The Hamster and the Highway

Worst. Alarm clock. Ever.

I don’t know which scared us the most: the hotel fire alarm, the sizzling lightning bolts, or the hot dog vending machine.

On Sunday we weren’t starting the day until the Red Sox game, which was scheduled for 1:35 p.m., which meant we could sleep a little later than usual. I scheduled a wake-up call at 9:30 but instead we were woken at 8:26 by the hotel’s fire alarm. We quickly threw on pants and shoes and left the building, joining a whole bunch of other bleary-eyed guests outside as the sirens wailed and the firemen teemed of their trucks and into the building. A few minutes later we got the “all clear” and headed back inside, learning that a smoking toaster had set off the smoke alarm, which automatically calls the fire department, and there was never any actual fire. Phew!

Unfortunately we were wide awake and had no plans until the Red Sox game, so we decided to just head to Fenway Park early and soak up the atmosphere. We were already parked more than 2.5 hours before game time and already thousands of Sox fans in their Sox gear were teeming toward the ballpark. As a Mets fan who drags himself to meaningless games in a half-empty stadium, I found the excitement refreshing, and I was more than a little jealous. We spent some time at the carnival that is Yawkey Way on game day: live music, stilt-walkers, and buskers and barkers of all kinds.

This is the best thing about having a ballpark right in the middle of a vibrant city: the whole neighborhood becomes part of the experience before and after games. Several cities have smartly placed their relatively new ballparks in such locations, and it makes a huge difference. It makes parking expensive and scarce (I paid $30 to be in a tiny lot down the block from Fenway) but it makes public transportation a better option and it’s totally worth the tradeoff. Madison Square Garden’s location in Midtown Manhattan and the Barclay’s Center in Downtown Brooklyn are similar, but the summer and the general lack of commuters rushing home from work makes such a difference in the general vibe.

Anyway, inside the stadium our mission was to find one of the two kosher food stands that we’d heard were there. It’s incredible how ubiquitous kosher ballpark concession stands have become over the past decade. 15 years ago there was only one such stand, in Baltimore’s Camden Yards. Now there’s kosher food at most ballparks and arenas on the East Coast, and it was nice to know that I didn’t have to worry about packing a lunch. That is, until we found the kosher stands. They are, in fact, not stands but vending machines that heat up and dispense real food.

You can imagine my disappointment. The machine on the right did hot dogs only, and the other one served up knishes, onion rings, and some other disgusting looking stuff we didn’t bother with. Not having much choice, I ponied up $20 for three hot dogs and a knish for the two of us. Sam was amazed at the technology, and at the part when the hot dog vending machine said, “Your bun is warming” on its tiny LED screen. He was also very happy with his knish. As for the hot dog, we both agreed that they weren’t terrible, but I kind of wished I had packed a lunch.

When it came to the game itself, the weather was beautiful, the Red Sox won, the crowd cheered from start to finish, Sam thoroughly enjoyed the antics of the team mascot (Wally, the Green Monster). I could really get used to this home-team-winning thing; they should try it in New York. The only blemish on the whole experience was that our seats were so cramped as to be uncomfortable even for Sam, who is currently a little shy of 5 feet tall. It’s been several years since I’ve been to Fenway for a game, so I forgot to buy tickets in the newer seats and we were scrunched up into seats that were installed in 1912, when people and ballgames were both a whole lot shorter than they are today. I love Fenway, but it’s a lot like the beaches in Cape Cod: pretty to look at, but physically uncomfortable.

After the game we left Boston for Salem, home of the famous witch trials of 1692 and lots of touristy crap relating to more to Wizard-of-Oz-type witches and less to the history of the Puritan hysteria that led to the execution of 19 Americans as “witches.” I did some research and picked what appeared to be a more reliable spot, the Salem Witch Museum. I was wrong. It was less a museum and more a cheesy haunted house that happened to be based on history. Spooky narration, dark theater, devil with glowing eyes … it all added up to freak Sam the hell out. Of course, it didn’t help that, on the way to Salem, what had been a partly sunny day turned into a crazy lightning storm, and as we walked into the museum there was an ominous and massively loud lightning crackle so perfectly timed that for a second I thought we had just walked into the Halloween episode of a bad sitcom. I think it was the same lightning bolt that destroyed the Hill Valley clock tower.

Sam lasted only about three minutes into the museum’s presentation before losing it, so we left and the museum people were very nice about refunding our admission. I guess I should have known Sam would have a hard time with it; he frightens easily and we were going to a museum about witches. Still, I guess I expected more history and fewer theatrics, but we quickly moved on. Well, not before we took one final picture with the extremely creepy-looking statue in the center of town:

It looks like more cheesy witch stuff, but this is actually a statue of Roger Conant, the first settler of Salem and not a witch, despite his interesting wardrobe choices.

By this time the rain and lightning had stopped, Sam was calm, and it was time to go skydiving.

