“Weren’t you just in Boston?” Indeed, I was! But this time, it was the first major stop in a road trip up through New England with our family.
I’d say this was our first proper Great American Road Trip with the kids. They’d done an hour or two here and there, and three hours when we drove from Hollywood Beach to Melbourne, Florida over Thanksgiving, but this was a six+ hour trip. We wanted to stop and visit Boston and MJ’s best friend Matti, and then we’d continue up to Maine to see my sister and nephew, and show the kids where I grew up.
We drove up to Boston on a Wednesday, and made pretty decent time up to Boston in spite of a little traffic and the required potty/meal breaks. At one point we stopped at a Target to pick up some supplies. We made a final stop for fast food in Boston in the late evening and eventually got to our hotel. We did adjoining rooms again, but it was an extended stay style hotel so the rooms were larger and had pull out couches instead of the full multiple beds like we’ve done in the past. It also had a kitchen, which came in pretty handy for washing water bottles and keeping our fruit and leftovers chilled in a real refrigerator. The first night I slept with the boys while they got used to the room, but by the second night I was able to convince them to sleep on their own with the connecting room doors open in case they needed us (or just got scared), and we brought their audio baby monitors for an added level of support. It worked out well.
Our first day in Boston was spent going on their first MBTA subway rides!
We met up with Matti and took the subway over to the Boston Museum of Science. Growing up in Maine, this was basically the closest science museum to us, so it was where our Girl Scout troops did our adventures at, I remember sleeping there at least once (maybe twice?). I have a ton of memories from there, and it had been years since I’d been back. It was a real delight to bring the boys there.
I had hoped that going on a weekday would mean the shows wouldn’t be as crowded, but the Tesla coil demo was already filled up a full 15 minutes before the show, and the 3D movie shows were mostly booked for pre-registered school groups. Still, we had a lot of fun. Aaron’s love of animals drew him into the natural history exhibit and drawers full of specimens, from fur to beetles to bones.
Adam’s more mechanical inclinations had him chasing lights and motors. They both enjoyed the dinosaurs and the Boston Dynamics robot.
The next day we took the other two subway lines (we hit all 4!) and for a visit to the New England Aquarium. Once again, this was the aquarium from my childhood, but the last time I was th/images/journalpics/072025/mtba_subway_fam.jpgere was actually in 2019 when Adam was a baby and we were in town for a conference. My mother, sister, and nephew came down to visit and we had a lovely day together.
It was really fun to meet up with Matti again and go with MJ and the boys. The aquarium was a bit lean on sharks, much to Aaron’s disappointment, but they both love penguins and this is a good aquarium for them.
We split our aquarium visit in half, taking a break for lunch and playground mid-day and then returning to see the rest of it later in the afternoon.
We also got ice cream, during which time the boys insisted upon getting soft serve ice cream from a truck, while the adults partook in Ben & Jerry’s. Yum.
The next morning it was off to Maine! MJ had a few car parts for the trailer hitch we couldn’t complete in Pennsylvania shipped up to Matti’s house, so he collected those in the morning and we got on the road around midday. I was thrilled to be on our way up to Maine, but the boys are real city kiddos and they loved spending time in Boston. We’ll definitely have to make the trip up again in the coming years, but this visit was a great start.