Founding Philadelphian, The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA

The Franklin Institute

220 N 20th Street

Philadelphia, PA

As a former US history teacher who was particularly passionate about the American Revolution I have a confession to make:  I love Ben Franklin! I love that he grew up in Boston. I adore his passion for public libraries. He was an amazing ambassador to the French with his coon skin cap. But mostly I love his passion for American scientific know-how. Where better to  celebrate  than in the institution committed to his work and memory. 

We began our journey in the new Brain exhibit. It had everything from optical illusions to experiments on reflexes and the senses. Grandpa Barry studies the brain and would love this place to share with the boys. 

I hadn't been since I took a junior class there in '08, but the heart exhibit still rocks! The kids got to walk two floors up through the valves and loved exploring their anatomy. They got to peddle a bike that powered opera singers belting out lyrics on fitness. 

In the Sports Challenge center we got to see how fast they could pitch, race a wheelchair and score on a soccer goal. If we had had more time would have even ridden the circus exhibit bike across the third floor of the entrance atrium. There were so many more fun, engaging activities left to do we will need to get back for more. What a great way spend a rainy day in the city of Brotherly Love. 

A Slice of the Woods' Past, Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY

Adirondack Museum

Route 30

Blue Mountain Lake, NY

We have not been lucky the last two summers up at Big Moose lake with the weather.  It always amazes me that whether it's Maine, the Northern Kingdom of Vermont or upstate New York, it can be 50 degrees here and 80 at home.  

We are always searching for rainy day activities that don't include things we could do back home; movies, snacking, mini-golf. Dad had the brilliant idea of the Adirondack Museum. 

The boys were captivated with the history of this adventureland. We spent ages on the antique train that used to be a Brooklyn Rapid Transit car before becoming a mile long shuttle between two lakes. 

But besides the 12:30 feeding of the trout, the highlight was the American Mountain Man Encampment.  Mountain Man Bill and his reenactor friends showed us how to skin a fox, to shoot a rifle and throw a tomahawk.   It was another great entree for the boys into our wilderness past and the history of this amazingly scenic place. 

Zooooom into Boston's Past; The Larz Anderson Auto Museum, Brookline, MA

Larz Anderson Auto Museum

15 Newton Street

Brookline, MA

We have celebrated New Year's since 2001 every year but one with one of my good friends from Brookline.  We faced off as volleyball rivals while he was at Brookline High (they always killed Newton North, so maybe rivals is a bit of an overstatement.)  We then co-captained the team in college and met up again in grad school and it has been twenty years now.  I was always a little jealous of those Brookline kids; the hair, the clothes, that urban swagger.  We even looked to move there first on our return from NYC.  That was before I even knew about Larz Anderson.

They had brought their boy Luca to the outdoor ice rink this week on a recent homecoming (which I am now dieing to bring Sydney to).  What I didn't realize was that this expansive estate includes acres of rolling hills, gardens, bbq spots and of course it's own museum.  Anderson's wife, Isabel Weld Perkins (as in Bill Weld, her grandpappy who left her $17 million, and our former Gov's namesake) clearly bankrolled this chateau-inspired land-grab.  They were one of the first families at the turn of last century to collect new cars like we collect matchboxes in my house.

Kami and I appreciated the beautifully designed carriage house, which holds the oldest collection of cars in the country.  Sydney and Elijah were in love with the chance to play with giant racecars in the kids' room.  The restoration garage was pretty cool too.  But we clearly missed the high season; "we host Lawn Events almost every Saturday and Sunday throughout the spring, summer, and fall!"  Evidently, the high hippy turn-out for Volkswagon day is not to be missed.

A Transcendental Christmas; Concord Museum, Concord, MA

Concord Museum

200 Lexington Road

Concord, MA

Ok, so we don't celebrate Christmas.  But I always was a sucker for those trees.  What better way to spend the holidays than the Concord Museum's 15th Annual "Family Trees; a Celebration of Children's Literature." (Open December 3rd to January 2nd).  Now, this is a top-notch local museum to begin with.  There is a great collection of Americana from this center of the Revolution, even if it isn't as fancy as the new MFA wing.  Of course they celebrate neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson (who resided across the street) and that little battle that happened just down the road.

