Last week we took a family vacation. We left Tuesday the 14 and got back yesterday. It was as close to the perfect vacation as we could have gotten. The kids did great! The girls got along, they slept and played well in the car all those many hours, and everyone was happy for the most part. Who could ask for more?
Tuesday was a long day! We left at 9:00 a.m. and drove all day to get to our motel in Youngstown, Ohio. Now I don't normally let the kids watch television or movies for hours on end, but we broke the rules. Thank goodness for portable DVD players! I do not know what we would have done without it. It kept the kids occupied and the driver happy. Tuesday took us through Illinois, Indiana, and then to Ohio. Our hotel was a dive, but it made for some good memories. All except for when Ainsley fell off the bed in the middle of the night and hit her head on the night stand. When Brinnley asked if she could sleep on the floor, Chant and I in unison said, "NO!" Although, I am not sure if the beds were much better.
Wednesday morning we hit the road by 8:00 a.m. We went from Ohio to to Pennsylvania, New York, and then to Connecticut. We got to our destination of New Milford, Connecticut about 4:00. Chant's sister, Jenny, drove from Boston to spend the evening and the next morning with us. She didn't get to town till 6:00, so we had a few hours of fun outside our hotel. We stayed at the Rocky River Motel. When she got to town we had dinner at All Aboard Pizza and Ice Cream. Amazing pizza! It was so fun!
Thursday we were out the door by 8:00. We did not want to spend our vacation in the hotel. Our first stop was the Village Green in New Milford. Let me first explain. This portion of our trip was the Gilmore Girls/ Stars Hollow experience. Stars Hollow is based on the town of Washington Depot, but we found elements of the show in all the surrounding towns. The Village Green was just like the town square in Stars Hollow. There was a beautiful gazebo and even a tank! It was gorgeous. There are park benches and I could just imagine the towns people there. (I know, I’m a dork!) Across the street is the town hall. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence lived in that very spot, and the sign explaining this was placed there by the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). On the other side of the street is a quaint little toy shop called Nordica Toys. It was just perfect! We snapped lots of pictures.
Our next stop was The Mayflower Inn. It is located in Washington Depot. From what we can tell, it is the hotel that the Dragonfly was based off of. This Inn is gorgeous! The grounds are amazing! There is a poet’s maze. Each corner of the maze has a quote by a famous author. Just past the maze are several buildings. We thought they were just more rooms. We found out the entire area was the spa, 20,000 square feet! There is a beautiful outdoor pool and a pool house. (Lorelai and Rory lived in the pool house at the Independence Inn the first year after Lorelai left her parents’ home.) The grounds are just amazing! The Inn is out in a wooded area and all the trees were deep reds, vibrant yellows and oranges. Gorgeous! It was so serene and peaceful. There is a pond just past the Inn that is next to the road. It was picturesque.
We went inside to take pictures. I felt like I was standing in the Dragonfly. There is a staircase just as you walk into the door. Off to the left is the desk and past that a sitting area. To the right of the stairs is the library with a fireplace. It serious felt like I had been there before after watching 7 years of Gilmore Girls. It was amazing. The Mayflower was completely taken down to the foundation and rebuilt in 1993. Everything is beautiful and expensive. It just has an antique, peaceful feeling about it.
The best part was when the manager came over. We told him our cheesy story about wanting to see the place that inspired our favorite show. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that we were not the first to come look it at for that purpose. He had an accent and it feel strangely like we had our own Michel. He was very pleasant and helpful. The Inn met all of my expectations!
Jenny left after lunch to head back to Boston. We were sad it was such a quick visit, but thrilled we were able to see her.
After lunch we were back out exploring the area. Next was Litchfield. It was fun. I love the quaint feeling of Connecticut and all the little towns! It was just as I had imagined. After driving around Litchfield a while, we thought we would check out Harford. Let me just say we did not find the area where the Gilmores live. We were pretty much in the Ghetto. We did not get out of our car. I am definitely not a big city girl! I couldn’t wait to get back to New Milford.
It was perfect! We found all the areas mentioned in the show, Danbury, Litchfield, Roxbury, Waterbury, and Harford. It was everything I had hoped. And the area is gorgeous! I LOVED it!
Friday we went to New Jersey. That took us back through New York and then to our destination of Neptune, New Jersey. As the navigator, this was the most stressful stretch of the trip. We went just outside of New York City. Traffic was insane, as you can imagine. And the directions were intense. It seemed for a long time the longest stretch we went without taking another step was 7 miles. I had to be on my toes. But we made it. My Dad would have been proud! We got there about noon and had lunch at our hotel then hit the beach. It was a little chilly, so we all had our jackets on. The drive from the hotel to the beach took us past some of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen. They were not your typical house. Many of them actually reminded me a lot of dollhouses. They had fun paint colors and intricate details and accents. I loved it! I snapped a few pictures of some of my favorites.
The first beach we went to was Bradley Beach. This was the first time my children saw an ocean. As soon as we got to the sand Brinnley went running and Ainsley said, “Hold me!” I wondered how she would respond. This summer when our family went to Whiskey Bay in West Yellowstone, she took several hours to get used to the sand. She did not like being dirty. So I carried her out to the edge of the water and then she wanted down. She loved the way the wet sand squished under her feet and she spent a lot of time just moving her foot around to see the way the sand oozed around her shoes. She got brave enough to even run her fingers through it. I was amazed and so pleased that she liked it. There were a ton of detailed sandcastles spotting the shoreline. I got a few pictures of them. And birds came and went. The kids loved watching them. Brinnley spent her time collecting seashells. Porter’s lap was where she put her collection. We took a walk down the boardwalk for a while. Chant found a walking stick to take home with us. That seems to be his souvenir of choice. Before leaving I filled one of Porter’s bottles with sand.
We drove around a little bit before we found the next beach at Asbury Park. This one was beautiful. This was the area of choice for local fishermen. We spent a long time at this beach. The girls each found a shell they used as their digger to make a “sandcastle” or more accurately a sand pile. They played for a long time. Porter slept almost the whole time we were at the beach. It was a beautiful afternoon! Perfect to be exact.
For dinner we ate at a famous little pizza shop. Pizza seems to be the thing in New Jersey. We only had a little time to walk through the shops because everything closed early since it is the off-season. It was a wonderful day!
Saturday was the reason for the trip. Saturday Chant attended his conference in Point Pleasant, New Jersey at Family Chiropractors. The kids and I alternated between playing with toys in the waiting room of the office and watching movies and playing in the car. That was the better option for us, that is until the car battery died. But one of the other people attending the conference jumped our car for us. His conference went from 9:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. We still had to drive to our hotel in Middletown, Pennsylvania. We didn’t get there till 10:15. That was a long day!
Yesterday was our big driving day. We left the hotel at 7:00 a.m. We drove all day and got home about 6:30. The kids did great! They didn’t even get wrestles like I was expecting. They really were troopers, being trapped in the car all day. Our route home took us from Pennsylvania to West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and then back to Missouri. We made it! And it was an amazing trip, one I will always remember and cherish.
Our kids have become quite the travelers. They have been to 16 states. They have Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and West Virginia to add to their list of places they have been. To add to that resume they have the Mississippi River, the Missouri River, and the Atlantic Ocean. I hope to continue to take my children to more places and experience new things with them. Travel is something that has always been important and special to me and I feel blessed that I have been able to see so much in my life and I look forward to the adventures and travels ahead!
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