It seems pretty straightforward, right? Venture out to someplace, be it Bristol or Bourne or Boston, and then write about it. Not that the work is painstaking but I wanted to clue the reader in on what it is like behind the scenes at Backyard Road Trips. With kids, even the most uncomplicated outing has to be planned.
The trips pretty much come in two forms: those that are thought of in advance and those that happen spontaneously. For instance, visiting many of the restaurants such as Artisan Pig or Uva Wine Bar is planned in advance. Others, such as Beaver Dam Conservation Area or Clear Pond Conservation Area, I simply went to and decided while I was there that it would be worth a write-up.
Roll out!
The last four places I mentioned are all in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where I live. This means they are all reasonably easy to get to. Granted with the restaurants, I had to either plan a night of going out to eat or picking up (since a few have been written during the throws of Covid) and the walks had to be when the kids agreed to a hike in the woods. When the destination is farther, out of state, or even out of town, it takes foresight and planning.
Connecticut is often featured on the website since it is where I am from originally, with my parents still living there. This means I visit there with regularity. Getting to the western side of the state, be it Litchfield, Stamford or Burlington takes much planning. Before kids, it was easy to be flexible about drive time and what the weekend plans would look like. Now, a trip here could literally mean months of planning.
The Litchfield trip included a stay at the Hopkins Inn in which weeks of planning were needed. The same thing with Stamford. Although I was not going to spend the night, I had arranged to see a friend since I was going to be in the area, so I had to head out early. Lastly, the Burlington trip was also scheduled in advance where my wife and I were able to have an afternoon to ourselves. The kids were with my parents and we hit up three Backyard Road Trips destinations in one afternoon!
New England Carousel Museum
I had written about the New England Carousel Museum in my first book, Connecticut Lore, and had even brought my older son to it when he was small. I thought it would be a perfect destination for both kids though now as they are a few years older.
Finding a free weekend can be difficult to make it to Connecticut. We often have to leave on a Friday afternoon since driving two hours to Norwich and then another two-hour round trip from Norwich to, in this case, Bristol, on the same day would be torturous for the kids. Leaving on Friday night often puts us smack in rush hour leaving Boston and around Providence. If we left later though, then we’re messing with the kids’ dinner times and bedtimes. Either way proves to be difficult. We typically need to visit the destination on Saturday since Sunday is the day we drive back. There is more flexibility if it is just me and Danny heading out.
Something in the way
Of course, backyard road trip destinations are fun. This means if life events come up, they take precedence. It is nice though, to be able to combine it with a weekend in Norwich which both my kids and my parents love.
We planned the trip to the carousel museum for a weekend in February. As the date got closer, of course, snow was expected. We had to table it until the next free weekend, which was almost a month later, in March.
With busy schedules, no weekend is absolutely perfect, so it happened to fall at the same time as a play that my father was in. This was good since my son and I were able to catch a performance but had negatives too since my parents were not able to go with us. (Another obstacle is that we have to take two cars to fit all of us at a destination.)
The March date ended up working well as we combined the museum with a visit to Rockwell Park in Bristol, Connecticut. After an initial bad mood from Tommy (also not written about in the piece), the kids enjoyed both destinations that day immensely.
Backyard Road Trips: Behind the Scenes
I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about what goes on behind the scenes at Backyard Road Trips. Logistics need to be worked out even if it is a trip on the local level. What planning does is make a seemingly ordinary trip a bit of a destination, finding a whole itinerary along with it. It makes an afternoon in Bristol seem like a trip to a resort destination by the time the adventure rolls around.
