Friday, December 16, 2011

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

Once again, I find myself in the position of having way too much to blog about. How much info will I try to squeeze into this one post, or will I conservatively space it out over multiple posts? Guess I'd better start typing and see what happens.


We drove to upstate New York to spend time with Senpai's family this Thanksgiving. I have relatives 5 hours north of us near Chicago, and I had told them we'd be spending Thanksgiving with them this year, but then Senpai heard that his Papa's health was failing, and we both agreed that NY was where we needed to be. Senpai's Dad has six siblings (seven kids total), and what made the event even more special is that it would be the first time in a very long while that they all would be together. Senpai and I upped the "special" ante by making our visit a surprise. We only told one aunt (the one whose house we would be staying at) we were coming, and she helped keep the secret from the rest of the family. Senpai's Mom and Dad had no idea.

It was a very long drive. We started on Tuesday morning after we ate breakfast at home. We left an hour later than we had wanted to, but we made up for it on the road. Senpai drove the entire day on Tuesday. The weather was bad. It was either foggy or raining down torrents the whole day, and Senpai braved the storms. I sat in back keeping R entertained. My memory has lost exact details, but I think her behavior was good that first day. It must have been, because I managed to crochet myself a hat while I was sitting back there. We stopped at malls for meals whenever possible to give R a chance to run around. We stayed the night in a motel.

The next day had better weather, so I flexed my driving muscles in the morning. Senpai had planned a side trip to the Museum of Play in Rochester. It was a bit off our path, but the extra time spent running around a fun environment for R was so worth it.

There's a map of the museum here. We started by grabbing lunch in the cafeteria, then R browsed the Yo Gabba Gabba toys at the gift shop while Mommy and Daddy took our respective potty breaks. Next order of business was Sesame Street. The exhibits are smaller than you'd expect, but the keepers certainly cram as much as they can into the small space. R's favorite part of Sesame Street was the taxi cab. She likes cars.
Sesame Street Taxi

Her favorite parts of Reading Adventureland were a pulley system used to transport kid-drawn notes from one side of a treehouse to another, and a light harp (as in the strings were beams of light). She then met the Berenstain Bears, but was not impressed enough to stand still for a photo.
Berenstain Bears

The American Comic Book Heroes section was fun. I particularly liked the Spiderman photo op.
Daddy to the Rescue!

Amateur

Senpai and R liked the Green Goblin flight simulator.
Flight Simulator

The three steps to the side of this Hulk statue is where R got the nose boo-boo that you'll see in photos from the rest of this trip. She usually won't attempt to go down stairs on her own, because she knows she needs help. But Daddy had just showed her on a previous set of steps how to hold on to the railing and do it herself, so she tried it when Mommy was distracted (without holding on to a railing) and scuffed her nose on the carpet when she fell. Poor lady.
The Blur Behind Hulk's Foot

The second floor contained the actual museum aspect, with old toys (stuff I grew up with!) on display behind plexiglass walls. It also had a huge Lite-Brite board.
Mega Lite-Brite

Recognize these?
NES

It's weird to see these toys I played with behind glass

We also introduced R to Star Wars memorabilia.
Can't Start Too Early

Gosh, this post is getting long, and I haven't even gotten us to upstate NY yet! Another post then. Concluding our visit to the Museum of Play, I took R on the Carousel. She <3's carousels. Carousel

Then we hopped back in the car for the last leg of our journey. To be continued.

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1 comments:

Gayle said...

Yes, I recognize the old school video games. My son has some that he's collected and quite a few games. Funny how he plays it when we have all the new ones as well.

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