The Knutson Family Adventure

Our stop in Pennsylvania was at Silver Valley Campsites in Saylorsburg.  We initially booked 7 nights at this park, but we really loved the location so we added another 5 nights onto our stay here.  The campsite was near the Pocono mountains and on our first evening here we took a drive up to the top and watched the sun set from the top of the mountain.  It was beautiful.

 

There were tons of deer here.  Every time we went for a drive we saw quite a few deer and even saw a whole field full of them on one drive.  This park also had an indoor pool which was heated and almost as warm as a hot tub.  We took advantage of this lovely feature and went swimming pretty much every day we were there.

Our campsite was about an hour and a half from New York City, so we booked a hotel for one night in Secausus, NJ and left our giant truck at the hotel.  We were able to take a 15 minute bus ride from our hotel to downtown New York City.  We checked into our hotel at 4:00 and headed right into the city.  We grabbed hold of our children and made our way through the crowds to Times Square.

     

I was thinking that since it was during the school year, it wouldn’t be as insanely crowded as it had the last time I had been to the city; but I was wrong.  It was just wild!  The crowds thinned out a little as we left Times Square and headed up towards Central Park.  By the time we made it up there it was starting to get dark.  We walked around a little bit and the kids had fun climbing on some of the huge rocks located in the park.  It seems though, that at night in Central Park, the rats come out to play.  We saw one scurrying around and thought it was kinda cute, but then it seemed that everywhere we looked we saw rats running through the bushes and climbing on the rocks.  One crazy rat came running right at me and ran right into my foot which caused a bit of screaming and jumping around on my part, and laughter from Eric and the kids.  We left the park soon after that and headed out to find dinner and then head back to our hotel.

So the hotel we booked was only meant for four people, but we figured we could just lay the kids sideways on the queen bed and they would  be fine.  We have done this before, and while it is not the best option, it works.  Alas, our kids aren’t so little anymore, and complained that their feet were hanging off the bed.  We might just have to spring for a suite next time!  Our hotel offered a free hot breakfast, so we enjoyed a lovely meal before heading back into the city for the day.

Having 5 people in your family is expensive!  I am always looking up free or cheap things to do in each city that we visit before we go so that we don’t break the bank.  In New York City I found out that you can ride the Staten Island Ferry for FREE every day of the year!!  So instead of paying $30 or $40 a person to go on a harbour cruise, we rode the ferry across to Staten Island and back for nothing!  We got to see beautiful views of the skyline as we left and saw the Statue of Liberty as we rode past.

     

When we got off the ferry we walked around the lower part of Manhattan, saw the financial district and walked over to see the 9/11 memorial.  We took the subway up to Central Park so that we could see it during the day and wandered around there for a while longer.

                                 

We stopped and had dinner, and then decided that we wanted to get the kids pictures drawn by a street artist before we headed back to our hotel and then home.  We found a lady who did $5 kids caricatures so we got each of the kids pictures drawn by her.  She was super nice and said she just loved kids, so I think she spent way more time drawing our kids pictures than she normally would.  They turned out amazing!!  Definitely a perfect souvenir for the kids to bring home with them.

         

 

        

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

Let me just start by saying Massachusetts is a really hard word to spell…

Our stay in Massachusetts was in Sturbridge, at Sturbridge Encore RV Resort.  The name makes it sound much fancier than it was.  It was not our favourite park.  Luckily they had a couple of options for us to choose from as far as setting up the rv and we opted to be farther away from the crowded parking spots.  Also, there was no Wifi…we have been spoiled at most of the parks we have stayed at so far.  Eric uses the park Wifi to work if he can and we often need internet connection for school stuff that we are working on.  The kids have also  been using an online app called Duolingo to work on their French every day.  Anyways, it is nice when we have park Wifi.  This place did have an indoor pool that was open though, so the kids were very excited that they got to swim again.

        

While we were in Massachusetts, we took a day trip into Boston.  This time we took a commuter train in which was a nice way to get into the city.  While we were there we did a lot of walking.  We explored an old graveyard where John Hancock and Paul Revere were buried, we rode on the subway which was so full that we had to squish ourselves in to get the doors to shut, we went to a famous pastry shop called Mike’s Pastry and got a treat for everyone.  We stopped at one of the oldest pubs in Boston; the Green Dragon and had some dinner and tried a slice of Boston cream pie.

Probably the best part of the day for the kids was walking through Boston Gardens where there were squirrels so tame that they would come right up to you and eat out of your hand.  They would have stayed there all day if they could have.

       

Guess what!?  We didn’t do any rock climbing on this stop in our adventure!  We left beautiful Maine and arrived in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire on Friday September 16. One thing that I have been wanting to do at some point on the East Coast was to go on a whale watching trip.  So we looked one up and booked a 4 hour excursion on the Granite State whale watching cruise.

The boat left on Saturday morning at 11 am for our adventure on the sea.  We brought some snacks, sunscreen, warm sweaters and high hopes of glimpsing some whales.  We were not disappointed!  The boat took us out about an hour off the coast to a common feeding area for whales.  We caught a quick look at a very endangered Right whale, but only a few people on board got to see it, and then it was gone.  I was worried that we wouldn’t see anything else and the kids would be so disappointed, but not too long after that we saw a group of three humpback whales swimming around together.  There was a mom and her baby and one other whale swimming with them.  The baby was so playful and jumped right up out of the water a couple of times.  It really was an amazing experience.  Just so cool.

