Currently: Thinking about Colleges, Hybrid cars, Rest & Food

It's Monday and I'm back home. I went to the National PTA Convention this weekend and my daughters tagged along with me. Yes, it takes special kids to come along to a convention and actually attend some of the sessions.  During the convention, I was the featured blogger for the Family Reading Challenge launch and our family inspiration videos were posted.

Along the way, we stopped by Wake Forest University for a college tour (how did we get to this point already?!)  When I was in high school, I didn't do any college visits, I fully picked my school site-unseen.  Nowadays, however, college visits are expected and encouraged - and lots of them. I know folks who have visited ten, fifteen and more colleges with their soon-to-be-grad.  I don't think we'll do that many, we'll have to find a reasonable number.  If you've got a high schooler or recent grad, how many college visits did you all go on?

I drove a Ford Fusion hybrid for the trip.  Somewhere around 400 miles into the trip, the "E" light finally came on, I pulled over to fill up and with about 11 gallons, $30-some it was full and ready for another 500 miles.  Wow!  I usually drive an SUV (because we have to fit a family of six) so you can imagine the comparative cost and gas-savings.  I've got a while until my next car purchase, but this hybrid movement is something to think about.

When we checked in the hotel, I recalled again, my desire to one day check in to a hotel with no agenda but to get my full money's worth of the room rate. I want to sleep late in the comfy bed under the overstuffed comforters, have lunch on the pool deck, sip a drink during Happy Hour at the bar, sit on my room balcony reading a book.  Generally, I'm at a hotel for a convention or on vacation. Obviously, a convention schedule is crazy packed. And vacation, sometime is not as leisurely as we expect because we've got to get to the thing today before the lines get long.  One of these days, I'm going to stay in a hotel for no reason at all.

I'm recommitting to my workout plan that has sadly fallen to the wayside for no real apparent reason. But after a few days of grits, biscuits and sweet tea, I need to get back on it.  (More on what to eat in Charlotte coming up in separate post.)

I'm ready to cook. After a few days away, it's time to clean out the fridge and cook a meal, gather around the table with my full family and catch up.  Admittedly, it may take a few days for all that to come together with swim practice, PTA meetings, and basketball practice, but we'll get there.

What are you currently up to?

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Things to See & Do in Boston

Now that it’s getting cold, I’m thinking about an icy drink in a frozen glass.  At least, that’s what we had when we bundled up in the cold at the Frost Ice Bar in Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace.  Kept at a cozy 32 degrees, guests are given heavy parkas and gloves to enjoy their time in the frozen hangout (boots can also be rented for an extra fee.)  Everything inside is made of ice, or really really cold plexiglass, and even the drinks, served in molded-ice “glasses,” are even a little frozen.  It was fun, in a why are we paying to be frozen but we’re on vacation why not kind of way.

Frost Ice Bar, Boston

If you’re going to Boston, here’s a few other stops to make in the city.

Eat, shop, and people watch at Faneuil Hall Marketplace.  I guess every city has it’s little tourist-y square and this is the one for Boston, complete with street performers who cajole you to give them a couple dollars to do magic tricks or dance.  But, as the tourist, you got to stop by.  Visit the market, especially if you love options for foodstands.  Down both sides of the market they’ve got everything from seafood, pizzas, pastas, to endless options for clam chowder.  (I've even worked on a recipe inspired by the made-for-you macaroni and cheese stand - Everybody's Favorite Mac & Cheese.)

 

Faneuil Hall Marketplace

Do the college tour.

Harvard Gates

Stop by Harvard for lunch.  Lunch trucks and a mini-farmers market line up on one of the squares at lunch time.  We enjoyed wraps, noodle dishes, hydrogen blasted ice cream, and cheesecake pops.

Go to MIT Science Museum.  This is a very cool science space. It’s MIT – what would you expect?  When we were there, an exhibit about gaming was on the entry level with various stations depicting how a video game is developed.  Two of my kids are in a magnet program at school and one of the courses is on programming and gaming.  Careful stepping here, this vacation trip could get really close to being school-related.  There were also exhibits on the evolution of robots, holograms, and kinetic machines.  I know – doesn’t sound like “vacation,” but really – it was fun.  And for $10/adult and $5 for kids, it's pretty reasonable as far as family-friendly stops go.

