New England Vacation – Day 10: More of New Hampshire, Then on to Maine

Day 10 was mostly a calm, good day, punctuated by one short but intense burst of anger.

We would be on our way toward Maine, but had a few sights to see before we left New Hampshire.

We stopped at Flume Gorge and walked the short trail. The weather would get hot later in the day, but in the morning this wooded trail was cool and comfortable, perfect for a nice walk.

As we followed the trail, we came to the most spectacular part, where a narrow gorge had formed.

And at the end of the trail, we came upon a small waterfall.

After we left that area, we drove the Kancamagus Highway, designated as an American Scenic Byway. The highway cuts a path through the White Mountain National Forest.

As the road was very curvy and featured a couple of hairpin turns, we advised Kai not to use the iPad. And when he is not on the iPad in the car, he tends to fall asleep. So, he missed the most scenic parts of the drive.

When he awoke, he told us that we had to find a bathroom “RIGHT NOW!”

Alas, we had come to a construction zone where one side of the two-lane highway was shut down, and traffic was held up on our end until the cars going the other way had finished their turn.

Kai started screaming.

We told him that we would try to find a bathroom as soon as we could but he would have to hold it for a little while.

His screaming got really intense. We told him that we heard him and understood his urgency, his screaming just got more and more intense. There is no way I can overstate how angry and upset he was.

Although I tried to stay calm, his constant screaming was really difficult to take.

He is not a young child anymore. He should be able to ‘hold it’ for a while. And he should be able to give us a warning instead of suddenly having a state of emergency.

Is this is how it will always be with him? Will he never learn to think ahead? Will he always get this angry when faced with frustrations?

After showing improvement in his earlier years, it feels like things have stalled out the past year or two. His anger is worse and his frustrations are getting harder to deal with. These days, when he gets this upset, his anger is directed at us in a very nasty way.

When it was our turn to finally to drive through the construction zone, we came upon a gas station immediately after.

Thank goodness.

He was still angry at me – somehow it was all my fault – but at least the crisis was over.

Eventually he calmed down, and we had a peaceful drive the rest of the way.

During the whole state of emergency, we had crossed over into Maine – my 50th state! – but we weren’t in any mood to mark the milestone.

In late afternoon, we reached our destination for the next couple days – Bar Harbor. And we had plenty of time to go to the pool.

We enjoyed a seafood dinner where we sat outside and watched the crowd of tourists.

We had a very friendly waiter who chatted with Kai about the games he was playing on the iPad, and got him to smile and even answer a few questions.

Let’s see what else Maine has in store for us.

New England Vacation – Day 9: Dog Mountain, Ziplining, New Hampshire

After breakfast at our inn, we traveled east.

We went to a place I had discovered on TripAdvisor called Dog Mountain. Dog Mountain was the home and inspiration of a Vermont artist named Stephen Huneck. On the 150 acre mountain-top property, he built Dog Chapel, which he described as follows:

“I wanted to build a chapel, one that celebrated the spiritual bond we have with our dogs, and that would be open to dogs and people. People of any faith or belief system. I built that chapel on Dog Mountain, our mountain-top farm in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. I have styled it in the manner of a small village church built in Vermont around 1820. It is important to me that the chapel looks like it belongs with its setting of rolling mountains and pasture. The white steeple points up to the heavens, and on the top is a Lab with wings that turns in the wind and proclaims this place has a special affinity with dogs. As you walk inside the chapel you will be bathed in the light of my stained glass windows. Dog carvings surround you, music plays, all reaffirming the connection between art, nature, and spirituality. I look at this chapel as the largest artwork of my life, and my most personal. It is my desire to make this a place both magical and transforming.”

At Dog Chapel, visitors are welcome to write a remembrance and post a photo of their departed dog. It is quite a moving sight to see every space in the chapel covered with photos and words of remembrance.

My wife posted a remembrance for her two beloved Golden Retrievers which she gave up as a single mom in order to focus on taking care of Kai after he was born.

We were very glad to have visited this most unique place.

In addition to the Chapel, we visited the gallery that displays and sells Huneck's artwork.

The entire building is dedicated to dogs, including the faucet in the restroom.

After our visit to Dog Mountain, we continued our journey, crossing the border into New Hampshire.

After lunch, the plan was to take a ride on the Mount Washington Cog Railway. Mount Washington is the highest mountain in New England, and the railway is the second steepest in the world (after the Pilatus Railway in Switzerland).

I had bought tickets online, but when we got to the station, we found out that all trips up the mountain were cancelled for the day due to mechanical malfunction of one of the engines.

Although he reluctantly posed for this picture, Kai was very upset.

