Road Trip. Days 7 and 8. I don't Even Like Crayons Anymore.
We actually got up at 8 today, which was late for us. Hallie said we slept in because it was Shabbos.
We got dressed and went down to the buffet. We had to wait a half hour, so we played red light-green light outside but then Hallie got very upset because we didn’t want to play by her rules and then went and sat by herself pouting. At one point during breakfast Madeleine was being very annoying and made me spill coffee on myself. It was a bad scene.
From breakfast we went to the pool, which didn’t open until 11am. It’s a fantastic pool. They have several lifeguards, zero entry, water sprays, a splash pad, and two big water slides. We got great seats and spent 6 hours there. Tzvi left at 12 and got a massage at the Spa, and I got one later at 3pm. The Spa is massive – two floors – and has a nice quiet room with cocoa and muffins and chocolates. My massage was a lomi lomi massage, which is a type of Hawaiian massage. It was very nice and relaxing, but it wasn’t like a deep massage. I don’t feel like my muscles got worked on. More like my body was rubbed down. And it was very oily. They leave you towels at the end to wipe down because you’re basically soaking in oil.
Madeleine spent practically the entire day in the water. She made a friend named Julia, but they just kept calling each other “friend.” Madeleine asked if she wanted to come over to her house. Julia said yes, and then Madeleine came to tell us she’s having a playdate. It’s just so great that you can be 3 years old and go up to someone and say want to be friends? If you do that as an adult people think you’re creepy.
Hallie went on the water slide more times than I can count. At first she was scared, but once she went, we couldn’t get her to stop. I really think she went on it 40 times.
We got veggies and humus and chips and guac, but we didn’t eat a real lunch. When Madeleine finally got out of the pool she was so exhausted she just fell asleep on Tzvi’s lap. Eventually we got her up and headed back to the main building.
I forgot to mention yesterday they had a ‘guess-how-many’ tin of Jolly Ranchers in the lobby. Today they had Kisses. It’s kind of annoying – they won’t tell you the answer to the previous day because they reuse the same tin. So we didn’t win yesterday, and we don’t know how close we were.
We got ready for dinner and went to Trevi 5, an Italian place in the hotel. They put us in a side room, which was weird, and sunny. We got pizza and pasta. The kids got pizza and pasta. Service was slow, but there were Hershey Kisses in a bowl at the entrance, so the kids just kept taking them and eating them. We skipped dessert because nothing appealed to us and the kids were loaded up on Kisses. Don’t worry, we had dessert later.
After dinner we went to the kids area by the pool again. We played some ping pong and Madeleine played on the playground. As soon as Shabbos ended, we went to the smores making activity. I knew about this in advance and had called to ask if they were vegetarian marshmallows. They weren’t, so we brought our own, which was great, because we ended up burning some and if we’d have used their marshmallows we would’ve run out.
Then the girls played glow golf, which is like glow in the dark light up mini golf. It was cute. Madeleine insisted on participating, but she didn’t really want to do it correctly. She had a great time going around and dropping her ball in every hole though.
We went back to the room, put the kids to bed and ordered room service dessert. We had a chocolate cake, an apple crumble, and a Kahlua and cream. All delicious.
Good day.
Sunday we woke up and did some packing, then headed down for our third and final breakfast at the Circular. This time there was no wait. It was the same breakfast, all good and nothing new to report, but the woman behind me ordered a Diet Pepsi. Hallie asked if we could get Pepsi and I said no. When she asked why, I tried to explain it was because normal people don’t drink soda for breakfast.
After breakfast we finished packing and headed out. We were on the road by 1030. The kids thought we were just heading home, but we had planned to make a stop in Easton, PA, at the Crayola Experience. Once we were on the road we asked the kids if we should make another stop before going home. Lackluster response. When we told them we were going to Crayola, they started complaining that they just wanted to watch their tablets and drive home. “I don’t even use crayons anymore,” Hallie said.
I actually thought the drive was fun. A lot of it was very scenic – windy and hilly roads, houses, Amish people, farms, and antique shops.
We made it to Easton around noon and started going through the Crayola Experience. Back in my day, it was the Crayola Factory and there was probably more of a factory tour element to it, but it’s been converted to an “experience” and they have a few of them around the country. Like Turkey Hill, this “experience” was kind of like a museum/activity center. It’s very cute. They had crayon melting spin art, melt a crayon into a race car and a ring, make your own puzzle, painting, name your own crayon, and an indoor jungle gym. There was a show where they have the actual machines they use to make crayons, and they make crayons while you’re watching. It was cool, but you can’t get that close to it. We were there almost 2 and a half hours and probably could’ve spent even longer there.
We bought a huge box of crayons and then headed out because everyone was hungry. Easton is a lovely little town. We went across the street to the Easton Public Market, a great food hall with a lot of options. We got pizza for the kids at a place called Scratch, because it would be a crime for them to go a day without pizza, and I had one of the best dishes of my life, a vegetarian ramen from a place called Mister Lee’s Noodles. [Tzvi: Someone call the New York Times. Tomorrow’s headline: “White Lady Discovers Asian Food.”] It was delicious and loaded with veggies and egg and tofu. Tzvi had a tomato ramen that had fried eggplant and mozzarella. We also got cookies and a chocolate croissant from a bakery called Modern Crumb, as well as some delicious coffees.
We got back in the car around 330. I was driving home. The ride wasn’t bad, but we hit a lot of traffic getting on the Verrazano. It was supposed to take 2 and a half hours, but ended up taking a little over 3. We spent the last hour and a half having a Taylor Swift singalong, so that made it enjoyable. Finally we were home.
Great trip.