But, on the day before Christmas, you come for the trees.  There were majestic pines filled with hand-stiched animals from one of our fav authors Clare Beaton's, "One Moose, Twenty Mice."  There were even pails hung from the outdoor tree of the fabulous "Ox Cart Man" by Donald Hall.  We got to make our own wish for the tree for "Wish: Wishing Traditions around the World," by Roseanne Thong, illustrated by Elisa Kleven.  But mainly we read on the comfy couches, soaking in such new wonders as "Kermit the Hermit," by Bill Peet.

According to the museum, "each tree serves as a canvas for the artistic creations of a dedicated team of volunteer decorators. Inspired by the storyline, the illustrations, the characters or setting of a particular book."  So while many of you are out there jostling your way through Toys R Us or fighting for that last ham at Whole Foods, you might want to take a minute and enjoy the simple glow of the holidays in the quaintest little town on earth.

All Star and All-American; The American Wing at the MFA, Boston, MA

Museum of Fine Arts 

(the new American Wing)

465 Huntington Avenue

Boston, MA

We are museum snobs.  There, I've said it.  I think we deserve it though.  After years educating kids at the NYC Museum School  and plenty more traveling the globe I think I get an opinion or two.  I grew up on the MFA.  It set the bar for my own art education as a kid.  You may find it hard to believe that I followed the opening of this wing in the Globe more closely that the recent trades for Gonzalez and Crawford to the Sox lineup. 

The MFA was already a world-class institution, if not a bit stuffy.  This Art of the Americas wing upgrade was like scoring Crawford, Gonzalez, Jeter and Rivera.  We camped out in the colonies for half our visit.  Sydney was so enamored with the artist demonstration on colonial chair making, I thought we may never get him out of there. Liji was busy comparing Copley portraits with mommy.   Sydney and I were smitten with GW crossing the Delaware.

Alright, so maybe mommy and I are not much for 19th century America.  But what a lovely surprise to be greeted with TWO Calders on floor three, our fav.  The tech wasn't too bad either; both boys loved restyling some famous works on the touch table computers.  But the real thrill was the views through the three story walls of glass.  Sydney just hung out looking over the diners and the junction of the old and new.  A treat for almost everyone of the senses.

The Wonders of Nature @ The Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge, MA

The Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum

26 Oxford Street

Cambridge, MA

I worked at camps almost every summer of my young adult life.   One summer though, I decided I should get a REAL job that would build my resume.  I fell into an unpaid internship at Cultural Survival, an amazing non-profit loosely linked to the Harvard Anthropology Department that works to protect indigenous cultures around the globe.  Sometimes at lunch I would wander into the old Peabody museum and the glass flowers collection.  I am sure this somehow led me to my first job in teaching at the Museum School in New York, somehow...

As amazing as the collection was in 1992, it has since been totally renovated into a state-of-the-art, world class exhibit space.  We have gotten lost a few times with the boys in the endless Hall of Mammals.  And while many of the specimens are starting to crack a bit, it is no less impressive to look up at a whale skeleton here than it is to peer upon the blue whale at our fav the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. 

After a quick swing through the glass flowers and Minerals, Gems and Meteorites I rediscovered my roots.  There in the back corner was a hallway connector to the Peabody.  Three floors of amazing ethnographic discoveries just waiting for kids.  I couldn't recall back 18 years to whether those twenty foot murals from ancient Central America in Encounters with the Americas had stolen the show.  And as a big fan of Mexican culture, we were engrossed in the Dia de los Muertos exhibit (it didn't hurt that Halloween and hence Dia had just passed.)  Yet, we barely skimmed the surface and we will need another return trip.  I thought I was running out of Beantown Dadventures, it looks like I can book one at least.

Turistaventure #1; Faneuil Hall, Boston, MA

Faneuil Hall Marketplace

N. Market Street

Boston, MA

When the cuzzes are in town from Orlando, you gotta start off the weekend as touristy as it gets.  Go Faneuil Hall.  I mean, where can you get more square miles of "Boston" t-shirts anywhere else in Beantown?  Where else can you hit fried dough and oysters in the same stretch of crazy market hallway?

