Holly Jolly National Capital Trolley Museum Visit

After Thanksgiving we took the boys to the National Capital Trolley Car Museum in Colesville, MD. To be honest my expectations weren't too high for this place. The SF Railway Museum and Gift Shop is really just a gift shop... but across the street from the start of the line for an amazing collection of refurbished and working trolley cars.

The National Capital Trolley Car Museum is in a field. It includes two attached brick barns. The main part of the museum houses a small model train collection and a gift shop. Incredibly disappointing if that was it (although my four-year old Caleb can watch model trains all day). But it is not!

With admission you get tickets to ride a working trolley car. It routes its way through the wooded area near the museum. Considering how much my boys love riding trains, streetcars and the like ... they loved it. We visited when it was having its Holly Trolleyfest. This meant that the boys could sit on Santa's lap, and Mrs Claus rode with us on the trolley ride.

After the trolley ride, there is a docent tour of one of the two barns. Worth waiting for, you get to see trolley cars in various stages of dilapidation. The second barn we were told isn't safe to visit (that is where the actual cars are refurbished). But that would have been fun, even if we were only able to peak our heads in.

The National Capital Trolley Car Museum had a major fire in 2003, which destroyed four cars, and is still re-cooperating. Eventually its collection will include more refurbished cars then the two that you can ride. But for now if you live in the Washington, DC area it is a worthwhile visit, if anything to support the maintenance and restoration of trolleys ... and if you have two little boys like us, to spend a pleasant afternoon.

Before going check the website to make sure the museum is open -- it has odd hours especially during the winter months.

Planes and Rockets at Udvar-Hazy

We've tried to get the boys interested in airplanes and rockets, but their obsession has been trains... until our visit to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum - Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport.

The location is a modern open and airy hanger, with plenty of running room for the most active youngster. The highlight of the immense collection is definitely the space shuttle Enterprise. It is huge, a giant mega airplane that dwarfs even the Concord (which is also part of the exhibits). 

The rest of the collection which includes rockets, satellites, airplanes and their parts is also pretty awesome.  The boys enjoyed the entire trip and never got bored or disinterested ... even with smaller exhibits like the R2D2 mailbox (at least for my 4-year old Star Wars obsessed son).

Not to be missed we took the boys to the observation deck. The boys liked the watching the airplanes land in Dulles ... but this gets old pretty quickly and getting back down is quite an ordeal. You wait in line for the elevator which takes you to another floor, and then you wait in line for the elevator to get back to the main part of the museum. Now that we've done the observation deck once, on subsequent visits will skip this part.

Since this is part of the Smithsonian, entrance is free, however parking was $15. Compare the cost of this outing to the cost of most aquariums for a family of four -- $50 -- and Udvar-Hazy is quite the deal for a fun filled afternoon.

Nationals Game

On Sunday we took our nephew Josh and our oldest Xander to the Nationals game… which turned out to be a great activity for our preschooler.

The ballpark reads more like a minor league park then a major. Since the team is in last place in National League East and 20 games behind, the attendance at the park is low. Less crowds equal happier preschooler.

We secured seats in the outfield near the kids’ playground. We were able to buy them from the box office minutes before the game, and they were actually pretty decent seats.

We had no expectations that Xander would be interested in the game – he is only four.

We figured a Major League baseball game lasts somewhere between two and half to three hours. The music, crowd cheering, salty peanuts and soda were enough to entertain Xander for the first few innings. I then took him for a walk and to the playground.

The playground at the ballpark is this neat structure with tunnels, slides, and netting. A child can get lost in there… in fact on our day one mother lost both her children. There is only one exit, so they were quickly found happily playing in the structure.

The playground kept Xander entertained for an hour and a half total (I came back after an hour, Xander rehydrated, then my husband took him back for a half an hour).

My only issue is that the park should invest in a big screen near the kids’ area to broadcast the game so parents running their toddlers and preschoolers can keep track of the score.

We were able to stay until the end of the game (a feet my husband couldn’t accomplish for our beloved San Francisco Giants – he and Xander had to leave after the seventh inning), and the Nationals won.

The other cool thing about National Ballpark is that Sunday’s are kids days, so if Xander was interested (and a little older), he could have run the bases after the game.

Here we are...

We took the red-eye to Dulles on Friday night. We arrived at SFO three hours early for our flight. I gave the boys their backpacks at dinner – pizza at the food court. The backpacks went over really well. They kept the boys entertained until our flight. We also visited the Kids Zone, which is a play area at the SFO airport. There were a lot of small children playing at 9 pm at night. The boys got to run around, and the time between arrival and our flight literally flew.

