Random Facts (Subtitled Big Trip Post #2)

Imagine walking barefoot on the beach.  You're in paradise - everything is wonderful.  The sun is high overhead, you can smell the salt air, etc...You get the picture.  Now replace that image with this:  You are painfully hobbling barefoot on the beach, carefully placing one toe at a time in the one square milimeter of sand amidst the jagged fragments of rock surrounding you.  The sun is high overhead, but so is a fog of humidity so thick that you are damp just walking outside.  The water does not gently lap at your toes, no, instead it violently crashes against you splashing you with sub-zero iciness.  You do not hear the sound of gulls, instead, you hear the sound of the summer camp counselor yelling at her charges while the children wail about ice cream politics...  Which brings me to the first random fact:

1)  New England Beaches are not exactly paradise. 
2)  There is a children's museum in CT that is so great, it alone almost makes the four hour plane ride worth it.
3) Libraries with great children's sections never get old or go out of style.
4) One of the best memories I will  have from this trip is reading to Cooper under a large tree at a farm whilst a brown cow nibbles on grass about five feet away. (Who cares if it was a Hot Wheels Stunt book - we're not exactly literary snobs here, huh?) 
5) I actually petted the brown cow without saying "How now?"
6)  Erle thinks that I must have been a British woman in a past life, b/c  however inconvenient it is, I still adore the rain.
7)  Any museum with a kid's obstacle course/ropes challenge course is totally a place that I want to be. 
8) Four adults + two kids + 1 hour = 18 lbs. of blueberries.
9) Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster are wonderful, but they are not SO wonderful that they make a two-hour dining ordeal with preschoolers worth it.
10)  I married a ruthless card player.

And so this ends the second installment of what we have been up to up here in the wilds of New England.  As you can guess, we had a beach day, lots of rain, libraries, museums, cards and farms in the mix.  Now we are no longer in New England, but our adventures in Jersey and Maryland will have to be documented another day.