Canada and New England Cruise Live Blog : Day 1

This is day 1 of our live blog for our cruise to Canada and New England out of New York City.  We’re sailing on the Adventure of the Seas on our favorite cruise line, Royal Caribbean.  We’ve done many cruises before, but we’ve never been to many of these ports so we’re pretty excited.  New York City is one of the closest cruise ports to us.  It is only a 9.5 hour drive for us, which is a lot easier than a plane flight.

We started the day at home in Eastern KY.  This morning was notably different from our usual departure mornings.  We only have an 8 hour drive today as opposed to the usual 13 or 14 hour drive.  This afforded us the luxury of not having to rush out the door.  We wake up without an alarm and are able to eat breakfast at home instead of on the road.  We get on the road by about 10:00am toward our stopping point, Bethlehem, PA, which is about an hour from New York City.  We debated driving all the way to New York City and making a 7:00PM Broadway show, but ultimately decided it would be too hectic and stressful.  Instead, we just decided to have a leisurely morning.

We used the first two hours of the day to our advantage, and Zack and I get a day of school accomplished before we stop for lunch.  The scenery was very different from our trip out west two weeks ago to see the Zion Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Antelope Canyon.   While we enjoyed the scenery out west, it is comforting to see local landscape of green hills.

We HAD to eat lunch at Ramon’s favorite restaurant, McDonald’s, on the road.  We crossed the border into Maryland, and stopped at a rest stop.

We were shocked it actually came with a view of the Youghiogheny river.  (Say that three times fast.)

Our kids asked to play in the field at the rest stop, and while this is not something that we usually have time for,  today we were able to say “yes.”

In true child fashion, they pick wildflowers and dandelions.  We call the dandelions “wishes” in our family since Zack coined the term when he as about Lucy’s age.

They also found some butterflies and were quite intrigued by them as most children are.

One of the true joys of traveling is being able to experience life through our children’s eyes.  It never ceases to amaze us how excited they get over the little things that most of us take for granted.  For Ramon and I, we cared about the view, but Lucy and Zack, only  cared about finding every “wish” in the field and blowing it.  After, about 15 minutes we packed them up and continued our drive.

I got another day of school done with Zack after our stop.  We continued our drive to Bethlehem, PA and arrive at about 7:30pm.  The sunset as we arrived was absolutely beautiful.

We were booked at the local Hyatt Place on a Priceline deal for $73, and planned on just picking up dinner to eat in our hotel room.

Our plan quickly changes as we drive through this cute little town. Since we booked it this morning we just assumed it was right off the interstate.  We were shocked to see it was in a historical district, and there were lots of outdoor cafes and shops near the hotel.   So we decided to drop off our bags walk around.

We chose to eat at McCarthy’s Red Stag Pub and Whiskey Bar.

This place definitely had whiskey.

The atmosphere was awesome.  It felt similar to the pubs we ate at in Ireland.  They also had a little bakery inside in the front of the restaurant which Zack was obsessing over.

Ramon and I got the BBQ grilled chicken and fries.  The kids decided to have breakfast for dinner and had pancakes and bacon.  Their food was better than ours 🙂

 

Tomorrow we board the Adventure of the Seas and begin to explore Canada and New England.  Follow along as we explore the Northeastern coast!  We will be at sea with sporadic internet, so we will post when internet is available.  Read about Day 2 here.

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