Mystic Seaport

Mystic Seaport

We've been itching to get out camping this spring. This past weekend had a decent weather forecast so we loaded up the camper van and headed to Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT. I have heard about it for years but had never been. Their web site lists lots of activities for kids.

It is a museum that was started in 1929 to preserve the history of America's relationship with the sea. Starting with a single sailboat, it has grown into a large site on the Mystic River with a 19th century village consisting of real period buildings that have been moved to the site from nearby over the years. Each of the buildings now houses a business that would have been present in the area during the peak of shipbuilding just before the Civil War: a cooperage, a sail maker, a cordage, wood carvers, shipwrights, a navigational instrument shop, etc. Plus there are a schoolhouse, a general store, an apothecary, a couple of churches and other town buildings.

For kids there is a playground with boat "playscapes", the Map Spot where kids learn about maps by making them, an exhibit on canals where kids have to "engineer" one, tons of model boats in various exhibits, three sailing ships to climb around in and on, a sawmill where they make huge parts for ship restoration, period games on the town green and a huge 3D model of the Mystic River area when it was a center of shipbuilding. Oh, and a place to build your own wooden boat. Audrey and Charlotte loved all of it. We got there about noon on Saturday and stayed until it closed at 5:00. Then we returned about 10:00 on Sunday morning and stayed till 3:30. We still didn't see everything.

We stayed at a KOA campground nearby. The girls were very excited to sleep in the camper van again. Charlotte decided she is old enough to sleep in the pop top and she did, all night without even waking up! I got to sleep on the lower level for the first time ever, on the softer mattress and with my sweetheart.

We're going to be locked down at home for a while with an imminent kitchen remodel and coaching Audrey's T-ball team, so it was nice to get away for a weekend. We had a really fun time.