Great Adventure Wild Safari Drive-Thru Adventure

On our annual NJ summer visit 4 years ago, we took the kids to Six Flag Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ. One of the boys’ favorite parts was the safari. When I was growing up, the safari was a drive thru, and my main memory of it was the baboons jumping on the hood of the car and playing with the windshield wipers. This was highly entertaining for the kids in the car; not so much for my father. But when we went 4 years ago, the safari had been transformed into a “ride”, similar to Disney’s Kilimanjaro Safari. You …

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Hartshorne Woods – Buttermilk Valley

After visiting with my husband’s family in MD, we continued north to visit my family in NJ. This was yet another “working vacation” for us, but in many ways it was more of a vacation than Lake James because we had family there to help entertain the kids. My parents live about 3.5 miles from the beach and belong to a beach club in Sea Bright, NJ. The boys spent most afternoons at the beach with my mom, enjoying the ocean and the pool and, most importantly, time with their grandmother. I (of course) still tried to mix things up …

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OC Parasail

The boys were SO excited when their nana told them she had booked a parasailing trip for us during our visit (and their parents were too!). None of us had ever been parasailing before and we were thrilled to give it a try. She booked through OC Parasail. They offer 400, 600 and 800 foot rides, and we did the 400 feet. We waited for the previous group to return (they were running late) and then headed out. There were 9 people in the group – the 5 of us plus two other groups of 2. When we booked we had …

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Assateague Island

Part of the National Park Service, Assateague Island National Seashore is most famous for its wild horses. While local legend has it that the horses are descendants of shipwreck survivors, the more likely scenario is that farmers brought them to the island to avoid taxes and fencing laws and the once domesticated animals have gone feral over the decades. Whatever their history, they are a unique and amazing sight to behold. While the horses are often the main draw to the island, there is so much more to explore here. My husband grew up in Ocean City and we visit …

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Cedar Creek Stables

My boys have been wanting to try horseback riding for a long time now. Browsing through the recommended things to do near Life is Good Cabin in Lake James, horseback riding was among the activities. The specific stable listed on their website was closed due to Covid-19 (and wasn’t particularly close anyway) so I did a little research and found Cedar Creek Stables in Lake Lure. Since this was the boys’ first time on horses (and my first time in decades), we opted for the shorter 1 hour Creek Trail ride and chose a late afternoon reservation. The owner warned …

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Lake James State Park – Mill’s Creek Trail

Lake James is located in the mountains of western NC, on the way to Asheville from Charlotte. There are tons of great trails and parks to explore within an hour of the lake, especially as you get closer to Asheville. I had hoped to do a “bigger” outing, like Chimney Rock or Mount Mitchell, but this was a “working vacation” for us so unfortunately we didn’t have time to tackle those during the week (and our weekend was spent out on the lake). Thankfully Lake James State Park was right around the corner and offered 25 miles of trails to …

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Lake James

With two parents that work full time, summer for our kids is a summer camp bonanza. Every year I spend the entire month of January filling out a complex spreadsheet of the different camp options for each boy for each week and then I put together the summer calendar like a 1000 piece puzzle, piece by piece making sure that everything fits together (cost, variety, location, hours). It is quite an exercise but it alleviates some of the working mom guilt knowing that I have weaved together a schedule of fun summer camps for both of them. But the summer …

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Sea Pines Forest Preserve

We are an active vacation kind of family. We are not a sit-on-the-beach-all-day kind of family. My ideal vacation is going someplace new and seeing or doing something new each day and then ending the day relaxing at a pool or a resort somewhere – all of which sort of runs counter to our annual family beach vacation in Hilton Head. But I absolutely love our annual trip there because of the tradition, because of the time with family, and because it forces me to slow down. Much like everything else in 2020, our Hilton Head trip would not be …

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Congaree National Park

By mid-June (3 months into quarantine), I was itching for something more than local parks and hikes. We had our Hilton Head beach trip coming up but I wanted to do something new and different (yet still safe in a Covid-19 world). To fill my travel void, I had been reading lots of travel articles (even more than usual!) to get ideas for US-based trips. National parks are always an appealing option, but most of the major ones are a plane ride away. I read a few interesting articles about under-rated (and therefore under-crowded) national parks and was thrilled to …

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Big Rock Nature Preserve

Long term quarantine is a depressing concept for those of us with wanderlust. Our streak of taking our kids to a new country every year will be broken this year thanks to Covid-19. But we’re trying to look on the bright side and explore more locally and take some day trips. And we’re not the only ones. My FaceBook feed has been flooded with people taking “socially distant” adventures in the Charlotte area. One place that popped up quite a bit is Big Rock Nature Preserve. I had never heard of it before and then saw 4 or 5 different …

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