You know, sometimes I get these hair-brained ideas in my
mind, (okay, it's really ALL the time!) and for the life of me, I just can't seem to let them go. That was the case with this crazy East Coast
RV trip we just got home from.
It all started a few years back when I decided that we
needed to baptize Spencer in the Susquehanna River. With Church History being my first great
passion in life, and American History coming in at a close second, it all
seemed to fit perfectly. We could fly
out to New York, do a little site-seeing, then have the baptism on the morning
of the 4th of July, and finish up the day with the nation's best fireworks show
over the Statue of Liberty. It seemed
like a plan that was too good to be true.
Well, too good to be true for most people. When it comes to our family; however, we have
a way of making things work out, and somehow I convinced Nick and our parents
to go along with my scheme. They were
excited, I was ecstatic, and Spencer beamed with pride every time he got the
opportunity to share his good news. It
would be a birthday and holiday to remember, (I've never said that before!!) and
check off another famous firework show on our family bucket list.
As this plan was made several years out, I had plenty of
time to contemplate just how to make the trip most memorable. From the beginning; however, there were a few things that
I knew for certain had to transpire.
1. The baptism would be in the Susquehanna River,
2. we would watch the
fireworks over the Statue of Liberty on the Fourth of July,
3. we needed to take
the kids to a famous Broadway show while we were in New York City,
and
4. we needed to get as much sight-seeing in as we could,
because it was the last time for a while that we would be venturing to that
part of the country.
As I contemplated this last line item, a very troubling
thought occurred to me. All of our
children had been to this part of the country before; however, the last time we
were in Maine was just before I got pregnant with baby Mason. In other words, Mason, unlike the other kids,
had never been to the state of Maine. It
was the last state he needed to, like the other three kids, check off the lower
48 states. I knew from the get-go that
Nick was not going to be fond of the idea of driving five or six hours north,
just so Mason could check Maine off of his list, but the more I thought about
it, the more convinced I became that we needed to go.
How to make my case to Nick though, that was
the question?
And that, my friends, is when I had a moment of sheer
inspiration. We had a full ten days of
vacation time that Nick could utilize, and nothing in the world was holding us
back from spending all ten days on the coast.
Why not tempt Nick with the insane idea of renting--for the second time
now--a family RV and take in not just the Northeastern Coast, but as many of
the Church History sites as we could fit in?!
It was a moment of brilliance, and from the minute I said the words RV,
Nick was visibly hooked, though he wouldn't give a complete commitment for
quite some time.
Eventually, he did commit, and we booked the RV and the
flights within the hour so that there was no way for him to change his
mind. It was a good idea gone great, and
the creative juices in my brain were just beginning to churn. We would fly into Newark, rent the RV in Brooklyn,
and then head straight north passing through Rhode Island and Boston (you have
to have dinner at Bertuccis and pastries at Mike's) before making it up to Maine. Once in Maine, we could party on Old Orchard
Beach, hit the Portland Head Light, do a little shopping at L.L. Bean, and take
in as much clam chowder and lobster as
our little bellies could hold.
Then it would be off to the "Live Free or Die"
state to enjoy a little time camping in the beautiful White Mountains. Maybe we could catch another ride on the
North Conway Railroad, or hike to the top of Ripley Falls while we were
there. Wherever the wind blew us, that
would be our plan.
After New Hampshire we could return to our East Coast
getaway town--Stowe, Vermont--taking in all the old favorites from Cold Hollow
Cider Mill to Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream headquarters. The kids should all be able to remember our
last visit here, making it even more fun and sentimental.
With Stowe under our belt, it would be easy to put coastal
sight-seeing aside for a while and transition into the Church History leg of our trip. Sharon, Vermont, after all, was only a few
hours south of Stowe, and after picking up both of our parents in Buffalo, New
York, we could also hit Palmyra, Fayette, and then make our way down to Oakland
County to the Priesthood Restoration Site right on the Susquehanna River. The baptism could take place on the morning
of the fourth, just as I had planned, and then we could tour the Stature of
Liberty, Ellis Island, and end the day with a Harbor Dinner Cruise--the top
rated way to witness the fireworks display. Our last day in
New York, we could shop, visit the Freedom Tower, and catch a Broadway show to wrap
up our trip! It would be like three
vacations packed into one!!
And that is pretty much how it ended up, though there were a
few slight deviations along the way. Since I'm going to break the trip up into four posts, I'll save some of
that discussion for tomorrow's post! For now, here are the photos from the first leg of the trip, which, I must say,
Nick did quite a lovely job arranging into collages!
(Yes ladies, you read that right. He not only uploads, edits, and labels all of our pictures, but now has taken it upon himself to collage them and save us both the trouble when it comes time to print the blog into a book at the end of each year. It's quite a project, but as long as I don't make him write for the blog,
he is happy to oblige!)
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