The last stop on our week-long, whirlwind spring break road trip through New England was Vermont. We were only there for 1 night, and we stopped in Montpelier before heading up to Stowe to see how the other half lives.

We basically stopped in Montpelier for maple syrup and fabric. I’d read about Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks in our guidebook, and I really wanted to get my hands on some syrup to bring home. Sugaring season kicks off in March, so we were just in time. Morse Farm is one of the oldest there is, going back 200 years.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from the sugaring experience, but Morse Farm was basically a very muddy parking lot with a few small buildings and a store. Seriously, do not wear your good shoes if ever you find yourself there. You could stand at the edge of the farm and see all the trees tapped together, leading down from the forest and into the processing building. But there were no tours or real explanations of what was going on. It was almost a little voyeuristic; the family just going about their farm lives while tourists stared at them and shopped in the (surprisingly awesome) store.

But maybe since we were there on a Thursday we didn’t get the full tour experience. There was an ancient TV and VCR set up in a corner of the store with a couple of folding chairs, and you could help yourself to watching a video of the long-deceased patriarch in his heyday. That was kind of worth the trip just for the anecdotes because that man, who passed away in 1999, was not PC. Much discussion of Arabs and the Japanese, but he was so darn homespun and delightful that you almost didn’t know where to look or whether to laugh. We definitely felt like city folk.

However strange the farm itself was, I’m in love with the store. We left with syrup. Oh, boy, we left with syrup.

This was the first time Adam and I got to sample different grades of maple syrup, and it was definitely interesting to see what we each preferred. How could you not love a store with friendly honor system signs like this?

We also bought some of that maple cream on the left, btw. Heaven in a jar.

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I’m taking forever to get these road trip photos up, but life keeps getting in the way.

After we left Boston and Plymouth, we headed to Portland, ME. I loved Portland. Really we spent most of our time in Maine eating, and that’s a pretty perfect vacation as far as we’re concerned. We’d heard about the food scene up there for ages but finally got to experience some of it.

Our first night in Portland, Monday night, we made a pilgrimage to Duckfat, a place we’d heard of any time the Portland food scene was mentioned. It was behind our hotel, so as pilgrimages go it was pretty lightweight, but I could have eaten every single meal here. The duckfat fries are everything you’d think they would be, with amazing dipping sauces to choose. And there’s just something about a perfect bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on a chilly night that nothing else on earth can rival. They do it right here. Ugh, it’s pouring here in NJ today…now I want that meal again.

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After we left Boston and PAX East during our first weekend of spring break, we spent a day in Plymouth, MA before heading up to Portland for a few days. Plymouth was kind of a trip; we had a great lunch on the waterfront, saw Plymouth Rock in its cage, and went to Plimoth Plantation.

My first real, noteworthy lobster roll. I’ve had lobster rolls before, but not like this. OMG, I could’ve eaten three.

So the Lobster Hut turned out to be pretty great for lunch with a perfect view. I loved Plymouth Harbor, and we spent some time on the docks after lunch taking pictures.

Such a great spot. And we were there on March 25th, so all the parking was free until March 31st. It was freezing, but still officially off-season, so it was quiet and lovely. But freezing.

I honestly didn’t know that Plymouth Rock was locked up in this cage under its own columned structure. As I said, we were off-season, so there were no tour guides or bustling signs of historic significance. I didn’t even realize the gazebo was The Rock at first. Hannah was clearly not impressed, but at least we can check off that American tourist experience.

Plimoth Plantation was fascinating, and also a little surreal. It’s a few miles outside of town and divided into sections, including the Wampanoag Homesite. This area of the property is entirely staffed by members of the native nations, mostly Wampanoag, who have built these structures to demonstrate what life was like in the 1600s.

Both of these women are Wampanoag, and they answered everyone’s questions about modern day native life, how they learned their history, where they live, etc. I wish I had understood this experience more fully ahead of time, I would’ve thought of more interesting questions to ask. Because this was truly an awesome cultural thing to experience. It wasn’t gimmicky, exploitative, or voyeuristic like cultural tours can often be. It really was fascinating, and I would have loved to know more. My mother-in-law Cora would be beside herself to visit this place.

Next you head to the Craft Center, where you see artisans working on a lot of the period items found throughout the entire plantation. Again, really interesting. There is a piece of me that wishes we could revisit this during high season, because it was so quiet and sleepy there that we didn’t get a tremendous amount of information about each of the sections. I didn’t even realize until later that the artisans were making items to be used around the plantation.

And finally you get to the village. This was just insanely cool. A complete recreation of the Pilgrims’ seaside community after landing at Plymouth Rock. The year here is 1627, 7 years after their arrival. Actors in period dress just inhabit this village, never breaking character. Apparently they’ll only answer questions relevant to 1627 and get confused if you ask about cell phones, but we only said hello. Seeing the living quarters, the attention to detail, and the incredible view that the Pilgrims had made this a very cool stop.

