experience. Even though the
littlest kids needed help, a lot of the time they didn’t – which made them feel
accomplished and brave. And once I was
back down on the lower level, I felt a little brave, too.
Yes, family. It’s
historically significant, we will not likely be in Little Rock again, and
that’s that. Plus, I’m driving.
And, since my husband literally thought that the Little Rock
Nine was a minor league baseball team, I felt that this was a must-do.
The Little Rock Nine were not a baseball team, but in fact a
brave group of black boys and girls that were the first to integrate Central
High School in 1957. This was met with
such vehement opposition that the 101st Airborne had to be called
out to escort these children to school. White
parents would spit at these nine young kids and call them names and threaten
and harass them, yet this small band of students stood up to all that hate and
kept going to school, fighting for an equal education. I felt that this was an important part of US
history for my family to know on a more personal level.
The National Park Service runs the Little Rock Central High
School National Historic Site, and Central High School is a working high school
still today. The visitor center is across
the street and catty-corner from the high school, and for us, was about a 30-minute
experience. Banks of TV screens showed
various bits of footage and newsreels from the time of the conflict and there were
also smaller, more personal listening stations as well. There were plenty of photographs and paper
artifacts that visitors could look at to get still more perspective. Some of the audio was from interviews with
members of the Nine, both from 1957 and more recently.
For families planning a visit, The Visitor Center’s exhibits
held the attention of my 12 year-old for about 15 minutes, judging by the
amount of time that passed before she began asking me if we could leave
yet. It actually held the attention of my
6 year-old a little longer – mostly because there were screens with buttons to
push and phones that you could lift off receivers.
After about a half-hour, we left the Visitor Center and
walked over to the high school itself. I
just felt it necessary to give my girls a sense of the place. They did not want to, there were certainly
more fun things to in their mind – namely, a hotel pool, but I really wanted
them to absorb just a little bit from actually being there. When they learn about the Little Rock Nine in
school, I am hoping that they have a little more gravitas from having been to
the actual site.
My family has no particularly strong
feelings about Elvis – we can take him or leave him, so there was no particular
draw to see Graceland. It felt like a “if you build it, they will come”, kind
of thing. It is there, we were there, so
we went.
We arrived at Graceland expecting to see
Vegas-like drama and impersonators and kitschy shops. What we found was a busy street of shopping
centers and car dealerships and among them was the rather modern Graceland ticketing
building with a lobby, a gift shop, and a couple of quick bite shops. We bought
our tickets, including audio tour, and lined up for the shuttle to the
mansion.
We queued up in the shuttle line.
We loaded onto the shuttle.
We were driven across the street.
Literally.
I’m using the term “literally”
correctly.
It’s
across the street.
We disembarked the shuttle.
What?
After our confounding trip across the
street, we gathered outside at the bottom of the stairs to Graceland – a rather
modest and homey mansion, really. Decidedly un-Kardashian like.
So the trick to touring Graceland is to
hang back at the end of the tour group, letting all the other people trickle
ahead and then you can see what you want to without the big crowd around
you. And what we saw, surprisingly, I
liked: Green shag carpet? Yes, please.
White laminate kitchen counters with silver glitter flakes embedded in
them? Yes, and yes again. Carpet in the kitchen? Wise.
The place is at once both wonderfully gaudy and surprisingly homey. It
was very fun to see, especially after touring other, more historic type
homes. Graceland was quirky, and a great
snapshot of 1960’s modern living. I especially loved the TV room – with three
TVs set up so Elvis could watch all the networks at the same time.
The audio tour was self-paced, so you
could enter the code that corresponded to whatever you were looking at whenever
you wanted, allowing you to linger at certain focal points and hurry through
others – and it helped keep my 6 year
old busy because to her, it didn’t really matter what she was looking at. She just liked punching in the code numbers
and looking self-important. If you’re an Elvis fan, it is a great tour, informative
about Elvis’ life both at Graceland and during his career, as a good portion of
the tour goes through the grounds, offices, and trophy room; not just the
mansion itself. If you’re not an Elvis
fan, it was still well worth a visit to get a glimpse of the iconic home of an
iconic performer.