The college campuses =also turned out to be the city with three ice cream stops - Lizzy's, Churn, and Christina's (you can read more in this post on our ice cream tour.) 

Take a historic walking tour.  We all know Boston from American history class – Tea Party, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, Underground Railroad.  There’s a multitude of options focused on various stories of history and interests. We took the Black Heritage walking tour, which started at the monument to the 54^th Regiment, the Black regiment depicted in the movie, Glory.  The tour went past various houses which once were old churches, segregated and integrated schools, Underground Railroad stops, and meeting places during the abolition movement.

 

54th Regiment Memorial and recruiting sign

Visit the Old North Church.  You really cannot go to Boston and say “one if by land and two if by sea” if you passed American history class, so go to the church where the lanterns (there were two) were hung to signal that the British were coming.  Inside, the pews are still divided in boxes.  According to the tour guide, parishioners back in the day had to pay for a box so that they would have a pew in church, then they would decorate their box in whatever manner they would like – cushions, wallpaper and such reasonable decorations for a church.  In the balcony were the cheap seats, often paid for by the box owners so that their house staff could also attend church and have a seat. The tour guide said that is no longer the practice, although the boxes remain.

Old North Church - steeple and box pews

And of course, take time to walk around the city. Enjoy the the city hills and the beautiful parks, the old and new.  Let us know your favorite sites in the city.

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Make Your Own College Tour

On our summer to-do list was “find the turtles and dairy at College Park.”  It sounds like some environmental adventure, but it’s not.  My kids, specifically my oldest daughter, Elle, had decided that they wanted to go on their own scavenger hunt across the UM College Park campus, in search of the Terrapin (“Terp”) painted statues across the campus and get a scoop of ice cream.  You’ve seen these painted statues, often a public works/arts/public fundraising project in various cities – an animal decorated in all kinds of themes and scattered through the streets.  Wandering through DC, you may spot a multi-color panda, donkey, or elephant on the street.

The flagship campus has their school mascot, a terrapin, painted and waving at passers-by around the university.  We had no map and the kids basically relied on their memory of where they thought they had seen them on previous trips to campus (basketball games, school trips, and alum activities with my husband, the proud Terp) and where it seemed reasonable (to my kids) that they should be.  We wandered fromm the Comcast Center to the main library, looking for these decorated turtles.

 

My favorite terp was the Kermit the Frog, in honor of UM alum, Jim Henson

Maryland also makes it’s own ice cream in the creamery operated by the College of Agriculture.  Somehow, we’ve missed getting a scoop on other visits, except Breeze who had some during a summer camp.  The Dairy's ice cream was really good – just sweet enough, full of mix-in ingredients – you know, the s’mores ice cream had lots of chocolate, graham, and marshmallow; the birthday cake flavor had good chunks of cake with frosting blended in.  I had “Fear the Turtle” – vanilla ice cream with white chocolate, pecans, caramel, crème de cacao, and triple sec.  We each had one scoop, which I have to say, was more than the normal commercial scoop – and about half the price.  A pretty good deal.

While in the student union, we came upon a small art installation which attracted the kids with its headphones hanging below video screens.  The exhibit was "Juke" by the artist Jefferson Pinder, a series of videos of African-American persons lip-syncing to a song not typically sang by an African-American person.  According to the accompanying placard, the exhibit "questions the perceived racial categories in music and asks...'is there black music?'"  One art exhibit, the kids can handle that.

We generally wait until kids are ready to fill out college applications before taking them on a college tour, but these mini-towns can be a fun place to wander around even when the kids are younger.  Of course, we first think of the sports teams and their games, but also consider all the majors and their related buildings and exhibits – music performances, art exhibits, farms, libraries, chapels, and athletic facilities.  And if there’s an agriculture college – ice cream or other agriculture products. My alma mater, UDelaware sells Blue Hen wool yarn, shorn from the sheep on the farm.  Many of these buildings and exhibits are open to the public and offer affordable options for a family outing.  And shhh… don’t let the kids in on this part – they might even learn something along the way.

So for your next close to home day out, check out your local university.

UPDATE:
After our road trip vacation, summer 2014, I am adding the MIT Museum and Harvard Square to the list of great college visits.  If your family enjoys science museums - MIT has to be on your list if you're ever in Boston.

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