There and Back Again

While on our way to Syracuse, we stopped to visit my friend and former housemate Anneke (all my former roommates now live in a convenient route up the East Coast, so I see them all periodically). She lives near Washington, and Ian and I met her and her daughter Sasha on Saturday morning at the National Zoo. It was great to catch up and exchange notes on our experiences with motherhood. And we saw some cool animals too.

Here Ian and I are showing off our matching lime green shirts:



And here we are with Anneke and Sasha (who shockingly did not wear matching shirts):



Ian slept through most of part of the zoo visit in which we actually saw animals, although he spotted the panda. He'll be back in DC in August while I attend the Joint Statistical Meetings, though, so hopefully he will have a more zoological experience then.

As I suspected, Ian was not content on this trip to spend long stretches of time in the carseat as we was when he was younger. And I didn't feel like it was fair to try to convince him to, even if he would have complied. So on the way home (without Uncle Greg in the car to help entertain the boy), I mostly drove only during Ian's normal nap times, and we made frequent stops to explore. Next time we do this, I'll have to bring a list of all the interesting attractions on our route -- it was much more fun when we found an interesting place to stop than when we had to settle for a gas station or chain restaurant. In Pennsylvania, we stopped at a park in Hazelton (it was fairly run down, but the first park we tried in the town had had all the swings stripped from it). Ian loves to swing! After his afternoon nap, we stopped in Hershey, PA, and visited Chocolate World. We had dinner there (and Ian was totally thrilled with his experience drinking from a water bottle - sometimes he's easy to please). After dinner we went on the Chocolate World ride. He loved it -- expecially the singing cows:



We talked to Doug while we were waiting in line for the ride, and he was shocked that we were stopping at a tourist attraction and that Ian could enjoy the experience -- he's becoming a real little boy!

We got back to our car just at sunset (and Ian's bedtime) -- I was able to take this photo of our reflection in the car window with my iPhone:



We stayed in a hotel in Frederick, MD, and got an early start the next morning. After Ian's early morning nap, we found a park where we stopped and Ian ate breakfast (he ate a lot of meals on this trip sitting atop a picnic table). He enjoyed putting the lid to his baby food jar on and off in between every single bite. Since it was Sunday morning, when we arrived we were the only people in this very large park. As we were getting ready to leave, though, skateboarders started arriving to use the skate park. Ian found this very interesting and sat in my lap on a bench for at least half and hour watching them. Eventually we found a few obstacles that no one was using and Ian explored them. Here he is inspecting an interesting leaf and showing off his free standing ability (which could be considered the very first skateboarding skill):



In southern VA I had a hard time finding interesting attractions, so we stopped at a garden and pond store. We saw lots of water and fish, and Ian especially enjoyed playing with a round stone and a planting pot he found.

Our last stop was at the rest area on 85 about 20 minutes from home, where Ian ate dinner. Then we arrived happily home to see Daddy and the doggies after a long week away!