Yes, skydiving. OK, not exactly skydiving. I have a thing about skydiving: I’m fascinated by it and I’ve always wanted to do it, but I have children, and even though skydiving is pretty safe things do go wrong occasionally, and recreational skydiving would be a really pathetic reason to leave my children without a father. The solution: indoor skydiving at SkyVenture in Nashua, New Hampshire. What is indoor skydiving, you ask? Basically, you get all dressed up like you’re going to jump out of a plane, but instead you hover over a massively powerful fan that makes you feel as if you’re falling through the sky at hundreds of mph when in fact you’re in a small room floating just a couple of feet above a net. I had never even heard of indoor skydiving until I started researching things to do in New Hampshire, but it seemed like a great way to get the thrill without the risk.

I figured I would love it but I was a little nervous about how Sam would do, especially after Salem. I was reassured somewhat by the sight of a 14-year old who was having his birthday party at SkyVenture when we walked in. So instead of buying the minimum two minutes of flight time for each of us, as I had planned, I got us each five, which would be done in two 2.5-minute flights. I could tell that Sam was a little nervous, so I went first.

IT WAS INCREDIBLE!

You start by standing at the edge of the flight chamber as the fans get up to speed, and then you just tuck your arms close to your body and fall forward into the chamber, letting the air lift you as you spread out your arms and legs. It took a minute to get used to it and to get consistent with the proper body position that would allow me to stay roughly in the center of the flight chamber, and then it was just crazy amounts of fun. Sam sat right outside watching me, and he had a grin wider than his safety goggles (and the goggles were pretty wide). When it was his turn he jumped right in, and that smile didn’t stop.

The second time we went in, a stunt instructor went in with us and took us up to the ceiling, back down to the net, and spun us around, which was even more exciting. I don’t know which I enjoyed more: taking my turn, or watching Sam take his.

The place was pretty empty, so when we finished our flights they offered us a couple more minutes at half price. We jumped right back in. Then the instructors jumped in to show off for us, walking up and down walls and doing all kinds of cool flips and tricks. Sam gushed, “I wish I could work here, so I could do this all the time!” We spent the whole drive to our hotel raving about how fantastic it was, and comparing it to other crazy road trip experiences we’ve had, like riding a dune buggie in Oregon and riding a monster truck in North Carolina.

That one rough day we had last week was a distant memory. It may have taken a little while for things to jell, but now we’re on fire.

As much fun as we had touring in and around Boston Friday, Shabbat was desperately needed.

It’s a little weird to spend Shabbat in a hotel. It’s always difficult to figure out which lights to leave on and which to leave off, and then at some point Saturday morning housekeeping comes in a changes all the lights anyway. And you end up focusing so much on having food that it’s easy to lose sight of all the little things you take for granted at home, like packing candles and matches and other necessities, plugging in the hotplate, unscrewing the refrigerator light, pre-ripping paper towels and toilet paper, and on and on.

Friday night I was pretty glad I had focused so much on food. We ate very, very well this Shabbat: dinner started with an appetizer of lamb stew, followed by short ribs with lemon garlic green beans and potato knishes, and then a cinnamon swirl for dessert. For lunch today our appetizer was chicken fingers, and then Sam had chili-rubbed steak with herbed roasted potatoes and I had General Tso chicken with Jasmine rice, we both had roasted cauliflower with sautéed onions, and dessert was a nutty tort. Not bad for a hotel in Woburn.

[Side note: Sam is amazed at how everything is pronounced in Massachusetts. Gloucester is “glawster”, Woburn is “woo-burn,” and I blew his mind by correcting his pronunciation of Worcester.]

For our road trips, I fill a backpack with cards, travel board games, and reading material. We call it the Magical Bag of Shabbos Fun, because it magically gets us through long afternoons in our hotel room without going stir crazy. (He’s got summer reading to do for school, and he knocked off one of his two books this afternoon.)

Hotel pools tend to be great for that, too, but there’s always the issue of getting to them, getting into them, and getting back into our room without using elevators or electronic keys. Today we were planning to hit the hotel pool when disaster struck: I went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, and suddenly there was water everywhere. The toilet overflowed and water continued to gush out of it. In seconds there were gallons on the floor and it was still coming with no end in sight. I grabbed every towel I could see and started building a dam in the bathroom doorway while I told Sam to run out of our room and find someone who works at the hotel. Somehow he returned just a few seconds later with someone in uniform, who got the water to stop and then left to get someone from maintenance, who in turn fixed the toilet, wet-vac’ed the bathroom, and then went and got someone from housekeeping to come in and clean up. Within 20 minutes, there was little trace that anything had happened. I am happy to say that even though we had a few problems here, everyone–everyone–on staff at the Residence Inn in Woburn really knows what they’re doing.

Anyway, we did end up spending some time at the pool but so did what seemed like every family in the Boston area. Oh well.

The real treat of this Shabbat, aside from the food, was the sleep. We didn’t get enough of it this week so I was thrilled to be in bed before 9pm on Friday. At home we have a ritual that everyone comes into my bed to read, talk, and/or snuggle while all the problems and stress from the week slowly melt away–until one parent starts dozing off, at which point everyone gets kicked out and sent to their respective beds. It’s always one of my favorite parts of any given week. That’s exactly what happened this time, with Sam and I cuddling and discussing whatever happened to be on his mind until the sleep started taking over. At some point my kids will decide that they’re too old for such activities, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

We got an early start Friday because we had a lot to do and we had only until sunset to do it all. Our first stop was a very brief one at the state capitol, the 15th state capitol that the Hamster and I have visited. They generally all look pretty much the same: marble or some other type of stone, lots of columns, big dome on top. Boston’s looks a bit different in that it’s yellow. And the big dome is not visible from the rear of the building, which is the side we saw first. Sam said this made the building look more like a mansion than a state house, and I have to agree.