We started off in style with a revisit to the Commons.  Sydney reminded us of our last pleasant outing for the Walk for Hunger.  So we hit the Swan Boats again, and made sure to catch the carousel.  We breezed past the Frog Pond which looked like it was better suited to skating than swimming.  Then we rocked the Freedom Trail for a few minutes down to the Hall, giving a shout out to the Sam Adam's grave and the Revolutionary reenactors sporting it as tour guides.  Perhaps another day, in say ten years when they may care a bit more (see Williamsburg and Lexington).

Now before you enter the hall, it is important to plan a strategy.  Don't by any means get stuck at the pizza Bagel stop with kids.  They will think they want them (and they don't).   Make a bee line for the tables in the court to hold down the fort.  Then slowly plan out your attack.  All we cared about was the Walrus and the Carpenter Oyster Bar, a fav standby.  Most importantly though, we hit the shows.  This time we watched Lucky Bob, Prop Comic Juggler.  For a five spot in tips, out kids were amazed for over half an hour.  Best of all, he called on Sydney out of dozens of other little ones.  And my little man, he threw a perfect strike of a bowling pin to Bob while he balanced on a board. A perfect turista intro.

The Other Cape; Cape Hatteras, The Outer Banks, NC

The Hatteras Light and Pea Island

Cape Hatteras 

The Outer Banks, NC

Turtles and light houses.  Hmmmm….  The Outer Banks is a Cape-like juxtaposition of natural wonders and man-made fun.  There are bumper boats and bogs.  Kite stores and hundred-foot dunes.  Nowhere is this more true than Cape Hatteras.  Home to centuries of shipwrecks (including the infamous Blackbeard the pirate), this spit of sand should have featured in the Old Man and the Sea (atop the list of my Hemingway favs), because nowhere else has man versus nature played out more splendidly (not even on TV).

The Hatteras light; score one for the home team.  Nature won this battle so triumphantly that man had to move his creation hundreds of feet inland away from the shifting tides.  While this beacon saved thousands of lives, it is a wonder how many were lost in pursuit of glory.  Sydney and I were joined our Carolinian friends Brian and Ainslee on the one hundred and twenty step ascent up to the top.  Nature won again though and we were barred from the observation deck by the same winds that allowed the Wright Brothers to fly.

Score one for man at the conservation land at Pea Island.  We poked through a marsh full of snowy egrets and humongous turtles only to discover a bulldozer and backhoe.  Now my men love their trucks, but it was a little disconcerting to discover man’s machines in the middle of an otherwise pristine landscape.  We dug a little harder and found retaining walls constructed by Carolinians to preserve such beautiful and wild places.  Folks like Brian who directs the North Carolina Conservation Network are working hard to make sure that man works with nature to make this place a gem for generations to come.

Taking Flight on the Outer Banks: The Wright Brothers National Memorial, Kill Devil Hills, NC

Wright Brothers National Memorial 

Wright Memorial

Kill Devil Hills, NC

It was just about Sydney’s age that I began the wonderful pilgrimage every month via good ole Eastern airlines from Hanover, NH to my dad’s new home in New Jersey.  A four-year old flying solo?  Terrifying you say?  Oh no, it was the 70’s and I got first class treatment without the regs.  Tours of the cockpit on every flight.  Super, attentive flight attendants who who’d rarely met a kid of divorce.  I fell in love with planes. I was determined to get my pilots license by fourteen.

The boys have flown a lot.  Check out their recent jaunt to Rome or their semi-annual pilgrimages to Miami. I had hoped Sydney might catch the bug.  What better place to go viral than Kitty Hawk.  I tried with my poor physics skills (a D on my first test in high school = no more physics, ever, not MC squared) to explain how they created flight.  The museum does a decent job, for rocket scientists.  We spent a long time reenacting the first, second, third and fourth flights as he ran the distance between the markers.

The highlight of the day was by far the park ranger program.  Every park we go to they get more and more kid-friendly these days.  This one was kite flying, no joke!  And voila, Sydney asked all the right questions about flight.  Even Liji was able to figure out how to put a man on the moon that day.  Perhaps my boys will fare better in physics than either I did or those crazy Wright Brothers.