“The illusion of danger is essential for any kind of
adventure.”- Bob Cassilly, creator of the City Museum.
I wasn’t going to climb out on the edge of the airplane wing and
crawl through a tube made of fencing suspended 4 stories above the ground by a
single cable and slide down, but I was at the City Museum and I couldn’t
resist. The place is Awesome.
Not awesome in the commonly overused context, as in, “that song
is awesome”. Yes, yes, whatever song
that is may indeed be catchy, but it is not, in fact, awesome. I am not struck
with wonder at that song. The City
Museum, however, is actually Awesome. It
is not a true museum, per se, but a gigantic climbing and adventure playground
that takes up four floors, the roof, and the partial exterior of an old
downtown St. Louis building. The City
Museum’s website describes it as, “an eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse,
surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found
objects”. Part
of the structure, what they call MonstroCity, extends outside the building and
you can see it as you walk from the parking lot. To me, it
looks like at a real-life Chutes and Ladders game made of recycled
construction materials through a collaboration of Willy Wonka and M.C.
Escher.
We started our adventure on the outdoor section, MonstroCity – four
levels of climbing and sliding and being surprised at the slide you didn’t see
when you climbed, subsequently sliding, and then finding a whole new place to
climb that you didn’t see before. It was
at one of these climbing obstacles – wide parallel bars that curved to the left
with no obvious safety protocol – that two pairs of wide and excited eyes
looked up at me.
Are we allowed to go up here?
Yeah, I think so.
Really?
Probably.
How do we get up there? Do we just climb it?
I don’t know – you’re not actually my kids, so yeah, sure.
And with that, two little girls, not my own, followed me;
climbing up the parallel bars to the next level and then scurrying off in one
of many possible directions.
I had lost track of my own kids some time before, but I was
pretty sure they were okay – I would see flashes of them running along a rebar
bridge or climbing up something impossible. The magical uniqueness of the place
lends itself to good will to others; occasionally you will have to pause to
unsnag someone else’s kids when you come across them and someone will unsnag or direct yours. A little boy was trying valiantly to unhook
his shoelace from some part of the wire structure where he was stuck at an odd
angle. I came upon him and freed his
shoe. Later on, a helpful preteen (yes, I know what I just said) helped direct
me out of some kind of spiraling wood structure. Another parent smiled at me in
been-there-done-that sympathy when I hit my head on a low hanging fire truck
part. Just be careful where you climb or
you’ll end up on the wing of a plane four stories up. No preteen or sympathetic parent can help you
down from there.
Wear sneakers and pants if possible, it will protect your knees
as you crawl in and out of things. And
boy did we – until that place shut down at midnight. By dark, we had moved to the interior of the
building and we followed our girls through whatever tube or crevice our adult-sized
bodies could fit through, finding ourselves in all sorts of wonderful,
surprising places. Crawl through one
hole, you end up in a maze of polished wood nest-like structures and woodland
themed climbing spaces. Climb up one
ladder into the sculpture of a whale and find yourself in a concrete-and-glass-bead
set of tunnels that (I think) eventually lead to a steampunk version of a Hogwarts-esque
spiral staircase that slid you back down 5 stories – or 10 if you started from
the roof. I am never sure what lead to
what in that place because it is designed that way. And they don’t have maps. I asked. And I am glad they didn’t – that way
you just keep finding and discovering nooks and crevices and whole rooms. We
would end up in places we had been before and finding something we didn’t see
the first or second time through.
And then there is the roof.
The roof is a separate 5 dollar fee per person, and is where you’ll find
a school bus hanging off the ledge of the top of the building, a ferris wheel
with a panoramic view of St. Louis, and a curved aluminum dome that you can
climb up through a series of ladders along the sides and top and exit at the
top of the dome to take a slide back down to the rooftop.
As it was, we were there for five hours, but we could have
easily spent the entire day there. and my kids want to go back. We all want to go back! I can’t recommend the City Museum enough. For
us, it’s worth another drive to St. Louis itself.