Overall it was a great day in Plymouth, and a worthy detour before heading to Portland. I wish it had been a little warmer, and a little livelier, but I think Adam and I were both surprised how much we enjoyed this little town. We packed a lot into just a few hours, and it was all really cool.

Last week was spring break for me, and we did head up to Boston for PAX East. But it was also the first stop on our week-long New England road trip, and we took in as many sights as we could over the weekend. It was our second trip to Boston, so we struck out in a different direction this time.

Our hotel was across the street from Faneuil Hall, so we ate over there a lot.

I loved this market, even though it was packed and crazy when we were there.

And it was all beautiful at night.

As it turns out, Adam’s very cool cousin Lucy and her very cool husband Rishi were over from the UK on holiday. We were away when they were in NYC, but somehow we found ourselves in Boston over the same weekend. So we spent Saturday afternoon walking part of The Freedom Trail over to Boston Common and the Public Gardens so I could see the Make Way for Ducklings statues.

Site of the Boston Massacre.

Stopped for some pretty good cupcakes at Sweet Cupcakes. The birthday cake was great.

Even the cemeteries seem somehow stately and patriotic in Boston.

The Common.

The baby.

The ducks were still decked out for St. Patrick’s Day the weekend after. The Reeves can cross this statue off our bucket list, and now when Hannah reads the story we can show her pictures of her visit.

I don’t typically think of myself as a gamer. I think of myself as the wife of a gamer. Someone who bakes Pac Man cupcakes in support of her husband’s 24 hour Extra Life marathon. Who makes a pixel wedding quilt for her Bethesda-employed brother-in-law.

I’m not sure why this is, exactly, this weirdly off-to-the-side perception of myself in the gaming world. I have loved all things Mario Bros. since 1985, and I can outplay Adam in Mario’s universe any day of the week. One of my fondest memories from my 20s is lining up with Adam in the wee hours in Manhattan to buy a Wii on release day. But other than a brief obsession with Viva Piñata and some mid-naughties Xbox Arcade games (has anyone ever actually gotten an Achievement in Bejeweled 2?), that’s really where the scope of my gaming life ends. And since I’m kind of a strict Mariophite, and especially after the backlash against Nintendo for catering to fair weather gamers rather than the die hards, I just never thought the title “gamer” applied to me.

Somehow starting our family changed this. The thing about starting a family is, you simultaneously start a family brand identity. What values you plan to instill, what allegiances and fandoms you plan to pass on (Yankees, Harry Potter over Twilight, Sheffield Wednesday, etc.), and especially what hobbies and activities you plan to do together. This crystallizes when you have a child because even when they are just days old you can’t wait to show them everything. And that inevitably shapes Who You’re Family Is in a way that just isn’t as clear when you’re a couple.

This is why we couldn’t wait to take Hannah to PAX East this year. I have been to PAX Prime and PAX East once each before, and Adam’s been to Seattle at least one additional time without me. And again, I’ve always gone as the wife of a gamer, someone who doesn’t get the references but is up for anything. But this year, with Hannah, I decided that I am a gamer. I’m just a gamer with a particular allegiance. But this is my community, too. And with that, I got so much more out of PAX this time. The panels I went to just backed up my sense of inclusion, and I realized that “gaming” is too small a word to describe this community. There is so much overlap between the world of PAX and that of LeakyCon, or crafting, or kid lit and YA lit. Even BlogHer. These are all just communities of tech-centered, non-mainstream creatives, and I fit right in with that.

Which is all just a very long way of saying that I loved PAX East this year. It was a much different experience for me this time around, and it was so great taking Hannah.

The line for the geek crafting panel was enough to make me feel at home. The people in line were so wonderful, complimenting each other and displaying their handmade costumes, scarves, hats, etc. Again, overlap.

This girl was in the crafting panel, fittingly. She followed Hannah and I out so we could cut a path through the crowd with Hannah’s stroller. I don’t think peripheral vision was ideal in there.

She was very cute, and clearly very crafty.

I brought my own companion cube!

The crowds down on the show floor. We couldn’t take the stroller down there, so on the first day Hannah and I just watched from one of the skybridges while Adam was in another panel.

Hannah loved it!

On Sunday Hannah and I went to the Geek Parenting panel, and she won this stuffed arcade game as a prize. She would not put it down the rest of the trip.

I think it was the Geek Parenting panel that really cemented my comfort in this community. It was hosted by editors and contributors from GeekDad and GeekMom, and topics ranged from when to introduce kids to Star Wars to addressing sexism in gaming when raising daughters. It was so right on, a room full of parents and soon-to-be-parents openly discussing the kind of stuff that would get me eye rolls among my day-to-day peers. But they were so much like Adam and me. Except for the guy who wanted his 9-year-old to get into horror movies with him; I’m 100% with your wife on that one, buddy.

I know this is going to sound so trite, but I really felt like this time PAX was really eye-opening and welcoming for me. I can’t wait to take Hannah to her first Prime.