The first time I took Sam to Boston, we took a tour of the Freedom Trail, which included a lengthy stop in the cemetery that houses the graves of John Hancock, Mother Goose, the five victims of the Boston Massacre, and Samuel Adams. Our tour guide, who was clad in colonial garb, pointed to the bar across the street from the cemetery and mentioned that it’s the only place you can drink a cold Sam Adams while looking at a cold Sam Adams. This time I decided to find a better spot to enjoy a cold Sam Adams: the Samuel Adams Brewery.

This was my third brewery tour (I’ve been to Budweiser in St. Louis and Coors in Golden, CO), and it was by far the best. Mainly that’s because it was much more focused on the beer-making process and the way that various ingredients affect the taste and the process of the beer. And it did so interactively: we tasted barley that was malted to varying degrees and we mashed hops in our hands, which left our hands smelling fantastically hoppy the rest of the day. We even got a lesson in how to properly taste beer the way competitions do. Also, our tour guide, Alan, was freaking incredible. I knew I was going to like him when he started off the tour by saying, “I want to thank you all for coming here today. I know you have a lot of choices when it comes to places that will give you a free tour and free beer at 11am, and I’m very grateful that you chose us.” He was extremely knowledgeable, a craft beer evangelist, and hilarious. Plus he was already sipping a pint when he started the tour, which like he said started at 11am. That man has a good, good job.

The one really surprising thing I learned on the tour was that Sam Adams beer is no longer made in Boston. They outgrew the brewery we visited several years ago so almost all of their commercially available beers are made at satellite breweries in either Pennsylvania or Ohio. The Boston place is now used just for R&D, which allowed us to taste a really interesting, sweet and bitter beer that they haven’t released to the public yet. What with all the tasting of beer, I forgot the name of this not-yet-available concoction, but it looks like this:

Poor Hamster, though, was bored out of his mind the entire time. He understood exactly none of what was being said, and he couldn’t taste the beer. In the tasting room they gave him a bottle of root beer, but he doesn’t even like root beer. However, the tickets they give you for the tour are beer bottle labels, so Sam entertained himself by attaching his label to his root beer and pretending he had a bottle of beer.

Our next tour was a lot more formal: a campus tour of Harvard University. Sam is 11 and he’s now toured three major universities (Notre Dame, Duke, and Harvard). This tour, like the one at Sam Adams, was free, but despite the phrase, you cannot actually “pahk your cahr in Hahvahd Yahd.” The only place to park is an underground lot that cost $20.

Anyway, the tour itself was fine. The campus is stunning and the history is fascinating. Our student tour guide, however, was so over the top in her effusive exclamations of how incredible everything is at Harvard that it got ridiculous at times. One example: when she was raving about the Harvard’s great system of matching freshman up with roommates, she said that she and her roommate got along great and they “still talk to this day.” She just finished her freshman year in May.

Anyway, we did see the famous Harvard Yard, sat on the steps of the library, and the statue of John Harvard, also known as the Statue of Three Lies. Why? Because the pedestal reads: John Harvard, Founder, 1638. Lie #1: Harvard was founded in 1636, not 1638. Lie #2: John Harvard was a benefactor to the already-existing college, not the founder. Lie #3: the statue is not of John Harvard. By the time the statue was commissioned, all known photos of John Harvard had been destroyed in a fire, so the artist picked some random student to sit in and the statue looks like him. Despite all this, or perhaps because of all this, our tour guide told us that John Harvard is the third most photographed statue in America, behind only the Statue of Liberty and the Lincoln Memorial. This is a commonly touted bit of trivia, but I find it so hard to believe that I’m thinking it might be lie #4.

We enjoyed Harvard but we were ready for some real history, so we headed out to Concord to Minute Man National Historic Park, which commemorates the battles in Lexington and in Concord that started the American Revolution. The final battle that day stretched across 16 miles as colonial militias essentially chased British troops back out to sea; the park encompasses four miles of that battle road and several original buildings that survive from that time. In the main visitor’s center we watched a 30-minute multimedia movie about the day’s events, which included Paul Revere’s midnight ride (which was actually made by Revere and two other, less famous, guys named Dawes and Prescott). The movie was really helpful in giving Sam background and context so he could really appreciate the significance of everything we were seeing. From there we stopped at one of the original buildings, where we chatted with park rangers in colonial garb, and we finished at the North Bridge, a cute wooden bridge over a very calm river that looks so serene and peaceful that you’d never guess it’s the spot where the first order was given for colonists to fire on British troops.

Near the bridge were various statues, plaques, and memorials, all of which were very poignant. But the one that stuck out for me was the grave of the British soldiers who were killed that day, which I think is a beautiful and telling memorial to have. Until that day, the colonists were as British as those soldiers, and some of them had even fought alongside each other a decade or so earlier in the French and Indian War. It was nice to see that in all the commemoration over our fight for freedom and democracy, we haven’t completely forgotten that we were once one people.