I didn’t think he was particularly excited about going on the train or seeing the top of the mountain. But this sudden change of plans set him off anyway.

He ranted loudly and angrily.

We tried to calm him down, but he did the opposite of everything we suggested, getting more loud and angry.

I suggested that we could go ziplining instead, but that only made him more angry.

I didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon in our hotel room, but it was apparent that trying to do anything else with Kai would be fruitless and frustrating for all.

We went back to the hotel to take a little break in the hopes that he would settle down.

Once safe in the hotel room and n his iPad, Kai was a happy boy again. I let him continue for a good long time, and then pulled up a video of people ziplining at the place I wanted to try.

Kai had said he was scared to go ziplining, but after seeing the video and hearing me explain that he would be strapped in and would not fall, he realized that it wasn’t as scary as he thought. He agreed to try it.

We drove over to the place and got our equipment. This would be the first time for all of us.

My wife and Kai went first so I could take pictures.

Here is Kai all set to go while my wife is getting buckled in.

This particular zipline is about 800 feet long and participants reach a top speed of about 30 mph.

Here is a shot of Kai coming into the finish area on his very first run.

After his first run, he did two more runs, once with me and once more with Mom.

He said it wasn’t as scary as he thought it would be, and I think he actually enjoyed it for the most part. We gave him big high fives for trying something new.

After ziplining, we walked over to a nearby chairlift for a ride up to the top of the mountain (not Mount Washington, but a smaller one).

While Kai is smiling in this next photo, he was actually more scared doing this chairlift than he was of ziplining.

My wife and I thought the chairlift was pleasant and relaxing but there were several moments when Kai was visibly upset and frightened. Go figure.

The view from the top was great, and made up for our missing out on the railway trip earlier. You can actually see the line for the railway going up Mount Washington in the background toward the right side of this photo.

After that, we went back to the hotel. Kai had certainly earned some pool time on this day.

And then we went for dinner at a steakhouse inside our hotel. Our outdoor seats had a gorgeous view of Mount Washington and a neighboring diner was kind enough to take this family photo of us.

The steak dinner itself was good. When the food came, I was too hungry and excited to take a picture.

All in all, it was a good day. My wife especially enjoyed Dog Mountain, I got everyone to try something new, and Kai got to go to the pool.

Hopefully there will more fun in the days ahead.

New England Vacation – Day 8: Vermont

This may have been Kai’s happiest day of the vacation.

Of course, we were mostly just driving in the car all day, and Kai was on his iPad during most of that time, so his enjoyment of the day came from doing the things he loves to do at home as opposed to anything due to the vacation itself.

If it were up to him, I don’t think we would go anywhere. Our vacations would be spent at home on the iPad all day, taking breaks only to go to the swimming pool.

Today he used the seabands and herbal seasickness-prevention remedies we had gotten for the whale watching tour, and that seemed to work in terms of staving off car sickness.

We left Mystic in the morning and headed north. We drove into western Massachusetts on our way to Vermont, and then the GPS took us west into upstate New York before we finally made our way into Vermont.

We stopped for lunch in Bennington, a typical old New England town. And then continued on our way north.

The Green Mountains were green and beautiful. They reminded me a bit of the Smoky Mountains, especially as it got cloudy.

We hit a bit of rain, but as we were only driving, it didn’t interfere with any activities.

The one thing we wanted to do that day was to take the Ben & Jerry’s tour at their Waterbury headquarters.

There was a crowd of people there; this must be one of the most popular tourist attractions in Vermont. But as they have tours every 10 minutes, they are able to accommodate everyone. We waited about 40 minutes for our tour.

We all enjoyed the half hour tour, especially the sample of ice cream at the end. Milk and Cookies was the flavor they were giving out today.

After the tour, we went to our motel. Kai was anxious to go swimming, and the rain stopped so we were able to get in a dip in the pool before dinner.

Dinner at the inn was crispy duck for my wife, and ribs for Kai.

Both were very good. I had the rib eye steak special but it was disappointing. My wife and I both agree that she has had the better dishes at almost every place we have eaten on this trip.

So it was a relatively low key day, but perhaps a needed one. More adventures await.

New England Vacation – Day 7: Newport and Mystic

After six days in Massachusetts, it was time to travel to other parts of New England.

But first, one last seafood meal; my wife and I had the Lobster scramble for breakfast at a little spot called the Lazy Lobster. With chunks of lobster along with asparagus, onion, and hollandaise sauce, this was more than just scrambled eggs.

And then it was time to get in the car and move on.

