Category: Activities

We spent 3 nights in Key Largo, Key West just seemed to far to drive back up to Orlando for.

We stayed at a “resort” and really splurged. I can’t remember how much it was but it was certainly more than the $80 a night we spent in NYC! It was worth it.

Turns out the Keys are protected from having sandy beaches by the barrier reefs, thank God! Our hotel had 2 private docks, a pool, games and a small “beach” with kayaks and paddle boards.

We spent the days relaxing, swimming in the pool and playing giant Jenga. Moose and I went on a kayak and managed to spot a manatee. I tried my hand at the SUP but failed miserably. Either I was paddling myself in circles or I was acting a sail and being blown out to sea. I gave up and paddled back to the dock on my knees. Utter failure!

There was a great bar colocated where we had drinks and dinner. For $100 AUD we got 2 crab cakes and 3 cocktails! Gotta live a bit, right? The cocktails were strong enough that we ended up back there 3 hours later for dinner!

We planned ahead and got a glass bottom boat cruise on Groupon. I suppose we’re both a bit spoilt. I’ve been diving on the Great Barrier Reef and Hanika’s been around the Whitsundays a few times. This was a 45 minute boat ride out to a lacklustre reef for 30 minutes then 45 minutes back to land. In all honesty the sharks at the marina were more interesting! Hanika was treated to sea turtles and dolphins while I took care of Moose sleeping away his sea sickness.

One night Ollie decided he didn’t feel like sleep. The warm weather and safeness meant we could do a midnight walk. We hit the highway and walked a mile to a Waffle House for a 3am snack! The joys of fatherhood.

Despite the small beach we ended up with sand all through our room. Apart from that it was perfect. The weather was great, hot but not too humid, clear skies and a lovely ocean breeze. It certainly felt like we were chasing summer down the East coast. So far Key Largo had be the unexpected highlight of trip, certainly much better than Miami. More authentic, more relaxed, more Darwin.

Next we set off to Orlando to start HaJo 2019 @ Disney!

We set off from Chester to Boston for 3 nights. On the way we stopped at AT&T (see last post) and Springfield MA.

The Dr Seuss museum is located at the Springfield Museums. They’re a member of the Association of Science-Technology Museums so that meant our Montreal Science Museum card got us in for free! Nothing better than saving $60 before lunch! The museum was small but good. As to be expected it was highly interactive. They had a floor that was furnished with his furniture to remake his studio and living room, complete with both Emmys.

We arrived in Boston (Forest Hill) and checked into our Air BNB. It was a lovely 3rd story suite with 1 bedroom, full kitchen, futon for Moose and off street parking for the van. I headed out to meet up for dinner with Arun who I met during orientation at McGill and have remained close to ever since.

The following day we headed out to to explore the harbour side. We stopped off at the Boston Tea Party Museum for a dry scone and sub par coffee (should have tried the tea!). Next we went to the highly recommended Boston Children’s Museum. I know there are only so many things that can keep a young child entertained but I must say that this was almost a repeat of the Ottawa museum! Moose didn’t seem to care though and had lots of fun running around.

That night we got a babysitter (another online agency) and I took Hanika to Legal Seafood. I ordered what turned out to be an platter clearly meant to feed a family! It did come with a appetiser of chunky clam chowder though. Hanika still isn’t sold on clams though.

The next day was slightly less productive. We made a late start after our traditional Sunday morning pancakes. After we wandered around the harbour and caught up with Arun and his family for a drink. Moose had a go on the carousel and was insistent on riding the grasshopper.

The highlight of the trip from Hanika, as far as I can tell, was finding coffee that was finally up to par with Australian standards! Clue, it wasn’t Dunkin Donuts.

We made good time packing up and set off for NYC.

After Montreal we spent 3 nights in Chester Vermont. Why Chester? No reason really. It seemed half way to Boston and the Air BNB was the right price.

We left Montreal and headed straight for the Ben and Jerry’s factory for a tour and tasting. They had an informative propaganda film that exalted the values of being bought by Unilever. Saying that, they must be better than Nestle! We had a couple of ice creams before getting back in the car to find Chester. We were without cell phones at this point (more on this in another post) and arrived after dark to our little cabin in the woods.

In the morning we were greeted by wild turkeys running around and beautiful tree covered mountains. We spent the day getting groceries (beer) and walking around the forest. The next day we had a 1 hour train ride through the hills and got treated to some early foliage.

On our last day we did a self guided walking tour through Chester. We stopped at a local cafe for lunch, a tasting flight of beers and picked up more at a local beer shop. Vermont is famous for its selection of craft breweries and we weren’t disappointed.

Our cabin was fantastic. Nestled amongst the trees, completely secluded. It had a full kitchen with a washing machine and oven. It was almost completely baby proof and even had baby gates. The finished basement had a ping table which occupied Moose for hours.

After Vermont we went to Boston to catch up with more friends!