Despite the fact that the Hamster and I both kept accidentally calling the place “Minute Maid Park,” our trip to Minute Man National Park was very meaningful to both of us and led to some deep conversations later in the evening in which Sam expressed fear of ever fighting in a war because he might die, and couldn’t think of anything that he would be willing to risk his life for. Which makes perfect sense, because he’s 11 and he spends most of his time thinking about iPhones and sports and not about big, serious ideas like self-sacrifice and democracy and such. But it won’t be too long before he starts thinking about those things, and I’m glad he’s seen both the cost and the gains of some of the many, many people who have made such sacrifices so that he can waste his time thinking about iPhones and sports.

We had a great time today in and around Boston. We stopped by the state capitol, took a tour of the Samuel Adams Brewery, took a tour of Harvard University, and then visited Minute Man National Historic Park in Concord, which commemorates the battles at Lexington and Concord that started the American Revolution.

Shabbat is starting in about half an hour, so I’ll leave it at that for now. I’ll discuss in more detail and with pictures tomorrow night.

Thursday was much better than Wednesday. The Hamster and I made up late Wednesday night and resolved to have a fun and relaxing day Thursday. It got a little rocky at times, but our resolution held.

It all started with a late wakeup, which was necessary after such a late night. And when I opened the curtains, I noticed for the first time that outside the back of our room was a beautiful pond populated by several ducks and a swan. It’s not a bad way to wake up.

The original plan for the morning was to try yet another beach in Cape Cod but after the first two I was wary. Instead I decided to hedge my bets: We would go to beach #3, but first I requested a late checkout from our HoJo and we hit the outdoor pool for about half an hour. The weather was great, the water felt good, and we were the only ones there. Once we left the motel we headed to Sandy Neck Beach, which is one of the most highly rated beaches in Cape Cod. Then again, so is the painfully rocky one we went to the day before. This time the beach was on the cape side so the water was clear and calm and breathtaking. But the beach was extremely rocky to the point of being painful just to walk on. On the plus side, the rocks that covered it were prettier than the rocks that covered the other one.

I really don’t get it. Cape Cod is cozy and beautiful and charming and all, but it’s known for its beaches and they’re just not nice, and they’re expensive to boot. There are many Cape Cod beaches we didn’t see, but if the ones we went to are supposed to be the nicest ones, I’d hate to see the rest. The most exciting part of our trip to Sandy Neck Beach was finding a car with Alaska plates in the beach parking lot. Though, in fairness, that’s pretty freakin’ exciting.

Anyway, our next real stop was Plymouth Rock, but first we needed lunch, and we figured there was no better place for it than a town on the way out of Cape Cod called Sandwich. You’ll never guess what we ate.

If I worked at it for an hour or two, I might be able to fully convey the excitement that Sam had over eating a sandwich in Sandwich. It’s kind of sad that that’s most fun we had in Cape Cod, but adding to our good fortune was that our sandwiches were legal, so we didn’t run into trouble with you-know-who:

Anyway, that was it for Cape Cod. The drive to Plymouth was short, and we managed to find a decent parking spot right away, so we were in pretty good moods considering we were there just to look at a rock.

Plymouth Rock itself is extremely underwhelming. It’s not nearly as big as you’d expect, because it’s only a small hunk of the original rock, which was both accidentally broken and intentionally cut down decades ago when it was moved from its original spot, and then moved again. It also has the year 1620 engraved in it, which was almost certainly not done by the pilgrims. I’d show you pictures of the rock but the position of the sun when we got there cast really strange shadows on the rock, so just about any photo you find online will be better than the ones I took. Plus we learned when we got there that the pilgrims may or may not have even stepped on it in the first place. But even if the rock is more symbolic than truly historic, it still signifies the birth of our country, a country the Hamster and I have experienced pretty thoroughly and eagerly continue to explore and enjoy. The rock, in many ways, is a perfect metaphor for America: we like to believe its story is simple and pure and completely positive but in reality its history is complicated and rife with controversy, occasional incompetence, and the willful mistreatment of different peoples. It’s been stepped on, it’s been broken, chunks of it have been bought and sold, and it’s moved a lot, but still, all these years later, here it is for the world to see, welcoming all visitors and proudly boasting of its accomplishments.

Next up was Boston, where we’ll be through the weekend. Boston was tough to plan for because I’ve taken Sam there before so the major sights and activities (Boston Common, the Public Garden, the swan boats, the Freedom Trail) have already been seen and done. So we’re doing a few quirkier things this time, and tonight’s activity was an IMAX movie on a giant dome-shaped screen at the Museum of Science. It took us forever to get there, and Sam spent the drive watching Hoosiers on the portable DVD player. I will admit that when he got up to the famous locker room pep talk scene I took my hands off the steering wheel to join in the slow clap. Anyway, we eventually made it to the museum in time for a 6pm showing of a pretty good movie about the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad through the “Rockies,” which we assumed meant the beaches in Cape Cod. It seemed like an odd subject matter for a Boston museum but the Hamster and I both hold the position that trains are awesome, so we loved it. And in the few minutes we spent waiting around for the movie to start, Sam got to explore an exhibit about planets and have a telephone conversation with planet Earth (you know, the third rock from the sun).

