THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING RUNNING SHOES: Magical Mystery Tour

If you polled a group of people who've ridden in a vehicle that I am driving and inquired about my particular set of driving skills, I am pretty sure you would learn that everyone agrees I am a terrible driver. Regardless, I tend to find myself driving whenever we go on one of these running adventures. It is just the way it goes. Maybe I have control issues, maybe everyone else is lazy, or maybe it is just coincidental, but for whatever reason, when we head out to chase down another crazy running adventure, you can bet I will be behind the wheel for a majority of the trip. Terrifying? Probably, but it's also tradition!!

This trip was no exception. When I pulled into the rendezvous location and found Mird happily doing jumping jacks in the parking lot, I was filled with instant jubilation despite our being behind schedule and over budget. We quickly and carefully packed everyone's stuff into the van and then quickly and carefully dug me out from underneath everyone's stuff when it came tumbling back out of the van on top of me. We tried again and finally pulled out a few minute later; We were on our way!

This time we mixed things up a bit and turned the trip into a surprise trip. I affectionately named it the Magical Mystery Tour after the beloved Beatles song. The Daniels (Mird, Kenny and Cody) had no idea where we were going. My squad (Me, Eli, Kara and Hazel) planned the trip and did know that we were headed first to Katonah, NY to visit The LaPollas (Dominica's sister in-law, Ran, and her husband, Skip) and to revisit NYC again the following day.

The entire Katonah Crew

The cool thing about this driving tradition is that it frees Mird up to do cool R&D tasks. That's research and development for those who are not familiar with the term and by the way Mird is the best in the business. Seriously if she wanted to she could totally move to Silicon Valley and get a swanky job in the R&D department of some big time corporation. That's how good she is! On our trips, she learns the most amazing random facts about the places we visit and she tries to teach us. I say tries because an audience of teenagers or middle aged women is not exactly a captive audience and her efforts often go unnoticed and unrewarded. Thanks to Mird I know where the hamburger was invented (New Haven CT), that happy hours have been illegal in Boston since 1984 and that the first transportation subway system in the US was actually established in Boston, not NYC as most people might assume. The list goes on and on. She also researches concerts we want to attend, Tigers games, dance parties and any other activities that are of interest.

Skipping all the details of the road trip itself because it was extremely long and we certainly don't need to relive it, we arrived to our first destination at about 9:30 pm. We were disheveled, smelly, exhausted and thankful to be there. Ran was a super host and had a dessert buffet and drinks waiting for us. After quick showers and a trip (or three) to the buffet line, we got settled in and headed to bed because NYC was the next day.

Ok one detail of the trip itself. We maintained the Money Bag tradition. Remember I have a bag of random bills ranging from 1$ to 50$ and if the kids do exercises when we stop for gas or to switch drivers, they get to draw a bill from the bag. Also, it is used to encourage good choices and positive attitudes along the way!

money bag squats

In the city we had the best time... well other than feeling like we were inside a furnace of heat and humidity that might never cease and were being forced to walk an endless trail of torture, it was awesome! Honestly, despite all this, we did have a most excellent time! We did an hour long tour of the harbor with the highlight being Lady Liberty.

Our Crew in NYC (It wasn't a scam!!)

Next, we headed to the 911 Memorial and Kara was in charge of leading us there. This is when it started to feel like we were walking inside a furnace of torture. By the grace of God, we survived and actually arrived at the memorial which was a pleasant surprise.

We checked out the 911 Memorial. It is pretty amazing what they have created at ground zero. I became slightly emotional remembering the day and how scary it was to have our country under attack and nobody really knew what was going on. Although at the risk of getting political that's not really much unlike the presidential election we have on our hands this year! My personal opinion is the museum is more of a memorial as well and it is overpriced for what you experience. If I went back, I'd just tour the outside area (free) and save my money on the "museum" (expensive).

Awesome outdoor memorial

There were special Harley Davidson motorcycles made shortly after 911 for those who lost loved ones in the attack. This was my favorite one.

This was the last standing column of the World Trade Center. Also spectacular to see!

Our happy teenagers sitting inside the 911 Museum

Next up was Retail Therapy or Cocktail Therapy depending on your age. The kids shopped in a nearby TJ Maxx store while Mird and I had a cold drink at a local pub. Don't judge, you weren't there. Afterwards, we decided to head back to the van so that we could get out of the city before the traffic got too crazy and we started to make our way back to the van. Our path took us through China Town which was an extremely cultural experience. Block after block of whole chickens, fish, and other unidentifiable animal carcasses lined the streets. Along the way, Eli found this pigeon who was in distress. Bless his heart, he tried to help the little guy out although this opinion was not shared by everyone in our group. I am thinking maybe Eli will end up becoming a veterinarian or an animal trainer at Barnum and Bailey Circus because spoiler alert he was also playing with pigeons and squirrels at the Public Garden in Boston!

Eli trying to help the pigeon along the way...

The kids researched dinner options and we settled on Oishi Sushi in Mount Kisco NY on our way back to the LaPollas' where we'd sleep another night before an early departure to our next stop Boston!!

Dinner pics because it was a spectacular dinner...

Kenny accidentally ordered this Sashimi. It gets an A for presentation, but a lower grade for overall meal quality. He thought he was getting a traditional sushi roll so this meat platter was a surprise!!!

We also got these traditional sushi rolls to share and Cody and Hazel shared Sesame Chicken.

Eating out is uber expensive so our strategy for most of the trip was to order only what we could eat and share a meal whenever possible. If we were independently wealthy, we would have splurged and gotten one of each dessert, a few more sushi rolls to try and fancy cocktails. However, we are not rich, we are teachers, teenagers, and a small business owner so we shared, drank water, and kept our meals basic. We enjoyed the dessert buffet again when we returned to home base. Then we slept, ran 3 miles early and ate a farewell breakfast with the Lapollas before heading east!