If walking your snack-sized children unprotected through alligator
infested prairie land sounds like a great time to you, then I recommend Paynes
Prairie Preserve State Park. It is
conveniently found just a few miles off I-75 for easy access on your way to or
from Orlando; when your children become jaded by the animatronic animals at the
Disney Parks, treat them to actual mortal peril and they just may become more
appreciative of the idyllic Disney version.
Or, better yet, maybe they’ll actually love Wild Florida!
We went to the La Chua trail which is a walking trail through the far north end of the 32 square mile preserve, and although I had nothing to offer as proof, I assured the kids they would not be eaten by alligators. The trail starts off paved and winds under some giant old oak trees draped in Spanish moss. We passed under an old train trestle and through a barn. Here we got an exciting preview of what we would see; on the wall of the barn is a white board and markers for visitors who are exiting the park to leave messages for those who are entering. People left lists of things they had seen: herons, wild pigs, deer, snapping turtles, snakes, and one person described seeing an alligator jump up and try to snatch a bird. We also knew from the ranger at the entrance that there were bison and wild horses, one with a baby.
Continuing on, past the signs that ascertained our certain death
should we approach any and all wildlife, the paved trail became a boardwalk,
taking us past the Alachua Sink. We
watched herons picking their way through the water hyacinths and smaller black
birds flit right on top of them. They
did not attempt to harm us.
The boardwalk came to an end and a packed earth trail running beside the Alachua Sink began. The Sink is a huge water-filled sink-hole and when the water level is high and backed up, the prairie becomes a giant shallow lake where alligators like to congregate. A seriously unbelievable amount of alligators. My older daughter was the first to spot them. On the opposite bank of the Sink were about 20 alligators basking in the sun. Cool. We continued on and in another few yards we came upon a 10 foot alligator right off the trail basking in the sun. Cooler. We were within thirty feet and on the same patch of land as this wild alligator. Standing there in such close proximity to this huge creature with no fence to separate us was so surreal and unforgettable. It was right there! I picked up my toddler.
As we continued along the trail, we saw a few gators that were swimming – just heads moving forward in the water – and several much smaller gators in the shallow water on the sides of path. We also saw a couple of really big, brown wild pigs eating on the opposite side of the Sink. Further up, because of recent heavy rain, the trail was submerged. Not much, about ankle deep. I figured we were hearty enough to ford a smallish alligator infested waterway. The kids thought we were absolutely not. I pointed out to them that I saw some guy who passed us on his way back to the entrance with muddy feet and carrying his Tevas, so he must have crossed and survived. My oldest child wisely pointed out that we don’t know how many people he started out with. True, but as he didn’t appear to be in shock and mourning, I figured no deaths had occurred and I could carry the toddler across, lest she be eaten. It really was only a little water so we trekked, bare feet squishing through the thick mud that stank of sewer, the 10 feet or so to the unsubmerged part of the trail. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it very far before there was another part of the trail that was submerged, and this time I couldn’t see around the bend of the trail to verify lack of alligators or poisonous snakes, so we ended up turning back.
The full trail is about three miles, and there is no shade along
the way, so be prepared with sunscreen and water.
Our visit to Paynes Prairie was a completely unforgettable
experience. I will be returning and
hopefully can make the whole circuit. We
were there for probably an hour and a half, so it’s not a long day’s
outing. If you’re squeamish about being
eaten by an alligator yet still want to appreciate the native Florida wildlife,
there are other parts of Payne’s Prairie to see. The La Chua trail is several
miles away from the official park entrance, and from that entrance, you can
walk a paved trail and climb an observation tower so you can enjoy the animals
from a more protected vantage point.
