Tales From the Minivan

Today was Day One of our road trip to Pennsylvania, we hit the road around 10:30am, about 2 hours behind schedule, but this is nothing new!  Our destination today was Chelmsford, Massachusetts.  It’s about an 8 hour drive, just west of Boston along Interstate 495.  I can’t believe what a great drive it was! We stopped to fuel up once we hit Maine, then didn’t have to stop again until we hit the capital of Maine, Augusta this time to fill our bellies at Friendly’s.  For those of you not familiar it’s a US family “Friendly” restaurant, that has great ice cream as well.

We let the boys run off a little steam on the Friendly’s side lawn, then loaded everyone up again in the van.  Liam and Ciaran seemed to have a renewed love of Pokemon again  and soon became entranced in it, as Andrew, Mackenzie and myself sang our lungs out to ABBA Gold. I absolutely love ABBA, and after seeing Mamma Mia twice last week, I knew I needed it for our road trip.  Mackenzie was funny, as soon as a song from the movie would come on, she’d tell me the exact scene!  Here, I thought she didn’t like the movie.  Finn, was just loving our singing and the animation in Mackenzie.  I was little skeptical as I switched his car seat just before the trip and wasn’t sure how he’d like it.  The boys have been fighting every time we got in the van over what seat they were going to sit it.  In the back row of the van I had our Britax Marathon installed with our Sunshine Kids Radian.  To alleviate the feuding I decided to move Finn’s Marathon to the back, and bring the Radian to the middle row and install it rear-facing.  Yes Finn at 19 months is still rear-facing!  Take a look at this link for some of the reasons why he’s safer this way:

The Radian in our Mazda MPV is a great fit Rear Facing, I got a rock solid installation without any pool noodles and was even able to tether it rear facing!  Anyhow, he’s doing great in the seat although, his little head tends to not seem as comfortable as he is in the Marathon.

We continued on from Augusta, and had to make one roadside pit-stop for a pee break, fairly close to the New Hampshire border, thankfully I remembered the little potty!  The next thing we knew we were in Chelmsford, Ma!  Our Hotel (The Radisson) was just off I-495 and was a great deal!  We used Hotwire.com to book it after Tracy recommended using the site.  It can be a gamble, as you book the hotel, without knowing what property you’re going to get.  You’re told what the hotel’s amenities are, how many stars and where it’s located, but not the company.  For $49, I was willing to chance it, I knew it was a three star and did a search on another site, and saw it had to be the Radisson or the Best Western so I went along and booked it.  As soon as it’s paid for, you find out the property.  I think I’ll use this again, as we saved about $60 by booking here over their site!

The hotel had a nice pool, and we all took a dip after a long day in the van.  There was another couple there that had a daughter named Mackenzie and well, and we chatted with them, and they gave us some tips on Eastern Pennsylvania, and of course I reciprocated and gave them some facts about the Maritimes.  They were very intrigued by the Northumberland Straight and the fact that the water is so warm there, in fact it’s the warmest Salt Water North of Virginia!

After our dip it was PJ time and off to sleep.