It was supposed to rain all day in Boston so we decided to book an escape room as entertainment. We booked it and then immediately realized it was in Cambridge, not Boston so we shifted our plans slightly and headed to Harvard Square! Other than our temperamental air conditioner, the overcrowded nature of our vehicle, and the horrible traffic the drive to Cambridge was perfect!

Cambridge was excellent. The town is clean and cute and the people were friendly. The Red Fox Escape Room is absolutely amazing! I would definitely recommend it if you're ever in the greater Boston area. It saved our rainy day and turned it into a day of fun, adventure and dare I say exercise for our cerebrums that will soon be headed back to school! The kids LOVED it and begged for a second escape experience. Mird and I told them to try to get out without our help and headed to the Goodwill in town for our own retail therapy while they completed their second escape!

The whole crew! Mird was grinding!

Team Totally Teenagers

After the escape room we headed to another mall. Not my first choice (or even top 10 choices) for vacation activities. However, with the gloomy weather and the fact that school starts in less than 3 weeks, I declared it back to school shopping and sent them off (mind you we were already uncomfortably crowded in our van so we just kept buying more stuff as somewhat of a challenge to see if we could actually fit it in the van). Meanwhile, Mird and I shopped for supplies to make carbonara for dinner to save some cash and our sanity. The entire meal for 7 cost less than a couple martinis in NYC! BTW dinner was a total success; We saved money, everyone loved it and we had very little leftover!!!

Our Airbnb was perfect. It had old style Boston feel to it, plenty of room for everyone and it was close to the city (or so we thought). To prepare for our trip, I booked three things: The airbnb, our race in Connecticut, and a duck boat tour in Boston! Everything else I figured we would sort out as we went along.

After our wonderful dinner, we started researching getting into Boston for our duck boat tour the following morning and quickly learned we were screwed! The subway system was not nearly as simple as the Airbnb made it sound and driving there sounded like a total fucking nightmare. Motivated by the fear of missing our duck boat tour, we decided to drive even though multiple people had warned us to avoid driving in Boston. We applied the same parking strategy we had used in NYC and prepaid for a parking spot located .3 miles from the Prudential Center where the Duck Boat Tours started. We went off to dream land and woke up refreshed the next morning.

We had to pack, clean, eat breakfast and leave by 8:30. It was a stretch but we pulled it off and were on our way to that prepaid parking spot on time!! Boston driving/parking is complicated, congested and basically impossible to maneuver which is likely why everyone advised against it. The parking garages are unmarked, and the streets are so narrow that turning around is nearly impossible. After pulling into the wrong lot once and having to back out, we decided to just park at the Prudential Center and forget about our prepaid spot. This was a clutch decision as we barely made it to our tour on time. We learned what works in NYC doesn't necessarily work in Boston.

Our Duck Boat Tour was the highlight of Boston!

Olga Ironsides our boat for the tour!

Everyone quack!

Cody even drove us for a few minutes! Our tour guide was Milkman Larry or something like that and he was excellent. He had a verbose sense of humor, endless knowledge of Boston and anywhere else in the world as far as I could tell and he clearly loved his job. Milkman Larry helped clear up our confusion about Boston driving when he explained that Boston used to have the second worst traffic of all metropolitan areas in the US so they got busy in Boston and built a fancy 1.5 mile long tunnel system that routes traffic under the city to reduce congestion and traffic problems. Click traffic details for more details about the history of Boston traffic. BTW according to our tour guide, Boston is now the worst metropolitan area to drive in within the US!

After the tour we had about 3 hours and everyone had ideas of what to do and nobody was in charge. This is a recipe for disaster in case you wondered. In hindsight, I should have planned another activity for the city. Instead we argued and investigated things to do in the area for about 15 minutes. In the end we ended up at a hotel across the street eating nachos. During lunch we decided to visit a famous old church and the public gardens. We did both. Then we headed out towards our next destination Somers, Connecticut the location of our 5K trail run that night!

Famous Old Church Picture

Hazel really loved this stop!

The animals are so friendly here

More proof of Eli's potential in the animal training field

The famous duck statue in Boston Public Garden

After accomplishing both stops we headed to the car and stopped at the Boston Marathon Finish Line for this picture along the way just because we could.

Sisters August 7, 2024 Boston Marathon Finish Line

Once we found our van, we headed to Connecticut and our Somers Race Series 5K! Even though it was again a million degrees, sunny and humid, the race itself was awesome. Eli is a stud and he ran barefoot. We all ran and cheered for others at the race with our homemade signs. Everyone enjoyed the beautiful trail with old forest growth that made for a spectacular backdrop in the woods! There was a splash pad at the park so we all rinsed off afterwards and headed toward home uncertain of how our trip home would play out.

We had hoped to return to Niagara Falls and stay in the same hotel as last year, but my passport renewal is taking FOREVER so I didn't have a passport thereby ruining our original plan. Over a post race dinner at Chick-fil-a somewhere between Somers CT and Nunica MI, the kids voted unanimously to drive straight through or at least to attempt to drive straight through to Michigan. Our democracy was a faulty one because they voted for this drive and Mird and I made it happen. Through a series of unorthodox driving relay legs, we tore up the 800ish miles. Our relay legs consisted of various sessions that included everything from breakdance driving to Delilah's show on the radio, to church at night (Yes I spent a lot of time praying for God to get us home safely) and everything in between.

We did it though and safely delivered Mird and the boys to the carpool lot a little after 6 yesterday morning. I guess this just goes to prove that even if you're a horrible driver and you decide to drive instead of taking public transportation, you can still have one helluva good road trip!