My mom used to live in Long Island, and we visited every summer, often traveling into The City for a day to get an uniquely NYC experience. This trip we wanted to visit the National September 11 Memorial and Museum (very nicely done), hit the free Sony Wonder Technology Lab (mediocre but FREE), and then we wanted to tour Central Park on bicycles. We’d been to Central Park a few times before; we have walked down Central Park West and saw Strawberry Fields, visited the Central Park Zoo, and we’ve taken a horse-drawn carriage ride. But Central Park is so New York and so unique, that I wanted to see more of it. I wanted to see Cleopatra’s needle and the Alice in Wonderland statue, people playing Frisbee on the Great Lawn, the Tavern on the Green, and whatever that bridge is that people are always walking across in movies. I wanted to see as much of Central Park as I could and I had the idea that we could do that on bikes.
At this point I have to stop and say that I don’t know why I always thought you could ride a bike through Central Park. Did I see it in a movie? Did I have a romanticized version of NYC from the 1950s? Upon reflection, really, there was no reason for me to think that you could ride leisurely throughout the park’s paths, and it makes sense that you cannot. I can only imagine the number of pedestrian/cyclist accidents that would occur. But in what seems to be a recipe for certain doom for a group like mine, it turns out you can only ride bikes on the same roads that cars can drive on. New York City cars. And cabs. I did find out later that there are many car-free hours during which time no cars are allowed on specific roadways throughout the park.
Ignorant of all the path restrictions and car-free hours, I had
called ahead and reserved bikes from one of several bike rental places near
Central Park. Our group consisted of myself, a Grandma who hasn’t ridden a bike
in 20 years, a 5 year old who was happily off kilter on the back half of my
extremely unwieldy tandem bike, and an 11 year old who was just inexplicably
tottery for an 11 year old. With this as
our elite riding team, we decided not to risk cycling next to NYC traffic and
so we stayed on the sidewalks and walked our bikes the four blocks over and two
blocks up to the 7th Avenue entrance of Central Park. We walked them right up to the NO BIKES
ALLOWED sign. Disappointed (and already
having paid for bikes), we scanned the traffic going by and discussed our
options.
“This is a bad idea, right?”
“Yeah, this is a bad idea.”
“Are we going to do this with the kids and everything? Those cars are going pretty fast.”
“Yeah. We already paid.”
“Well, yeah.”
And having thus committed the lives of three generations of my
family, our wobbly contingency rode right beside New York City Traffic. We lasted about a quarter of a mile. I was seriously over-correcting every move Charlotte made on the back of my
bike in order to keep her momentum from veering us into the cars alongside us
while at the same time shouting over-protective motherly bike-safety advice to
Livi (“Stay by the curb!”, and “Oh my God! You’re going to die! Stay by the
curb!”). I think it helped. This,
combined with the fact that my mom was practically learning to bicycle all over
again, but with the added pressure of a possible critical injury if she made a
wrong move, all led to the decision to abort the plan. We pulled off, agreed that our idyllic
version of biking through Central Park had ended and we began Plan B; walking bikes through Central Park. Not
as fun as riding bikes through
Central Park. However, we did get some
Central Park Experiences: we walked our bikes past a free open air concert,
complete with the typical crowd found at a free New York City event. We found an ice-cream vendor, got Spongebob
with bubble gum eyes, and ate on the top of one of the many granite rock
outcroppings ubiquitous to Central Park while listening to a man on a bench play
a Chinese string instrument, an ehru. We
also found Heckscher Playground, a great little water play area that the kids
ran around in. It has a set of channels
and ramps that low-flow water runs through from a higher to lower elevation and
the kids can run all through it. There
are rocks to climb on and a play area for smaller kids, and larger fountain
areas for kids to get soaked in. There
are also places for the adults to sit in the shade while they lose sight of
their kids, wonder if they’ve been kidnapped, contemplate the likelihood of a
kidnapping vs the effort it takes to stand up and locate them, and then get a
visual on their kids right before they have to actually stand up. After some time letting the kids run around
the play area, and verifying non-kidnapping twice, it was getting to be toward the end of our
two hour rental time period and we walked our bikes all the way back to the
rental place. Although we did not see
the Central Park we come to see, we saw the Central Park that we happened upon,
which can be just as fun. However, I
would imagine that it’s easier to do without walking bikes.
Fifty State Family 