“Earth to Sam! Earth to Sam!”

On the way out of the museum we were approached by an Orthodox Jewish couple who asked if we were locals and if we knew where they could get kosher food. We gave them the names and addresses of a few places in the suburb Brookline and then headed out there ourselves for the same purpose.

We first picked up food for Shabbat from a dumpy little place called The Butcherie that had an array of takeout foods that was impressive both in variety and creativity. I let Sam pick where we’d get dinner; he picked Chinese. The meal was fine, and of course we bumped into that couple from the museum at the Chinese restaurant. And they were parked right behind us, so we saw them again as they were getting into their car; I noticed their New York plates, and Sam noticed that they’re traveling with the same portable grill that we are, too. They’re headed back to New York already but as we drove to our hotel outside of town I was thinking about that couple and whether they’ll pack up that grill and drive it to faraway places when they have kids, like I’m doing with the Hamster.

I love a lot of things about Boston. I love its layout and its architecture and its parks and its harbor and its downtown. I love its history. I love its famous ducklings. But most of all I love its attitude. Often brutal winters, invasions by the British, and decades of losing to New York sports teams might’ve broken a less hearty city, but Boston doesn’t flinch. Although the people individually are generally very friendly and kind, the drivers are aggressive (and often mean), and the whole city seemed to be giving the Hamster and I the middle finger when we entered the city and were welcomed by the sight of a tower that looked identical to the one in Provincetown that we weren’t allowed to climb yesterday. As a New Yorker, I have great respect for that particular brand of obnoxiousness.

And yet what I love most about Boston right now is that we’re staying here through Sunday, which means I don’t have to unpack or repack the car again for three whole days!

So to sum up, Thursday rocked!

As great a day as Tuesday was, Wednesday was at least that awful. It started out well enough, with a drive to Cape Cod and a free tour of the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory in Hyannis. We watched them make potato chips from start to finish, and then we ate free samples which were so fresh and delicious that I didn’t even feel guilty about eating potato chips. Much later in the day, we even visited and went inside the Nauset Lighthouse, which is the actual lighthouse in the potato chip logo. I’d share pictures, but everything else we did all day sucked so badly that I’m just too tired to bother.

A brief rundown:

1) After the factory we headed to Sunken Meadow Beach, which might be awesome during high tide but we got there during low tide, and there was no water. Literally. Boats were sitting on sand. Sam insisted on staying. We fought.

2) By the time we left the beach I had gotten a parking ticket.

3) Then we went to Nauset Light Beach, which is right next to the lighthouse. The parking lot was full so we had to wait a half hour for people to leave. Also, the beach looks like a nice, sandy beach but just beneath the water it is very rocky and the strong waves not only pulled us off our feet but pelted us with rocks so hard that my foot was bleeding. Sam insisted on staying. We fought.

4) Then the lighthouse. Fun. Pretty. Scenic. Improved moods.

5) Then we drove 40 minutes to the very end of Cape Cod to climb to the top of Pilgrim’s Tower for fantastic views in every direction. We got there at 6:29. Sam insisted on staying in the car for a few minutes to do something on his phone. Then we walked in and were told that the latest they let anyone start climbing the stairs is 6:30. It was 6:33. I pleaded, but to no avail. And now we were at the furthest possible point, 1.5 hours from our crappy motel, for nothing. That’s when I really lost it.

6) We were also hoping to see a Cape Cod Baseball League game. Because of everything else, we’d be very late to the game, at best. And we still hadn’t eaten dinner.

7) We tried to salvage the day by going to the ballgame anyway. We got there in the 5th inning, and the home team (the Harwich Mariners) were already losing 8-0. An inning later it was 11-0. We still hadn’t eaten dinner. Sam wanted to move our seats so he could chase foul balls. We fought again, and we left.

8) We didn’t get to our crappy motel until 10. We were still covered in sand. We never had dinner.

Once in a while these road trips lead the Hamster and I through a place that we love so much that we start thinking about the practicalities of permanently moving there. Montana had us for a while until we remembered that there’s no kosher food. Denver was promising but for the lack of beaches. Tennessee was great but has no major league baseball. St. Louis we still talk about as if we’re really moving there, but then my lovely wife overhears us and puts on the kibosh. Newport, Rhode Island almost got us … almost.

Newport is beautiful beyond description. Gorgeous beaches, colonial houses covered in colorful cedar shakes, mansions that make the mansions near where you live look like bungalows, and a gazillion lighthouses are just the beginning. Much like Savannah, Newport has done a great job of modernizing without losing an ounce of its old-fashioned charm. Most business are local Mom & Pops, but there are national chains sprinkled in without being obtrusive. Parking is atrociously nonexistent and public lots are pricey, but the downtown area is small and walkable, and even the drivers don’t seem to be in any hurry–I don’t think I heard a single honk the whole time we were there. Even the street names contribute to the happy-go-lucky feel: Friendship St. was followed by Pleasant St. and then by Bliss. And if you need a change of pace, just venture 10 minutes outside of town and you’ll find farms–real farms, with cows and crops and stuff, literally a few minutes from downtown Newport. And there’s a even sizeable Jewish community there, anchored by the famous Touro Synagogue, which is the oldest in the country (although we learned today that it was shuttered for about 50 years in the 19th century).

