Spring Break Escape Routes

I have an overwhelming urge to get the beep out of town.  I’m hearing the call of the open road, feeling the wanderlust, craving the sights and tastes of somewhere new.

“You never take us anywhere,” the Adventurer complained recently. That’s entirely untrue. I haven’t taken them anywhere exciting recently. I began listing out all the great places she’s been in her lifetime. I started with “Florida, Martha’s Vineyard, Newport,” and concluded with “Utica, Rochester and Albany,” laughing to myself. I knew she remembered have a grand old time visiting family in upstate New York, even if the weather wasn’t tropical, or even tolerable.  What’s this kid got to complain about?

She needs a new adventure. We all do. So I started researching last minute spring break trips that we could manage easily with three kids and only a few days. I discovered that it’s still too cold for glamping (luxury camping) in Montana.  We don’t have enough time to make my tropical Maldives dream  come true. The fantasy vacation will have to wait. It's time for a good old-fashioned road trip.

It has to be a trip we'll all enjoy. To accomplish this, the kids will need some sort of super entertainment (large masses of water typically satisfy) and I need to keep the stress and travel time to a minimum.  My kids aren’t accustomed to extremely long care rides, so I need to ease them into it. And by easing them into it, I mostly mean surviving. I need to keep the travel time short and hope we get to our destination without bloodshed.  

Here are a few near-by family friendly spring break getaway spots:

1. Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, New York: Family fun including hiking, rock climbing, an indoor pool, kids activities, a Victorian Maze, trail rides, beautiful accommodations and all inclusive meals. Did I mention the spa? No? There’s a world class luxury spa on site.

• Distance from Brookfield: 46.5 miles
• Estimated travel time: 1 hour 30 minutes

2. Rocking Horse Ranch, Highland, New York: Trail rides on horseback, all-inclusive pricing and a indoor water park. Family oriented resort with kid’s activities and family style meals. It sounds great, but the resort could possibly be slightly dated. And there’s no spa, but I can live with that. This is meant to be family togetherness time.

• Distance from Brookfield: 63.8 miles
• Estimated travel time: 1 hour and 19 minutes.

3. Great Wolf Lodge, Pocono, Pennsylvania:  A massive indoor water park, high tech adventure games, arcade and family friendly accommodations. From the looks of the place, my kids will want to take up permanent residence.

• Distance from Brookfield: 131 miles
• Estimated travel time: 2 hours and 45 minutes

4. Coco Key Water Resort, Waterbury, CT: Families can visit the indoor water park as a day guest or stay overnight. Waterbury is a long, long way from my fantasy vacation, but I know the kids would enjoy a trip there, at least as much as they enjoyed our trip to Utica, so it’s worth considering.  A daily pass to the water-park is  $19 per person. 

• Distance from Brookfield: 29 miles
• Estimated travel time, 41 minutes.

These are difficult choices here. I'm going to let the kids have a say in the decision, so if somehow everything goes terribly wrong, they can't completely blame me for our misfortune.

 Where ever we end up, I know it will be an adventure.