The second part of our trip excluded the boys. Parents, you can imagine why. You never fully appreciate a quiet car ride until your car rides aren’t quiet anymore. Sometimes we didn’t even listen to music. We stopped where we wanted, ate where we wanted and didn’t give a thought to schedules. It was lovely.
First, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the crab cakes we ate along our way to Philadelphia, just outside Baltimore. After a quick internet search, we found a favorite local spot (Box Hill Pizzeria) and bought two. They were absolutely, positively perfect.
Upon leaving the boys with my parents, we drove to New York City. That’s right. DROVE. As in, Chuck drove OUR CAR in MANHATTAN.
Every travel guide will recommend you take the train or some sort of public transit, as driving and parking in New York City isn’t favorable. (My nervous knots reflected this the closer we got to the city.) Frankly, we found it to be easier than expected. It helped that our hotel had its own parking garage and it was located just a few blocks on the Manhattan side of the Lincoln Tunnel. And when we left the city on Sunday morning, traffic was significantly less than it would’ve been on a weekday. Still, those people are aggressive. Very, very aggressive. You drive in the lane you claim by force.
Our visit to NYC was much more relaxed than when we went four years ago at Christmastime. We took in the final leg of the current Harry Potter Exhibition (no photos allowed – boo!) and spent half a day at the MET. (My favorite exhibit was the Arms and Armor which featured a number of suits from European monarchies – including Henry VIII.)
We ate at local, neighborhood restaurants from all cuisines and even caught a movie in one of the theaters in Times Square.
A stroll around Bryant Park at dusk and a quick drive to the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt made the short NYC trip complete. Then, we were off to the Cape.
Let me pause here to say my expectations of Cape Cod and the surrounding area were high. I fully believed that what you see on TV and in movies represents the entire coast of New England – lighthouses, traditional Cape Cod architecture, one seafood shanty after another, tugboat captains waiting to greet you… That is absolutely not the case. Just getting to Fairhaven took much longer than we anticipated because there were eight million drivers on I-95 going in our same direction. And while it looks like I-95 and Highway 1 hug the coast, making you think you’ll have some grand view of the coast, there is nary a view unless you drive due east past all the traffic.
Now this doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy Fairhaven, Cape Cod or any other part of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. We did enjoy seeing what we saw. (We even went up to Plymouth Rock – which was such a delightful town, as was Mystic.) But the reality is that our expectations were too high and driving the length of the Cape wasn’t as scenic as we anticipated. Still, the water – when we saw it – was beautiful.
We drove back to Philly on my birthday and spent another day and a half with my parents. It’s always nice to be with them, especially since we tend to go months without seeing one another. Yet, by Day 13, we were tired of driving, sleeping in random beds, and living out of suitcases. It was time to come home.