The Touro Synagogue was our first stop Tuesday, and although it was a bit smaller than we both expected, it didn’t disappoint.

The building is beautiful inside and out, and the congregation (approximately 115 families today) played an important part in our nation’s history. George Washington stopped by when he was passing through the area to promote ratification of the Constitution. Rhode Island was the last state to sign on, due to concerns that the Constitution didn’t specifically separate church and state (a problem remedied by the First Amendment, of course). The shul president expressed similar concerns to Washington, who wrote a now-famous letter in response that is one of the earliest and one of the clearest pieces of evidence that our Founding Fathers built this country in part on the idea of religious freedom. I had read the letter years ago, but seeing it in Washington’s handwriting and in the very building to which it was addressed added layers of meaning, especially while hearing about the synagogue’s having been founded by Spanish Jews who had relocated after fleeing the Inquisition.

Sam was much more interested in hearing about and seeing the trap door in the middle of the room that leads to a small hidden room just in case persecution followed the Jews to America.

From there we headed just out of town to another old building, but this time we were much more concerned with what was outside. The Green Animals Topiary Garden surrounds a historic mansion, but really, who cares about the house when the backyard is a sculpted garden full of more than 80 life-sized animals sculpted out of hedges?! I don’t even know how to begin choosing which to show you, so here’s a few:

Giraffe

Camel

Bears

Horse with rider

Owl

Tyrannosaurus (Notice Sam’s short arms.)

My favorite was actually the unicorn, but for some reason my photo of it refuses to upload here, so you’ll just have to trust me.

Anyway, by the time we were done with the green animals it was past time for lunch, and we were hungry. Good thing there are lots of kosher food options in Providence, which was where we were headed next. We made a quick stop at the state capitol, which looked pretty much like most other state capitols, and we’ve been to a bunch of them. Then it was finally lunch time.

Only, it didn’t quite work out that way. I had printed up a list of all the kosher places in Providence but once we were actually trying to pick one it was unclear which were restaurants and which were just caterers. So we started calling them to find out. They were ALL caterers. Every single one. Wait, no, there was one place that was an actual café–just not a kosher one. Well, it’s kosher on Thursdays, they said. I don’t even know how that works but a big part of our pretend plan to move to Newport was the availability of kosher food. So, never mind.

We’re well stocked with food so whipping up a substitute lunch was no problem, but we were a bit disappointed about not having hot food. Luckily Providence saved itself from our wrath by providing two completely different types of entertainment. First there were the weird statues we enjoyed seeing as we passed through different parts of the city: a very patriotic chicken standing outside a liquor store, a giant blue termite hovering over I-95, and an eagle that’s, I dunno, yawning?

America is so weird! Today it was concentrated to one small city but stuff like this is EVERYWHERE! Giant lumberjacks, human skeletons walking pet dinosaur skeletons, Stonehenge rip-offs made out of discarded cars or refrigerators … as a country, we have some serious public decorating issues.

We weren’t quite done with Rhode Island, however. The Boston Red Sox’ top minor league team is in Pawtucket, just a few minutes north of Providence. I originally bought tickets to The Pawtucket Red Sox’ Wednesday afternoon game, but we were so far ahead of schedule that I figured we could see them Tuesday night instead and then spend all (instead of half) of Wednesday in Cape Cod. The tickets were so cheap that I didn’t mind eating the cost of Wednesday’s, and there were still decent tickets available for Tuesday night’s game when we arrived at the ballpark. Better still, parking was both ample and free, and we were able to grill dinner right in the parking lot before the game. Things did go slightly awry when the car died while we were grilling (I had foolishly run down the battery by leaving the radio on and charging my phone). But it miraculously started up again while I was still on hold with AAA, and we had plenty of time to run the engine for a while for insurance before heading into the stadium.

McCoy Stadium is probably most famous for hosting the longest game in the history of professional baseball, a 33-inning affair that was eventually won by the Paw Sox (as they’re affectionately called) a full day after it began. What the Hamster and I found most interesting about the place, though, was that the dugouts are not actually dug out. They’re at ground level, and then the fans sit a whole level above.

Strange architecture or not, we had a great night. The weather was perfect, two first pitches were thrown (one by the first pitch was thrown out by a veteran of the women’s pro baseball league depicted in A League of Their Own, and the other by the current Miss Rhode Island), we saw several players we recognized from their stints in the majors, the Paw Sox won a squeaker by scoring the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth inning, and the Hamster kept his minor-league streak going by catching not one but two baseballs tossed to him by players on the visiting Norfolk Tides.

For me, though, the best part was being reminded of how much fun baseball can be. Going back to last season, I’ve gone to roughly 15 consecutive Mets games without seeing them win. And when I’ve gone, the weather has generally been either unbearably cold or unbearably muggy. Tuesday night I watched the home team win in great weather, and I did it with one of my favorite people in the world. The Mets had gotten me to a point where I could barely remember why I even liked baseball, and by the time we left the ballpark Tuesday I had just one thought: How could anyone NOT love baseball?