History Alive; Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, VA

Colonial Williamsburg

427 Franklin Street

Williamsburg, VA

As a history teacher, I love reenactments.  In fact, my friends and I got a grant one summer just to trail the civil war throughout the south.  We didn't get in one reenactment!  Perhaps it was my early experiences with Plimoth Plantation.  Maybe it was 7th grade when we got to reenact the trial of the Boston Massacre.  I got to be the lead bad guy, how cool. I think we may wait a little on that one for the boys though. In the meantime, we eased them in with Lexington and Concord this winter.   We were ready for the show.

I had always planned a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, but just never hooked east from Richmond.  On our trip south to North Carolina, the chance presented itself.  Sure it was 95 and humid as all get out, but we were ready.   We slid past the plantation (boy is slavery tough to explain) and started toward the shady gardens by the Governor's palace.  The kids loved the run through the intricately carved bushes.

We were pouring sweat and desperate for lunch (daddy, lunch!  Daddy, Lunch!)  Our options were the Tavern and…. The Tavern, so we picked Chowning's.  I wasn’t sure how we would introduce terms such as grog and wenches to our young kiddos.  Thankfully besides the dress and the décor we were given the choice of modern conveniences such as turkey sandwich and bbq pork sandwich.  But, the highlight of the trip was the reenactment.  FINALLY!  Sydney literally chased the pied pipers down the street as they paraded from the beautifully restored brick capitol building to the end of town.  Hot, sticky and a bit over their heads?  Perhaps.  An educational destination for their teen years sandwiched betwixt a stop at Water Country and Busch Gardens down the road?  For sure.

Sydney the Science Kid: The Science Discovery Museum, Acton MA

Science Discovery Museum

177 Main Street

Acton, MA

Growing up, everybody loved science.  Dad is a neuroscientist, mom a Children's Hospital administrator, even my step-mother had her PhD in biomed.  Both grandpas have a post-grad degrees in the sciences.  Dinner talk was of rat brains and fat cells.  Until sophomore year in college, I was sure that I would be joining them (until I discovered organic chem). But science is still in the blood, and it sure trickled down to our boys (despite the Lewis/Krieger family Law genes).  

We already loved the Discovery Children's Museum.  But my father can sniff out a science museum from a hundred miles, and realized last winter that there was one next store.  Today's trip featured Bessie the Dinosaur's birthday.  She didn't look a day over twenty eight, but she sure had left a lot of eggs to find between the steam machine and the polarizing lenses.    One of today's highlights though was the harmonographic table.  This was the coolest giant spirograph we had ever seen, and we have the drawings to prove it.

Like its next door neighbor, the Science museum is a great place for parties for kids of all ages.  They insist that this museum is geared toward the older set, but both Liji and his pal Noah who are two couldn't be pulled out of there.  Even in the pouring rain we had to try out the satellite dishes where we could whisper secrets to Sydney 100 feet across the entranceway.  So while Acton may not seem like the most convenient location, come for the day.  Throw a PBS Sid the Science Kid in the car DVD, hit the Children's then the Science, and you can't go wrong.

Cape Rains, Fun Pours; The Cape Cod Children's Museum, Mashpee, MA

The Cape Cod Children's Museum

577 Great Neck Road South

Mashpee, MA

Many of you face this choice every weekend.  To Cape, or not to Cape.  Those of not fortunate enough to own our own borrow.  In this case, our borrow of choice for years has been my folk's place in Mashpee.  So while you crazy folks navigate the bridge traffic every good lookin' weekend, we pick and choose.  But when we don't  choose quite right, we end up here at the Cape's best indoor space (nothing personal Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, it was close).

Why has this former warehouse pulled beantowners down for twenty years?  It's gotta be the pirate ship.  Where else can four year-olds stand a story up on this sand bar and launch soft cannon fodder down at their parents?  The toddlers, (well our Thomas addict) love the trains.  You can crawl your way through four cars and even pose plastic farm animals precariously on the front grill.  There is plenty of science as well, from a rolling track for golf balls to math toys.

What makes this place special though is the extras.  Every once and a while they pull out the Star Lab, a cool inflatable planetarium.  Their puppet theatre hosts work from Falmouth high students.  Even more impressively, they feature an entire section on the history of the famous Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, (we missed the Pow Wow at their HQ next door, again!)  So, the next time you make the bridge gamble and get caught in a gale, instead of sitting and reading Good Night Cape Cod, over and over again, head to Mashpee for this indoor dadventure hotspot for kids.