Kai was on his iPad during most of the drive to Newport, Rhode Island. And when we arrived at our destination, he had a bit of car sickness and was in no mood to go sightseeing. I was frustrated as the iPad always seems to be a cause for why Kai doesn’t want to see a sight or go somewhere.

But this time, after resting in a shady spot for several minutes, he felt better and we were able to take our tour of The Breakers, the “summer cottage” of the Vanderbilt family that was built in the late 19th century.

Photos are not permitted inside. Suffice to say that this mansion is a stunning example of the opulence of The Gilded Age.

Upon entering the mansion, all visitors are given headphones to listen to an audio tour. I was happy that Kai listened to the entire tour and seemed to enjoy the visit.

After seeing The Breakers, we got in the car and drove Ocean Drive along Newport’s rocky coast.

And then we had a late lunch before heading out toward Connecticut.

Our destination for the evening would be Mystic.

After a dip in the pool, we went into the charming old downtown and had dinner at Mystic Pizza, made famous by the Julia Roberts movie of the same name.

The pizza was quite good.

After dinner we walked around town a bit more. And then we called it an early night.

We’ll have our longest drive of the trip tomorrow.

New England Vacation – Day 6: A Leisurely Day

After a hectic first five days of our vacation, we wanted to have a more leisurely day. We had no reservations to keep or particular places we had to be.

We woke up a bit later, had breakfast, and then headed out to see more of the Cape. We started out by heading to a nearby fishing pier where we saw a family of seals enjoying a swim.

I told Kai that if he came back as an animal in his next life, I bet it would be as a seal as these guys seem to enjoy frolicking in the water, just like Kai does.

From there, we drove to find a better beach to visit. After all, you can’t go to Cape Cod without visiting a beach. Or so it seemed as there were hordes of visitors headed toward the beaches. A couple beaches were already filled to capacity, and others had long lines to get into the parking lot.

So we headed up to a more isolated spot on a high bluff where we could get a good view of the coastline.

In the early afternoon, we found a beach on the bay side that wasn’t overflowing with people. The water was calm and we were able to swim a little bit.

But in my mind, it wasn’t a “real” Cape Cod beach. So before we went back to our hotel, we went to a beach on the ocean side that we were able to get into. The waves were large and we didn’t go in too far nor stay very long, but we got to experience the power of the ocean while we were there.

After resting up back at our hotel, we went out for one more seafood dinner.

Kai filled up on steamed clams.

While my wife and I each had boiled lobster.

We’ve been making Kai keep a journal on this trip. Not one to be verbose when it comes to writing, he summarize this day as, “Today was a good day.”

New England Vacation – Day 5: Whale Watching

We must be optimistic parents.

How else to explain why we would choose to go on a 3-hour boat ride with Kai when it had every possibility that it could be a disaster?

It was only a few months ago, during our spring break vacation to Florida, that we endured Kai’s screaming for 20 minutes as we rode on a boat, over choppy waters, that took us out to where we would try scuba diving for the first time.

How would he react on a 3-hour ride that took us further out into the Atlantic?

We had happy faces when we arrived in Provincetown, at the far tip of Cape Cod, where we would board our boat.

But Kai started getting agitated as we waited to board our boat. He had insisted that we go wait in line early, but complained when the waiting went on for about 15 minutes.

When we boarded, we were able to snag some prime seats right up at the front of the boat. But Kai was angry about sitting out in the sun. Yesterday he complained that it was too rainy. Today it was too sunny. This boy is just full of complaints. And it wasn’t just that he complained…

“It’s all Dad’s fault!”

Hoo boy, whose idea was this to go whale watching?

Though once the boat started on its journey, Kai was happy again.

About a half hour after we started out, we spotted our first whales, way in the distance.

And when we got close to the whales, Kai really got excited. I was very happy to see that he was interested in seeing the whales.

He seemed to really be enjoying this!

Every time we spotted another whale, he took great interest in seeing it.

I breathed a little sigh of relief. It made it easier for me to enjoy this adventure.

We ended up seeing many many whales, including three different types: Minke, Finback, and Humpback, including these Humpback:

After about an hour and 45 minutes, Kai had seen enough and was ready to go back. As it wasn’t quite time to return, Kai started to get agitated every time the captain headed toward another whale or to slow the boat for everyone to view. Kai just wanted to get back.

We let him use the iPhone to keep him from voicing his displeasure too loudly.

When the captain finally turned up the motors to head back to shore, Kai was very happy.

I wish he could have been a bit more patient, but all in all, this was a very positive experience. We saw a whole bunch of whales up close – truly amazing sights that these photos just don’t do justice. And Kai did really well overall.

Sometimes it pays to be optimistic.

