Blog for adaysouting.com

My anniversary is coming up and I am planning a weekend getaway with just my husband to Washington D.C.  Yeah!

Using A Day’s Outing, it was simple for me to find great outings for our trip.  I want to stop at an antique shop or two on the way there and then visit the National Museum of American Art.  The harder part of the planning was finding a wonderful hotel in the heart of D.C. that wasn’t too expensive. Then I stumbled upon an easy way to search for deals on hotel rooms through DealBase.com.  I hadn’t heard of DealBase before, but I really like it because it showed me not only rooms available through websites like Orbitz, but also all the different deals that the hotels themselves were offering over the weekend we will be in D.C.  I can see a wide range of different specials, make my choice and then book the room directly through the hotel. I really like that.

So now I have the hotel and I’ve chosen a few outings.  Now all I have to do is figure out which restaurants we should go to.  Maybe I’ll be good and ask my husband what he thinks, or maybe, I’ll just plan that part, too.

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My family and dear California friend, Grammy Pam loved visiting the Frontier Culture Museum and Virginia Wildlife Center in Staunton, VA.   It was one of those glorious Virginia Fall days.

The Frontier Culture Museum showcases English, Irish and German Old World farms and then farmsteads in the US from 1820 and 1850 with guides in period dress who are cooking, farming and answering questions. They also rent golf carts and red wagons that can make it easier to get around.  My monkeys had a great time and especially enjoyed the animals. My husband, the closet farmer, really enjoyed it.  I am going to end up on a farm.

The Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro was having one of three open houses all year and it was yesterday while we were over in the Shenandoah Valley anyway. The Wildlife Center is a non-profit group that treats wildlife that needs help. They get tons of baby squirrels, baby rabbits, birds of prey and the occasional bear, bobcat and deer. What a great place and great group of people that are really helping. We took a 90 minute tour and saw numerous birds of prey that they use for elementary school programs. No bear or bobcats were in residence.

I was almost talked into driving 2 hours out of our way to return an opossum to the wild near Lexington, VA.   I think over the next month, I’ll be taking them my 72G former saltwater fish tank for their use as it is a great dust collector in my basement.  I am going to check in with them when I am in the area to see if they need help with future releases, the kids were dying to release the possum.

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Like many families, we are a family of huge football fans.  Every year we try to figure out how to take the kids as affordably as possible to see an NFL game and a few college games.  Making it affordable is tough.  One of the best things we did was when we turned going to see a Falcons game into a mini vacation over a long weekend.

My husband found very reasonable, albeit nose bleed, tickets from RazorGator.  I researched a few fun outings in Atlanta.  Atlanta is a great city to visit with tons of fun for kids.  I was dying to visit the Georgia Aquarium, so that was first on my list.  My brother-in-law also suggested the World of Coca-Cola, I found a great city park and finally no visit would have been complete without a visit to The Varsity.

We had a great weekend.  We left right after school on Friday and drove through to my brother in law’s house on the outskirts of Atlanta.  Saturday morning we got up and had early brunch at The Varsity.  My kids loved it.  Open since 1928, it’s the world’s largest drive-in restaurant.  We then headed over to the World of Coca-Cola and spent about an hour there.  The tasting of 60 different Coke products at the end was great.  We then headed over to the Georgia Aquarium, it was just as amazing as I knew it would be.  The Asian otters and beluga whales were so fun to watch.  There is also a 100-foot-long acrylic tunnel you can walk through with huge whale sharks and Nanta, the only manta ray in an aquarium in the U.S.  It was the highlight of the weekend for me.

The following morning, the weather was beautiful and we headed out to a beautiful downtown park before the game decked out in all of our Falcon gear.  The pre-game celebration outside the Georgia Dome was tons of fun.  When we entered the stadium and climbed higher and higher into the stands, my son turned to my husband and said, “Sweet!  Dad, how’d you get the seats all the way in the top?”  We had a great time…

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Family Friendly Restaurants in Atlanta!