Well, that, and “I hope the car starts.”

Connecticut was going to be the challenge. From the moment I started planning this trip, I was at a loss for what to do in Connecticut. The biggest attraction in the state is the seaport in Mystic, which is fantastic and enchanting, but I took the Hamster there for a couple of days a few years ago, so there was no need to double back. There are three minor league baseball teams, but one of them we saw on the way to Mystic, another is too far out of the way, and the third wasn’t going to be home when we needed them to be. So I asked my friend from West Hartford, Connecticut, what there is to do in his home state. His answer: “Nothing. Connecticut blows.” So, what to do with Connecticut? You kinda can’t get from New York to the rest of New England without going through Connecticut. Ultimately we settled on three stops, all right along I-95, which we’d be taking all the way into Rhode Island: the Pez factory in Orange, lunch in New Haven, where there are a few kosher food options, and finally the US Naval Submarine Museum in Groton, complete with an actual retired Navy submarine visitors can board.

Each year we’ve kicked off the road trip with a first stop that both of us could really get excited about. The first road trip started with the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Last year’s first stop was a guided tour of the U.S. Capitol in D.C. And this year, Pez.

I started collecting Pez dispensers when I was in 11th or 12th grade. A few years later I met my future wife, who thought it was cute and joined me in my modest quest to collect what was at the time some 100 or so current dispensers. Of course, it wasn’t long before the folks at Pez got a lot looser with the cartoon characters they were willing to recreate in sugar-dispensing form, and now our collection numbers somewhere around 600 dispensers and has outgrown even the dozens of linear feet of custom-built shelving in our basement. Meanwhile my wife tweets as @pezmeister1 and our kids are constantly calling me from various candy stores asking whether we already have a particular Pez dispenser. In fact, if you’re reading this there’s a decent chance you’ve called me with that same question. So when my neighbor told me a few months ago that there’s a Pez factory in Orange, CT, AND that said factory allows visitors AND has tons of rare Pez dispensers on display AND has a big store, too … well, first I checked a map to see where Orange is and then I put it on the Must-Do list for this trip. When I told the Hamster that it’d be our first stop, he responded, “What a perfect way to start the trip.”

It was. We were in heaven before we even got inside the building: the outside has three giant packs of Pez candy, and even the safety poles in the parking lot are striped to look like a stack of Pez. Inside was smaller than we had imagined, with everything in one room, but it had everything we needed. First a small interactive exhibit about the history of Pez, then a brief movie about how both the candy and the dispensers are made, and then windows through which we could see the factory in action. When we turned around we were looking at huge display cases full of old, new, and rare Pez dispensers and toys. And on the other side of those displays was the store.

The store! Hundreds of dispensers, choose-your-own candy, and various paraphernalia. In seconds my shopping basket was overflowing and Sam was grabbing a second basket. And then a third. The checkout girl was in disbelief. And as she rang us up Sam asked an important question: “Where are we going to put all this?” The car was pretty packed when we left home. There was a bit of room in the trunk for souvenirs but not for three full shopping bags of Pez dispensers. I stood outside, staring at the already full trunk, and I had to laugh. Suddenly making Pez the first stop on our trip instead of the last stop didn’t seem like such a great idea. Somehow we managed to find room for all the Pez but we may have to jettison some of our clothes in order to buy anymore souvenirs.

We also made a video postcard, which you can view here: http://www.yourpezvideo.com/video/display/view_key/1375112420

After the Pez factory we had a fine lunch in New Haven at a kosher supermarket that had a few tables next to the takeout counter, and while we were there we picked up some extra takeout for dinner so that I wouldn’t have to find a place to grill later on.

Our next stop was supposed to be the submarines, but Congress messed that up. See, the museum is normally closed on Tuesdays. But since the sequester went into effect it’s now also closed on Mondays. So no submarines for us.

Undaunted, we continued to Rhode Island. Our first stop was the absolutely adorable seaside town of Westerly to ride the country’s oldest carousel. As a New Yorker I half-expected high prices, flashing lights, and a cadre of hanger-on tourist traps. Instead we found the somewhat ordinary Flying Horse Carousel right next to the entrance to the beach, and rides were only $1.50. And the rides were long, too. And we even found a parking spot close by, which I quickly realized was the biggest coup of the day.

Thanks to the submarines we were pretty far ahead of schedule so I figured we would try to squeeze in some of tomorrow’s itinerary. Up next was Newport, RI. In no particular order, Newport is known as the home of three things: the oldest synagogue in America, the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and the former summer homes of the richest families in America. Synagogue tours were done for the day by the time we pulled into town, but we managed to get to the Tennis HOF about half an hour before closing. The woman inside said it usually takes about 40 minutes to go through the hall and the attached museum. The Hamster likes playing tennis but he doesn’t really follow the pros, so I figured we could make it in and out in time. We did.

The building is stunning–the hall and museum are housed in the original, sprawling Newport Casino building that held the very first U.S. Open in 1881, back when they were calling it the U.S. Lawn Tennis Championship.

