It’s time for one of my favorite posts to write every year! 2021 marked the return of the long distance trip for us after a pandemic year of sticking closer to home. We spent most of the summer exploring New England and some of the midwest, and our top travel memories of the year are mostly from that trip.
Every year we spend some time at the end of the year sitting down as a family to make lists of our favorite travel memories of the year. Then we play an elaborate game where we read the lists anonymously and try to guess whose is whose. And THEN I put together a collective family top memories list based on which things made it onto multiple lists. This was kind of a bittersweet year for it, because it’s likely that Ari will be doing some sort of grown up job or research or something this summer and won’t be with us for at least the majority of our summer trip. So I’m not sure how we’ll make next year’s list! I like to worry in advance. And then Milo will be off at college next year, TOO! I hope we’ll always be able to spend some time traveling as a family (we still travel frequently with Dave’s family), but it’s definitely going to look more and more different as time goes on. At least Abe is stuck with us for another decade or so!
This year there were nine things that made it onto at least three lists, and here they are in order from least votes to most. Some years making it on to two lists was enough to make the cut, but things would have gotten unwieldy that way this year.
9. Detroit Institute of the Arts
(three lists). We went to two big deal art museums on this trip, and the DIA just edged out the MFA in Boston for most popular, probably owing to the astonishingly impressive Diego Rivera murals that we’re all gawking at here. I wrote about both the DIA and the MFA in this post. The Detroit area, as you’ll see, is very well-represented on this list.
8. The Henry Ford
(three lists). Here are the kids standing in front of Rosa Parks’s bus (incidentally, this just led to a discussion and internet deep dive into the rules about adding apostrophes to singular nouns that end with S. I felt like surely I KNEW the rule and just could never remember it, but it turns out it’s a matter of some debate. Anyway, apparently most experts and style guides prefer the apostrophe+s). Some logistical trickiness with the list making here, as I wasn’t sure whether to count The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, the adjoining outdoor museum, as one entry or two. If I had combined the two, they would have tied for first place, but I opted to break them up instead. Anyway, The Henry Ford is a giant, sprawling museum about “American Innovation” broadly defined, and it’s well worth a few hours or even a couple of days of your time.
7. Greenfield Village
(three lists). At least two of the three lists with Greenfield Village on them specifically mentioned watching a baseball game played with 1867 rules, so definitely make time for that when you visit if you can. But the whole place is fascinating, with historic buildings moved from all over the country and the chance to go for a ride in a real Model T.
6. Belle Isle
(three lists). STILL in/near Detroit! Belle Isle–a big public park in Detroit–was a surprise hit on the trip; there was so much to do there–like the conservatory pictured above. Also the small aquarium, the Great Lakes museum, and the walk out to the lighthouse. And it all comes with some cool history and Art Deco architecture.
5. Jekyll Island
(three lists). I had to cheat a little to get Jekyll Island on here, too: no one actually just put Jekyll as a whole down, but I combined all mentions of things we did there, partly because Jekyll is just go great and partly because otherwise there would have been nothing at all on this list from any trip other than the summer one (we only did a couple of other trips this year, so not shocking). People mentioned our Thanksgiving meal on Jekyll, the secret rope swing, and the dolphin watching boat tour we went on. This was our third RV trip to Jekyll, and it was wonderful as usual. This time we got to go with Dave’s parents and spend Thanksgiving there with them.
4. Castle in the Clouds
(five lists). Interestingly, the votes jumped right from three lists to five for the top four. We almost didn’t go to Castle in the Clouds because it was about an hour drive from our campground in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. But we ended up having a lot of rain several days in a row and using up pretty much all of our backup rainy day plans. A great thing in this case; the very cool house tour was perfect for the rainiest part of the day and then when it turned misty instead of rainy, we explored the great waterfall trail on the property and fed some trout and ducks. Apparently it made for a fun and memorable day for at least five of us.
3. Shelburne Museum
(five lists). This one was also a bit of a surprise hit: we weren’t sure what to expect from this “collection of collections” near Burlington, VT, but everyone loved this place. It’s a sprawling site with a collection of buildings and exhibits on just about anything artistic, cultural, or historical you can imagine: the impossibly big collection of decoys and the circus building got special mentions.
2. Niagara Falls/Maid of the Mist
(five lists) Most of the lists that mentioned Niagara Falls specifically named the Maid of the Mist boat ride to the base of the falls. Pretty impressive that a 20 minute experience was one of everyone’s favorite things of the whole year!
1. Watkins Glen
(six lists). It’s funny to me that a clear winner emerges pretty much every year–usually because there’s one single thing that makes it onto all the lists. I’m a little surprised that it’s the gorge trail at Watkins Glen State Park this year–not because Watkins Glen isn’t amazing, but maybe because it was such a rainy, sort of miserable day when we went there. So good job, Watkins Glen, on managing to impress even under difficult circumstances!
Next up I’ll talk about our 2022 travel plans!
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