2020 New England Vacation - Salem MA

 ... Continued.  

After we left Maine we headed to Mass.  But before we got to the campground, we went to Salem.  It was (almost) on the way, and we thought it would be a neat place to visit.  It was incredible, the city, how they had the sidewalks separated in directions for walking, actual paint, and hand sanitizer everywhere.  They closed off streets so that the restaurants could be open (which is great for us, as we wouldn't eat indoors).  We did end up going to a Salem Witch trial museum indoors, which was quite frightening for Atlas.  But it was really interesting for the rest of us.  We did a lot of walking around the city, especially since we had to park pretty far away seeing as we were driving our RV, which doesn't really do too well in a town that's nearly 400 years old.  

a Harry Potter store

City Center, with TONS of shopping

This place is just so cool! and SO old! 

We could eat outside, ANYWHERE! 
We don't have this option back in Ohio

2020 New England Vacation - VT and Maine

 We had no idea that we'd end up on another vacation in 2020.  

Since Covid hit, we decided to take the new RV to New England on vacation.  Why not? We figured we'd never really go that way on our own.  There's nothing we can do indoors, so might as well go somewhere else we'd be outdoors.  So we randomly decided that we'd take a drive to Vermont, (NH), Maine, Mass, and RI to get away.  Adam worked almost every day, and I worked about half the time we were gone, but it was SO NICE to get away from the house.  

We left the house in the morning and Adam drove straight through New York and made it to Vermont in about 10.5 hours.  Ballpark stayed at my feet, around my feet, on my lap, arms, everywhere around me the entire time. He is cute though. 

my cute travel companion

Adam and I worked while we were in Vermont

  The boys loved to Mountain bike the entire time they were in Vermont. There was a great little path that went around the small park and down a hill right by our site, and he and another kid by us went over and over and over again.  Glad they were entertained while Adam and I worked all day.   We only spent 2 nights in Vermont. 

Nasty catepillars, we knew they were bad, so we made sure the boys stayed away from them.  What we didn't know, is that they would crawl up onto Atlas's helmet and leave a barb into the clasp or something.  HE had blisters ALL over his neck and chin and face, poor kid.  It was awful for quite a few days.

Our campsite while in VT

Quechee Gorge

Fun hiking path 

Quechee Gorge in Vermont

Beautiful town we drove throughs

We Stayed at an amazing campground in Maine called Wild Acres.  It's got many pools, a bmx bike park, a ropes course, we biked to the ocean and to a great miniature golf place, (not to mention a great mini golf place on premise), such a great campground.  

We did have to take a covid test back home before we got to Maine to prove we were virus free to stay there.  Since Adam and I did go to Tennessee with some Shiprockers a couple weeks prior, we were slightly worried, but we ended up being negative and were able to go on vacation, woohoo!!! 

Our first night in Maine, we had to make it through a hurricane, of course, haha.  We rode our bikes to the beach, and the sand was whipping at us.  On the plus side, we didn't even realize that we were going to be that close to a beach, and that a beach in Maine would have sand!  What a surprise! Two vacations and two beaches in one year! 

This is after the hurricane passed

This child just LOVES playing in the sand

Our first Maine restaurant meal.  All fried food. 

We rode our bike to the beach almost every single day.  The boys loved to walk in the water and play in the sand.  the beach atmosphere is pretty cool and even though we had to wear masks most people were pretty cool about it and stayed socially distant.  People in Ohio suck, but the East coast is pretty good about things. You can tell who is from the East coast and who is from the mid west and the South.  The people from the South are really kind of Douche bags about the whole Covid thing.  Pretty much if you heard a southern accent, stay far away.  Guaranteed if they turned around they weren't wearing a mask or it wasn't on right.  

We had the most amazing meal on a pier about a half hour from the campground.  It was advertised on the bus we rode, and also we were told about it from a local who often rides the trolley while we were waiting on some drunks.  The food was amazing.  Ares loves lobster.  Atlas loves... rolls and corn. and maybe hotdogs. hahaha.  

Grandma sent fun projects for the boys. 

The really cool thing about Maine is that we had no idea that Maine was so cool.  It was beautiful, and fun, and while we didn't have the time to explore the whole state (because we were working full time) we had so much fun while sticking to the half hour around our RV site.  We never made it to the mountains, so we'll have to go back sometime, but just seeing the coast, the rocks, the ocean, the light houses and all of the sea creatures was pretty incredible.  We climbed so many rocks, and watched the waves come in.   Maine might be one of my favorite states now.  I loved it there.  

Named after a baseball place, about 1/4 mile
 from the campground.  (Turn Right, it's on the left)

We were there over their Halloween weekend celebration. 

 

2020 ShipRocked

 I've tried to post into Blogger so many times this year, and it hasn't worked.  So hopefully this one does.  