During a beach vacation to South Carolina, I took a day trip with the entire extended family to Brookgreen Gardens.  Brookgreen Garden was the first public sculpture garden in America and now has more than 1,200 works by 350 sculptors.  Along with the amazing works of art, there are also boat and walking tours, a zoo, a wildlife preserve and for those looking for an evening outing, a great summer concerts series.  Something else, the tickets you buy to enter Brookgreen Gardens are good for seven days, so you can easily come back. You’ll probably need too since there are 9,200 acres of beauty to enjoy.

On our visit, we went early in the morning, before the summer heat was too much.  We wanted to see the sculptures and go on one of Brookgreen Gardens’ special “Lowcountry Excursions.” We choose the Creek Excursion, which is a slow cruise on a 48-foot pontoon boat among the historic rice fields.  We knew both the adults and the children would enjoy seeing alligators, turtles and osprey.  And, an interpreter told us about the distinctive landscape of the rice plantations, the history of Brookgreen Gardens and educated us on the role of enslaved Africans in the cultivation of the rice crop that became vital to the area.

After the boat tour, the children were getting hungry and it was getting hot. The timing of our morning visit seemed to be a good choice at this point. We walked from the boat dock, across the gardens, stopping to see many sculptures and headed back to our cars.  Since our tickets were good for seven days, we knew we could come back to enjoy more of the many things Brookgreen Gardens has to offer.

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Family Friendly Restaurants in Pawley’s Island, SC!

On a recent business trip, I took the afternoon off, met my husband and spent the rest of the day enjoying D.C. like a tourist.  The first place we went was back to the National Museum of the American Indian.  We had been to the museum about two years ago with our kids, with them we did not have time to slow down and do the reflection the museum is centered around.  The museum is an incredible tribute to the Indian Nations of North and South America.

I have read reviews of the museum that reviewers did not believe there were enough exhibits.  I think this is a museum where you have to take your time (about 3 hours) listen to the music, read the material presented, and listen to the talks and movies to be able to enjoy the museum the way it was designed.  All of that said, I thought the exhibits were incredible.  The current exhibition, Ramp It Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America on display through September 13, 2009, was a huge hit with the school tours that were visiting while we were there.  The exhibit that shows the bead craftsmanship was my favorite.

I also think it’s very important to walk around the outside perimeter of the building as part of the experience.  There are beautiful gardens, waterfalls, a water garden and a vegetable garden.

Last, but not least, the cafeteria is incredible!  It is Zagat rated and does a wonderful job presenting authentic foods from many regions, Yucatan, Southwest, Great Plains, Pacific Northwest, etc.  There were grains and vegetables I have never seen in a grocery store.  There was bison, duck, javelina, fiddlehead and dandelion salad, turtle soup, and a wonderful coconut and pineapple drink, just to name a few of the menu options.  All the food is on display, so you get a great idea of what you are ordering, which I love when trying something different.  This is not a cheap place for lunch and there were a few lost tourists the day I was there looking for nuggets and corn dogs.  The museum is free.  I would spend a typical admission price and enjoy an incredible lunch.

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I was asked a seemingly simple question by my eight year old daughter while we were visiting a park – “What is the difference between and butterfly and a moth?”  I had to confess that I didn’t know the exact differences, but I could tell them apart when I saw one. She didn’t think that was good enough, so we did some research when we got home.

Here’s what we found out:

There are approximately 140,000 species of butterflies and moths worldwide. There’s no hard and fast line that divides butterflies from moths, but in general:

-Butterflies generally rest with their wings held upright; moths spread them out.
-Butterflies have knobbed antennae. Moth antennae range from straight filaments to feathery or branched antennae.
-Butterflies have smooth, slender bodies and moths tend to be plump and fuzzy.
-Most butterflies fly during the day; most moths fly at night.

If you want to learn more about butterflies and moths, you can visit one of the amazing butterfly gardens and conservatories across the country.  You can wander through an outside garden and see dozens of different species of butterflies on native plants.  There are also conservatories to visit where you wander through a tropical greenhouse filled with spectacular moths and butterflies. Here are a few to consider:

Butterfly Kapers, Douthat State Park, VA

Butterfly Bungalows, Douthat State Park, VA

Children’s Colonial Garden, Leesburg, VA

Virginia Zoo, Norfolk, VA

Butterfly Pavilion, Washington D.C.