    

 

On a side note…our truck started making some weird noises soon after we arrived in New Hampshire.  We couldn’t get it looked at until today (Monday morning).  Apparently the turbo intake pipe had split…to the tune of $1700 USD in parts and labour 🙁

Also I think we might go broke from doing laundry.  At $4 per load ( to wash and dry) it is getting crazy expensive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are now 2 weeks into our homeschooling adventure and I must admit, it is a lot harder than I had expected!  The kids each have workbooks for their grade level that they are working on, but most of the lessons don’t really explain in much detail how to do the work.  So we are learning together through some of these lessons…especially Emma’s math, and grammar.

  

It is tricky when they all don’t understand what to do at the same time, and I am trying to explain to each of them how to figure out what they need to be doing.  I feel like I am spending a lot of time working on lessons on the computer at night as well.  Coming up with extra activities to do together and some more exciting things so we are not doing workbooks all the time.

    

Hopefully, things will get better as I continue to figure out what exactly I am doing.  We have had some beautiful weather while we have been travelling, so it has been nice to be able to work outside at the picnic table and do some of our work there.

We crossed the border into Maine without a hitch!  I am always nervous when we cross the border (for no reason whatsoever), so the idea of crossing the border and trying to explain why we were travelling and where we were going and how long we were going to be there had my stomach all in knots.  Also, we had forgotten to empty out our fridge and freezer so we were carting across some fruit and veggies and frozen meat which I don’t think you are supposed to do.  Anyway, the border patrol guy was super nice and didn’t seem at all phased by our plan to travel around the US for the next 6 months, and he didn’t ask about food so we just sailed on through!

  

Our destination was Balsam Cove campground in Orland, Maine.  So PEI is still tops on our list for destinations, but our campsite at this campground is now our #1.  We were backed up right onto the edge of a beautiful lake and the kids were able to climb down and see fish swimming around and catch mussels right at our campsite.  The kids grabbed their fishing poles and went fishing when they wanted, and the lake was nice for swimming in too.

  

While we were in Maine we drove out to explore Acadia National Park.  We bought the America the Beautiful National Park Pass which will let us into any National Park in the USA for the next year. (Thanks again Tim&Christie, Brendan&Carrie, Jen&Adam, Azzoparde’s,and Sue!)  Oh my goodness, the views were just breathtaking!  We drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain which was both terrifying and amazing at the same time.  There were boulders for guard rails the whole way up and most of the time I just had to avoid looking over the edge.

 

  

The kids thought they should meditate at the top of the mountain…

  

We drove to another part of the park called Otter cliffs and as we were climbing on the rocks (more rock climbing!), we saw what looked like a pod of dolphins swimming by!  Turns out it might have been a group of seals because a couple of seals came into the cove where we were and started swimming and playing around right in front of where we were climbing!  It was so neat to just happen upon them in their natural habitat.  So cool!  Haydn said it was the best day of his life so far!

  

Our next stop was at Ponderosa Pines campground in Hopewell Cape, NB.  It was literally a two minute drive to the Hopewell rocks.  We got there on a Friday night and stayed in and had pizza and watched a movie.  The next day we got up and went to see the Hopewell rocks.  I must say, it was a lot more walking than any of us had expected.  We hiked through the forest for quite a while and then we went down the staircase that takes you to the ocean floor where the rock formations are.  We all had on our flip flops because we were expecting to get our feet wet, so not the best planning on our part.

 

 

 

There were a lot of people there (which Eric did not enjoy) but the rocks were really neat and I am glad we went to see them.  The next day we took a drive to see a cute little town called Alma, where you can see the boats resting on the ground at low tide.  On the way out there we happened upon a cool lookout called Cape Enrage.

The kids all thought the name was awesome and there was a really nice beach there and more rocky cliffs to climb on.  I am pretty sure by the end of this trip we are going to be known as “the family who climbed on rocks”.  All the time.  Emma is already saying that she has seen enough beaches and climbed on enough rocks to last her for a while!

We made it to Alma and Eric wanted to get some close up shots of the boats resting on the ground.  The ground at the bottom of the boat launch was super soft and slippery though, and Eric came up out of there with one black foot and a muddy sandal that he almost didn’t get back at all.

Our first stop in Nova Scotia was at Wayside Campground in Glen Margaret, NS which was only a ten minute drive from Peggy’s Cove lighthouse.  We were only at this park for two nights.  Our shortest stop yet.

  

  

Eric has been getting good at setting up the camera with the 10 second timer, and then running to make it into the picture.  Sometimes, he doesn’t quite make it!

 

We drove out to see Peggy’s Cove that first afternoon that we were there but ended up stopping at a really beautiful rocky hill across from the lighthouse.  We climbed all over the rocks for a long time until our bellies told us it was time to find some supper.  We ended up eating at the restaurant right at the Peggy’s Cove lighthouse lookout and after supper we sat on the rocks and watched the sunset across the water.

    

 

The next day we took a scenic drive around another part of Nova Scotia. Eventually we ended up back at the big white rocks across from Peggy’s Cove because we had had so much fun climbing on them the day before.

 

 

Our next stop was in Kingston, NS at Jellystone Park campground.  The main reason we stayed at this park was because it looked like a lot of fun for the kids.  They had a really nice pool, a bouncy pad, mini-putt, and lots of playground equipment to play on.  Normally they also have lots of planned activities for the kids to be a part of, but since it was back to school time there weren’t any activities going on.  We started our homeschooling while we were here, so the kids were busy most of the day anyway.

  

 

We didn’t do much exploring while we were here, although we did head to the coast and found a dock that the kids fished off of.  Emma and Ada both caught a weird looking fish called a Scalpin (?)