We had lunch when we came ashore, then walked around Provincetown a little bit. It’s a fun place and my wife and I could have spent hours more there but it was pushing our luck just to get Kai to walk around as much as we did.

Finally, we headed back to our hotel so we could change into our swimsuits and head to the beach.

The beach was full of seaweed and dead sea creatures that had washed ashore. Kai enjoyed looking at them, such as these horseshoe crabs.

But it wasn’t really the kind of place where you’d want to swim, so after a while we went back to the hotel and swam in the pool.

A late dinner capped off our full day.

Kai said that he liked Cape Cod better than Boston. Hopefully that feeling will last through tomorrow as we have one more day here.

New England Vacation – Day 4: Plimouth Plantation and on to Cape Cod

It rained all day as we made our way out of Boston.

Our destination was Cape Cod, but on the way we stopped to visit Plimouth Plantation.

There are two primary parts to the Plantation. One is the recreation of a Native American homesite of the Wampanoag tribe. Seeing the Wampanoag house was interesting as Kai had a project from school last year where he had to create a model of this house.

It was interesting as there were Native Americans inside of the houses who explained their culture and answered questions.

The other main section of the Plantation is a recreation of the original Plymouth Colony, established in the17th century by English colonists.

Kai was getting pretty crabby by the time we got here as the steady rain was dampening his mood.

He listened to a bit of “Captain Standish” talking about life in the Colony, but mostly just pestered us to get going.

After lunch, we visited the recreation of the Mayflower.

It was interesting to see the small quarters of the 100+ pilgrims who traveled over.

Our final stop was at the Plimouth Grist Mill, where we learned how the colonists made corn flour.

As we were indoor for this part, Kai was mostly happy.

But not as happy as he was when we reached our lodge.

After complaining whenever we had to step out in the rain to see one of the sites, what is the first thing he wanted to do when we got to the motel?

Yes, that’s right, he wanted to go to the swimming pool.

Mom didn’t want to go so it was up to me to go with him. But the pool was actually warmer than the rain drops so it wasn’t too bad.

We wrapped up our day with dinner. By this time the rain was a downpour so we got soaked running from the car to the restaurant.

The meal was good, though. Kai’s lobster ravioli was the best. My wife’s chef carbonara was good, too.

My fried oysters were a bit of a disappointment. We had the best fried oysters in Hiroshima a year ago, and these did not compare at all.

The drive home from the restaurant was a bit treacherous as the roads were somewhat flooded in places.

But the rain is supposed to clear overnight. We hope so as we have reservations to go whale watching in the morning. Let’s see how that goes.

New England Vacation – Boston, Day 3

“Today is a new day, right, Dad?”

That is what I always tell Kai after he has had a bad day, usually because of some incident at school. This time he wanted confirmation after our angry exchange the night before.

Yes, Kai, today is a new day. Let’s make it a good one.

We had the cannoli we had bought for our dessert the night before.

They lived up to their hype.

And with that, the anger from yesterday was put behind us.

We started out our sightseeing with a Duck tour, practically a must for tourists in Boston. We got to see a lot more of the city than we would have otherwise.

Kai raised his hand when the driver asked if any kids wanted a turn at driving.

No, he did not drive us into the bridge.

And so we were off to a good start to the new day.

Next we went to the Museum of Science. As with the aquarium, this was not in my original plans for Boston, but Kai said he wanted to go.

They had a special exhibit on the making of the Pixar movies.

Kai wanted to get hands on with all of the exhibits.

There were times when he hovered over others who were on a particular exhibit and we had to redirect him to another one that was open, but he really enjoyed his time at the museum.

It was mid afternoon by the time he finally had his fill of the museum. I think my wife would have been happy to go back to the hotel at that point, but she and Kai indulged my wishes to go to the Public Garden and ride a swan boat.

We also saw the Make Way for Ducklings statues that honor the children’s story set in the Public Garden. My wife and I have fond memories of the book, but Kai didn’t remember even though we read it countless times when he was young.

We finally took a break back at the hotel.

And then we headed out for dinner. We were a little tired of seafood so we cancelled our reservation at Legal Seafood and instead went to Chinatown. We went to the most popular spot, where we had to wait about a half hour for a table. Kai was fine waiting as he had more time on the iPhone.

And the food was worth the wait.

For dessert, we found a Japanese pastry shop called Beard Papa’s. Their cream puffs are much lighter than the cannoli we had from Mike’s, but very good as well, in a very different way.

It was a good day.

But Kai is looking forward to leaving Boston tomorrow. Too much walking here. Too many people (though that may be true where we are headed as well). And a swimming pool awaits us at our next stop.