We took the boys on a cruise this year.  But not just any cruise, we took them on SHIPROCKED.  Yes, a rock cruise, with bands.  SO many bands.  and it. was.  amazing.   

First, let's just say this was right before Covid.  Well, we thought it was.  We knew Covid was in Asia, we kind of joked about it at the time.  They asked us before getting on if we'd been in China recently on trips, knowing from emails that they'd pull us aside and ask additional questions, but not knowing that it was immediate removal from the vacation.  Luckily, we're boring people and this was our first vacation in a long time. 

So the vacation started the last week of January by flying to New Orleans Louisiana and meeting our Sonic Temple friends Phoebe, Robbie, Josh and Moe at the hotel, got some drinks, dinner at the most amazing hotel restaurant and explored the city (Bourbon street) but it was a little late and Ares kind of freaked out a little bit (a lot).  His exact words were "Mom, I'm tired, I'm irritable, and I'm scared. I want to go back to the hotel." So we called it a night and went back around 9pm.  The next day we met up with some other ShipRocked kids at Cafe Du Monde and then went to the the WWII Museum which was amazing.  SO amazing.  Ares had to read EVERYTHING.  Atlas even did really well there, although, since he couldn't read, he wanted to walk through a little faster than the rest of us.  

That night we went back to Bourbon Street and watched the ShipRocked parade with Carter, Maryssa, and Ians's older son.  We met A TON of other Shiprockers and had a blast.  Ares was much better, since there were many other people there, a few other kids, and he felt much more comfortable.  Once it got later, and a lot more drunk people came out, he was ready to leave, but by then, so were we.  (and by then, I had the 2 drinks I had started to set in and I wasn't so sure I was going to make it back to the hotel myself).  (I did, barely - also had a rough morning).  

Now to the boat, what an amazing experience.  New Orleans was pretty chilly, although, nothing we weren't prepared for.  The first band to play as we set sail was Halestorm, which Atlas was SUPER excited to see.  There are lots of programs on board for the kids, (even though there's only 40 or so kids on the whole cruise) but the boys pretty much stayed with us to watch the music the entire time.  They didn't want to go to the kids areas.  

Ares' sweet hair coloring 

My amazing dinner at Dragos

Just a cool photo

Atlas with Arejay from Halestore (the drummer)

Above is the drummer for Halestorm, Arejay.  He went around and signed everyone's signs on their doors, and took photos with everyone.  (Unfortunately, Adam has most photos on his phone.) Atlas also, later in the trip, got to tune his drumset before they went on stage.  It was really cool.  The bands were just with the rest of the people on the boat, and a lot would just take photos with those who asked.  Ares and Atlas got to take a photo with Chad Gray from Hellyeah as well, which is who Ares REALLY wanted to see, and was kind of chasing after the whole boat. He was so excited, and he got to talk to Shannon Gunz as well, who he wanted to ask a question to the whole year. 

Atlas loved breakfast on the boat

Atlas, Maryssa, Ares and Carter with Skully on Bourbon St

We had SO MANY things from the parades

Hellyeah was on the boat

Atlas LOVED the music.  One of the few kids
who stuck around for the bands

Adam did not stalk her, I promise. 

Maria Brink was there because her boyfriend (lead singer from DED) was on the boat with his band, but she did a short set on her own, which Adam went to see, but I did not.  The boys were so funny when they saw DED, Ares said "Mom, I've never heard of them before, but I knew like, every single song!!"

Key West

The first stop on the boat was Key West.  Neither Adam nor I had ever been, so we went to some of the bars with others, then headed off to the buoy and to the beach so Atlas can touch the ocean for the first time.  

Cozumel, Mexico

Cozumel, Mexico was the next stop a few days later.  There were a lot of activities there, water slides, pools, a giant inflatable activity course, music, food, etc.  The drinks were awful, food was just okay, but it was a lot of fun.  

The boys definitely stayed up SUPER late every night,
and got slap happy, haha.  They were so good. 

Good looking kids, I have

Heading home... the second time

So they changed our flight, and made it later, and then made it earlier, but then because of a tornado in charlotte, it was cancelled and we were stuck in New Orleans another night.  Which would have been cool, except it took them almost 2 hours to get our luggage back to us.  So we were starving and tired by the time we got back to a hotel.  And we had to wake up at 4am and get back to the airport before 5am. 

we're actually going to get to CLE

This is in Charlotte, before we knew that Covid had
made it to the US. we were packed in there good. 

We had a layover in Charlotte, and since a zillion flights were cancelled the prior day, and then the stupid president decided to go to Charlotte, we were stuck there while he took up the airspace for about 3 or 4 hours.  After about 30 hours of travel, we finally made it home to Cleveland. 

Shiprocked was the most amazing experience.  The bands there were.... 

https://www.shiprocked.com/about