Salisbury Zoo and Park, Salisbury, MD

Butterflies:

Moths:

Every spring wildflowers burst to life along roadways, in meadows, on hillsides and across the forest floor.  In celebration of this beauty, May 4th – 11th has been declared National Wildflower Week.  There are many outings you can take to enjoy the beauty of spring.  You might consider a hike in the woods, a gardening symposium, a floral display workshop or maybe have fun being outside and planting a few native flowers in your own garden.

Wildflowers Along Carroll County’s Stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway - Virginia

Artisan Demonstrations at Tamarack – West Virginia

Below are just a few from my garden-

A Day’s Outing has discovered some great things that might make searching for your day trip or weekend outing even more fun.  We are thrilled to introduce handmade cards and jewelry by artists that we adore.  Look for jewelry from Lori McLean and gift cards from Louisa Wimberger’s company, Weehah!, under the heading “One of our Favorite Things”.  You’ll find their amazing work on the website at the bottom of the pages where we provide in-depth details about a specific outing.  A simple scroll to the bottom of the page will reveal their treasures.  You never know what you’ll find, and you might just want to treat yourself to something special.

And, if you know our husbands, I really want the Roman cast ring embedded with 2 diamonds and Cathy loves the Raven Necklace.  It’s not too late for an extra special Mother’s Day present.

On our way from Virginia to Pennsylvania for a long weekend, we stopped in the middle of our drive at Winterthur, a historic country estate and museum. Winterthur is just outside of Wilmington, Delaware and is only about 6 miles off of Interstate 95.

Now, I was traveling with my two children and my mom, so our main interest for the day was the Enchanted Woods, an amazing fairytale garden on the grounds of the estate.  To make it easy on everyone, we road the trolley half way around the estate and learned about the history of the grounds.  We asked the driver and he happily dropped us off at the Enchanted Woods. Of course, walking there would have been great, but this was only a short stop and we couldn’t spend the day touring the whole garden or museum.

The Enchanted Woods is a fantastic children’s garden. It is a three-acre wonderland with an adult size fairy house, a stone maze and the biggest bird’s nest I have ever seen. The children ran around and played, my mom sat and enjoyed the beauty of the grounds, and I did a bit of both.

After getting to know each facet of the Enchanted Woods, we walked downhill through a formal garden, towards the estate house and through part of the museum on our way back to our car. Taking the trolley in the beginning of our visit made a big difference. Everyone had exercise, but no one was tired and grumpy.

If you find yourself on Interstate 95 traveling through Delaware, take a detour and enjoy Winterthur. You’ll be glad you did.

The Franklin Institute is hosting “The Chronicles of Narnia, The Exhibition”. Cathy knew my family was headed to Philadelphia and sent me information on the exhibit.  It looked great and the kids had seen the movie, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,” so I booked tickets.  Notice that I didn’t say they had read the book.  I’m still working on this.

The Chronicle of Narnia show, and I do mean show, was wonderful. It isn’t really a museum exhibit in the way I think of one, there was more flash and less substance.  Now I enjoyed it, but having been through it, I have different understanding now.

Here’s what I mean.  We entered in a grand way by walking through wooden doors, into a coat-lined wardrobe and out the other side into the woods of Narnia with snow falling on our heads.  That was great, really great.  From there we proceeded through sections where images of the film played, interviews with the directors, costume designers and actors were shown.  We learned how the story by C.S. Lewis was brought to life on film. There were parts that we all loved.  The kids loved the White Witch’s Ice Throne – you really get to sit on a freezing ice thrown.  I was truly impressed by the costumes of the king, prince and soldiers. The leather parts of their costumes were each unique and had been hand tooled with different designs.  It made me stop and think of just how many leather smiths must have been employed for that movie.  A lot.

If you go, keep in mind that the film was rated PG.  To really, really enjoy The Exhibition, you need to have seen the film and be able to read the signs.  Otherwise, I don’t think there is as much to captivate you as the ticket price warrants. On the other hand, if you have children that loved the films, they will get a kick out of the show.