Thunder and rain rolled in at about 7pm last night and continued booming until about 1am. There are few things I love more than a good thunderstorm, they remind me of the incredible monsoons we'd get down in Arizona. These had of course subsided by morning, but the air was still plenty humid and the top of the van was wet, which complicated loading the roof bag. I made it, of course, but it didn't stop me from muttering under my breath while sweat dripped down my forehead and my back.
Our first stop was the Museum of Natural History and Planetarium in Providence, Rhode Island. It's located inside a large park called Roger Williams Park, which also contains a zoo (but we didn't go). The museum is 2 stories, and we made it through the first floor and part of the second floor before "C" decided she was no longer willing to entertain being in a museum, so I took her outside while the rest of the crew continued to look. She ran around the park for a big and then she and I watched someone zipline across Polo Lake, before walking back over to our car to get her a snack. She was just hangry and some Cheezits hit the spot. She was human again!
For our next stop, we backtracked a little bit, and passed a big blue bug for the second time - a giant, 9 foot high bug. We drove through the beautiful city of Riverside, RI and stopped at Crescent Park. This is home to one of 10 remaining operational Looff carousels in the world (Spokane, of course, is home to another). There was quite a bit of old Looff memorabilia related to this carousel, including some gears from a recent restoration project which left the carousel closed for 2 years. We rode it a few times, getting plenty of rings for the kids to throw into the clown mouth. The rings were all made of metal, which I thought was cool. We crossed the street to a large green space on the Providence River, and a David Bowie cover band named Rebel Rebel was playing msuci for a small crowd. We listened for a few minutes before climbing back in the car to pass the big blue bug a third time on our way south to Connecticut.
We scoured Hartford and New Haven for something fun and interesting to do with the kids, but there really wasn't anything catching our eye, so we instead decided to go to Hammonassett Beach State Park to have let the kids swim in the ocean for the first time. This is a large beach with about 2.5 miles of shoreline, and the place was PACKED. We struggled to find a parking spot in the massive parking lot, but we eventually managed. It's a lot of work getting everyone ready to go swimming, and it's a hassle dealing with all the wet stuff afterwards (particularly on a road trip), but it was worth it.
"A" pretty immediately dove in, "B" was a bit more reserved but still went for it. "Z" was a swimming MACHINE. Granted, she was wearing a life jacket, but she was unstoppable, swimming anywhere and everywhere her little arms and legs could take her. "T", on the other hand, made it out to about waist deep before he decided it wasn't for him. And "C" mostly just wanted to play in the sand - I think maybe it was a little too cold for her? The coolest thing to me (and the kids) were all the sea shells everywhere. There were honestly millions of them, all over. Some tiny, lots broken, but some huge ones too. At one point, I even found a hermit crab, alive in his shell (which the kids all thought was pretty great).
The kids all picked their favorite shell to bring back with them (although later, "T" smelled his, decided he didn't like the smell of it, and threw it away). After a few hours, we started packing up and heading to the showers to try to rinse the sand off. If any of you have ever tried to get the sand off of a kid at the beach, imagine doing it with 3 kids. It was quite comical to watch, although the people waiting for the showers were probably annoyed. My favorite part, though, was when we were trying to clean off "C". She managed to get sand EVERYWHERE, so we decided to try to unclasp part of her swimsuit to get more of the sand out. Well, her suit clasped at the bottom like a onesie does, and apparently she had just decided to answer nature's call, because when "K" unsnapped her suit, several little poops fell to the ground. "K" and I laughed quite loudly while she tried to rinse her off and I tried to scoot the excrement away. I mean.. At that point, what else can you do but laugh?
We hiked back to the van, laid a towel down on everyone's seat, and drove half an hour to our hotel in Milford, Connecticut. Tomorrow, we hit the Big Apple for the first of 2 nights. Wish us luck!