I had hoped that the boys would sleep on the flight, but they were too excited. They ended up falling asleep two hours into the flight and slept for two and half hours total. When they announced we were landing in a half an hour, I wished we had a couple more hours. They slept for a tiny bit on the car ride to their grand parents house… but clearly not enough.

Saturday we spent the afternoon with family. We were also able to get four-hour naps in, and then get the boys down at around 11 pm ET (which wasn’t too bad).

Now it is Monday and I feel like both of them are on a schedule, and aren’t overly tired.

Today we went to the zoo. We made the mistake in parking in Parking Lot C, which requires an uphill climb with stairs. We powered through it with the stroller, but for future visits to the National Zoo be warned when there is a sign that says no handicap access, that stroller access might also be difficult.

The weather was fabulous, and Caleb especially enjoyed seeing the animals. We were sad that the giraffe exhibit was closed, while the zoo is expanding the elephant exhibit. We were happy to see the elephants, lions, tigers, reptiles and the pandas.

The National Zoo is on a hill, so it was a good thing that we had a stroller with us. Two might have been better, but we made do. We also ran into another little boy in Caleb’s class at daycare. Small world.

Tomorrow it is off to Wheaton Regional Park which has a miniature train and carousel. Then dinner with some old friends in Frederick, MD.

The Itinerary

The rule with itineraries when traveling with small children is one major activity a day. It is also a good idea when visiting family to have a general sense for what you want to do, with the flexibility to change the itinerary for anything that might come up, a sick kid, or torrential rain, or a parade…

You should also make an assessment of what your kids will tolerate. Both my boys are early risers, up at 6 am. They are best behaved before 3 pm. They will skip naps on weekends, and then crash hard. For example it was hard to get my 2 year old out of bed this morning. All of this you need to take into consideration.

So we know when visiting any site, it works best for us to get there when it opens. Since the boys nap in the afternoon, and car rides will put them to sleep, long car trips should be planned for afternoon.

You should also consider the time-change. Any time you have a time-change, jet lag lasts one day per hour… So my sweet little guys won’t be on a schedule until Day 3. Until that day we need to avoid large indoor crowds, like an aquarium, or museum, or we will set ourselves up for failure. At the same time, parks like the National Arboretum would be perfect.

All in all we will be in DC for six very full non-travel days. We plan to visit with three friends and their families, and see as many as four sites. So, you can see the one activity a day may be quite difficult to accomplish.

The target sites include a mix of indoor and outdoor, and if we can do most of them during the weekday that would be best.

US National Arboretum (Outdoor)

The National Zoo (Outdoor)

National Aquarium Baltimore (Indoor)

B&O Railroad Museum (Indoor)

Annapolis for a crab feast (Mixed Indoor)

We also wanted to go to the DC Trolley Museum (boy do our boys love trains), but since it is closed until late summer it came off the list.

We will continue to refine the itinerary (I’m geeky enough to add weather to the timeline – but that is a different blog post). The final Itinerary will be a thick document with everything from train schedules, to confirmation emails for hotels, babysitting services, directions to friends’ houses etc.

However, as I mentioned earlier, flexibility is key. So if something doesn’t work out, that is okay. The goal isn’t to see the most sites. The goal is to have fun.

Go East Young Men

At the end of the month we will be flying to DC and visiting friends and family. We plan to make a side trip to New York City and New Jersey. This will be our first East Coast trip with Caleb who is 2 and a half. We brought him home from Russia last summer, I'll write about that trip later. We're not sure how well he will travel. Our only experience with him was 20 hours flying from Moscow to Frankfurt to San Francisco when he was 22 months old. The trip out is a red eye, so hopefully he'll sleep.

Our oldest Xander is 4, and he is an old pro at traveling. He went with us on our trip to get Caleb, a 23 day adventure in Austria, Germany, Moscow and rural Russia.

My biggest concern is that Caleb isn't quite restaurant ready. We've been working on getting him to sit at the table (something he is not too fond of) and actually eating the meal in front of him (that still needs work).

On the trip we will take it easy on restaurants. We have to go to Rio Grande (as a California I can safely say the best fajitas ever) in Rockville, MD and perhaps a Crab feast in Annapolis. Both are fairly family friendly places, and we will go in the early evening to avoid crowds.

In New York City we will have a date night. We read about a baby sitting service (they specialize in coming to your hotel room) and I'll be sure to review it on the blog.

In terms of other activities, we plan to get outside as much as possible. Toddlers and preschoolers seem to be happiest when they get plenty of fresh air. We'll probably go to the Arboretum in Wheaton, MD, the DC Zoo and spend a day in Central Park. Since my husband is from DC, and we used to live in the area, we'll also have lot's of play dates for the kids as well.