Back to my second home! I’ve always loved Montreal and it’s still the only place I’d move back to Canada for. We spent 3 nights here.

We stayed downtown at an Air BnB apartment. It had a late check in at 1630 so I risked it and arrived at 1600. It was a self check in process and I found the door open with the keys inside as promised. I also found the place in a tip. The sheets were clearly used, all the towels were piled up and there were still dishes in the sink! I grabbed the keys and sent a message to the host to let them know. In fairness they had 30 minutes before I was supposed to check in. We used that time to get some groceries. We arrived back closer to 1700 to find the cleaner at work! I thought I was well prepared for Montreal being functionally bilingual. What I didn’t prepare for was trying to speak Spanish! Luckily I took one year in high school… The poor cleaner looked surprised to see us in the apartment and worked as fast as he good. Hanika sat in the hallway with the boys while I shuttled our bags out of the van. Our babysitter arrived (we were due out for dinner) to find the kids crawling around the halls! We managed to get the kids dinner and settled before we darted off to join friends 30 minutes late!

We ate at a delicious French restaurant called “Grenadine” in the Latin Quarter. 3 of the group ordered the 6 course degustation. Much to my surprise we were all given different meals for each course! I had a mouse foie gras creme brulee, horse and a rum and sorbet pallet cleanser. Other people had rabbit and deer.

After dinner we went to Benelux which was our old regular brew pub where I worked after graduating for a few months. We had a great night going through some old and new beers and catching up.

The next day Alex hosted brunch at his place, complete with Cesars (which is a Bloody Mary with clam juice added). I seem to remember the metro to be much easier to ride when I was single and childless! The metro system is not very pram friendly, especially after using Toronto’s subway. I had originally planned to take the family to Tam Tams but time got away from us and we headed for a quick nap before dinner with family friends (I first met them in Thompson in the early 90s).

The follow day we went to the Science Museum to pick up our memberships. The exhibits were alright and kept Moose occupied but I don’t rate it as highly as the one in Ottawa. As a bonus we got free parking for being members which saved us $30! We had St Viateur bagels for lunch, a superior bagel as compared to any we’ll get in NYC! We had a classic poutine dinner at La Banquise to finish off the day. It was dreary and raining all day so that limited our time outside. I walked around McGill with Ollie but the whole campus is covered in scaffolding.

What we’ve learnt so far is that we need about twice as much time as we had planned to do things. That means we should be spending a week or so in each city. We’ve booked the next few major cities already but I think this will influence how long we spend in places after that. Also, packing is terrible! Hanika’s made it her goal to make us more efficient at short stays instead of dragging all our belongings out of the van every night.

Kids and busy days don’t lend themselves to long transits on public transport. We drove a lot more than I had planned but found parking easily enough. There’s no way the kids would have tolerated a 40 minute journey plus walk at 8pm!

After Toronto we made a quick one night stop in Ottawa to catch up with my uncle, cousins and second cousins. Despite multiple attempts we couldn’t get a nice photo of all the kids (mainly because mine can’t/won’t sit still).

The following morning we went to the Science and Tech museum to burn the kids out before the quick drive up to Montreal. We bought memberships to the Montreal Science Centre which gives us reciprocal entry to lots of museums. Even though we hadn’t picked up our cards yet I was able to show them the online receipt and we were waved in!

The museum had lots of interactive exhibitions covering transport, mining and even medicine. Moose wasn’t nearly excited enough to see a stethoscope that belonged to William Osler. He did however like smashing a hockey helmet with a hammer.

We had a quick drive to Montreal until we hit the construction. I didn’t trust Google maps and followed the sign posts and ran right into the worst congestion ever!

After a month it’s time to leave Winnipeg and start the road trip part of the trip. It’s been great catching up with friends and family and being “home”.

Since the last post we’ve been keeping busy. We went out to the Living Prairie Museum (a bunch of native grasses), the Forks multiple times, Go Kart racing and even made time for an escape room!

We played some street hockey to introduce Moose to even more Canadian culture. I grew up on a street full of families with children of overlapping ages. As we’ve all left the empty nesting parent’s haven’t moved so there’s been a glut of children around. Things are changing! It was a great multigenerational game with children, parents and grandparents all playing.

The escape room was heaps of fun! We went with Eric and Jenn (Eric and I met each other in grade 6). It was loosely based on the movie “Alien” and involved solving puzzles aboard an alien infested spaceship. There were lots of puzzles requiring different levels of communication. One involved talking Eric through a puzzle via an intercom while he was in a black room and we could see him with a nigh vision camera. The staff acted as aliens and worked hard to scare us. I believe Jenn was successfully terrified.

Tomorrow we’re flying to Buffalo NY to pick up our car and start our first road trip. We’re heading back to Canada through Niagara, Toronto, Montreal then down the east coast of the USA to Florida for 2 months. The blog posts should be more frequent from now on as we write about all the things we’re doing.