The hall itself is a bit underwhelming, with backlit plaques for each inductee attached to large rectangular columns in one small room. And there seems to be no pattern at all to the order of the plaques, so you really have to look at every one of them to find any particular player you might be looking for.

The museum is just OK–it’s small, predictable, and not at all interactive, but it does have some cool stuff, including the U.S. Open trophy that Martina Navratilova won for defeating Chris Evert in one of their more epic battles. The best part, though, was a preprinted trivia scavenger hunt that the woman at the front desk gave Sam. It gave him a focus and got him to pay attention to some interesting stuff he might’ve missed, like a letter from Martin Luther King to Arthur Ashe and an Andy Warhol painting of Chris Evert. And there was even a prize for finishing the whole sheet: a Tennis HOF pencil that changes color when you touch it. This was especially good because the gift shop was very overpriced and thus pretty frustrating for Sam. But the real treat was yet to come.

Normally you need to pay extra to be able to wander the grounds of the museum, which includes several historic grass tennis courts that were once used by great champions. But since it was closing time for the museum and Sam finished his scavenger hunt, the woman gave us access to the grounds. We wandered for a few minutes and I noticed a sign telling us to visit the pro shop to find out about playing tennis on the grass courts. It occurred to me that playing on these historic courts would be a real treat, but I immediately nixed the idea for several reasons:

1) We weren’t dressed for tennis.

2) We had no tennis equipment with us.

3) The experience would surely be expensive and I had already spent my entire monthly budget at the Pez factory.

4) Sam doesn’t know anything about the game’s history and wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.

5) We’re not very good at tennis.

Moments later, though, the Hamster noticed the same sign and viewed the opportunity much less practically. As in, “That’s so cool! Let’s go play!” Instead of being the bad guy by just saying no and heading back to the car, I decided to humor him and let the people in the pro shop be the ones to say no. Instead they said yes. As in, “Yes, there’s a court available right now.” And “Yes, we can rent you racquets. We can even let you use a couple of demo racquets for free.” And “Yes, you can play in what you’re wearing, even though we have a strict rule about playing only in tennis whites, because it’s late and none of the uptight members are here right now.”

So, somehow, despite not even planning to visit the Tennis Hall of Fame until tomorrow, the Hamster and I played tennis for half an hour on its historic grass courts this evening. It was exhausting but we couldn’t have been happier that it worked out the way it did.

We were on a roll so I decided to push our luck one more time and head to Cliff Walk, a three-mile-long public walking path that cuts through the backyards of the former summer mansions of the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Astors, etc. It also cuts along the rocky cliffs that separate those backyards from the Atlantic Ocean, so the scenery was breathtaking no matter which way we looked.

And because we got there close to dinner time the crowds were pretty sparse. And it was FREE!

Completely spent after a day of driving, Pez-buying, tennis-playing, and Cliff-Walking, we holed up in a Travelodge for the night, dug into our New Haven takeout, and savored the many surprises of the day.

The concept of tradition is so strong in Judaism that there are even rules for how to establish a tradition. In a nutshell, it amounts to this: if you do something three times it becomes an official tradition, and traditions are followed almost as seriously as if they were actual laws.

Tomorrow the Hamster and I hit the highway for the third time, thus officially turning our multistate father-son summer road trips from a crazy idea I had a few years ago into an official tradition. Regular readers of this blog may remember that, just before the first road trip, I wrote about how nervous I was about all that could go wrong on such an adventure. Instead, just about everything went just right and a new tradition was born. Now the road trip is something we spend all year reminiscing about, planning, and anticipating. People who were once incredulous that I would dare to make such an ambitious pipe dream a reality now routinely ask me, “So where are you and Sam going this summer?”

Our past trips have been so outlandish that I feel a bit sheepish admitting that this year’s trip will take us through “only” six states and will put a mere 2,500 miles or so on the car. A few years ago, spending three weeks on the road squeezing as much fun as we can out of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Canada, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut would’ve seemed insane. Now it seems almost wimpy. But wimpy or not, we’re going to see parts of the country we’ve never seen and soak up history, nature, kitschy tourist traps, and everything else in between, and we’re going to have a great time doing it.

And, like most traditions, little rituals have sprung up that sometimes seem almost as important as the tradition itself. The planning of the itinerary, the checking of baseball teams’ schedules, and the asking of far-flung friends for advice on what to do and see in their area are just a few now-annual activities. Just last week the Hamster reminded me that we have to take a picture of the car sitting in front of our house all packed up before we leave. And I know it seems a little silly, but my favorite part of the build-up to the trip is going to Costco to buy the giant barrel of pretzels we get every time; there’s something about that purchase that both solidifies the reality that, yeah, we’re really doing this, and reminds me throughout the sometimes overwhelming planning process that we’re going to have so much fun that eating a billion pretzels is not even close to being the best part.

So here we are, veterans who now know exactly what to pack, how to most efficiently fill up the car, and which traditions to adhere to, but at the same time we’re the same wide-eyed kids who can’t wait to see what new parts of this extraordinary country has to offer. The Adventure Boys, as the Hamster has been calling us, have our big barrel of pretzels and we’re back at it. Here we go again …