Easton, Pennsylvania: Beautiful and Great for Kids and Hopelessness

Easton, Pennsylvania is not the first place a family typically picks to visit for an overnight vacation, but it provided a fun little getaway this week when Jackson had Monday off of school.

We left on Sunday to get there (about 3.5 hours from Washington D.C. and not far from New York and Philadelphia, in the Lehigh Valley) in time to check in to an amazing 2-bedroom suite that we way underpaid for downtown at the Grand Eastonian Hotel and Suites. Our massive layout on the eighth floor overlooked the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and out across to New Jersey. Then we had a swim in the pool to ourselves before going to sleep to get ready for the Crayola Experience on Monday.

Crayola is actually based in nearby Forks Township, but the Experience (which features some elements of the making of the colorful toys but mostly provides interactive activities for kids to get even more enamored of crayons) gives the town a real boost. It's oddly located in the middle of downtown, which is only odd because downtown is filled mostly with cigarette stores and a vape bar, and almost everybody walking around looks strung out on meth or general hopelessness. Walk out of the Experience and you're enveloped in cigarette smoke.

That said, the walkway a few blocks down back past our hotel and along the river was gorgeous. We spent the morning playing at the playgrounds and Rachel took a run.

There's also a sushi restaurant that the family enjoyed, on the other side of Easton, called KOJA Cuisine. Halfway through our meal, the sushi chef came over and asked us if we wanted anything else. He proceeded to make us a special roll that wasn't on the menu and topped an unexpectedly perfect meal.

Easton, it should be noted, is the hometown of boxer Larry Holmes, Sally Jessy Raphael, and actor Daniel Dae Kim of Lost fame.

Dutch Wonderland Dominates Our Amish Country Weekend

Growing up with four Quaker grandparents, it's a little strange I've never been to Amish country.

That kind of changed this weekend with a family trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We stayed at the Comfort Suites with a dozen or so other families from Jackson's school.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to explore the countryside, didn't see many horses on the road, and missed out on the Amish bakeries, furniture stores, and other things that will require a second trip some time.

Instead ... it was Dutch Wonderland on Saturday night and all day Sunday. Not that I'm complaining. The rollercoasters, kiddie rides, and water park were all a blast. And it was fun getting to spend more time with our excellent and down-to-earth school friends.

Here's a sampling of photos.

Willy Wonka Would Be Proud of Our Chocolate Tour Today

Jackson doesn't watch a lot of TV, but when he does, the thing he requests most often for the past few months has been Willy Wonka. And why wouldn't he? A four-and-a-half-year-old's obsession probably should be chocolate. And nobody could play understated and outrageous like Gene Wilder.

So it was an easy call to make a little boy happy today with a Saturday trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is a little more than two hours away from DC. It's clearly not as cool as the tour Charlie, Veruca Salt, and the others got in Wonkaland, but it was a pretty decent blowing-of-$80 for the whole family.

For that total, we took a 15-minute tram ride through the story of chocolate, a 45-minute trolley ride through the town of Hershey (which included some history and group singalongs), and a 45-minute lab experience creating our own chocolate bars.

It was well worth the trip, making for a pretty long day. We'll definitely head back in a couple of years when Jackson is old enough to hit the amusement park part of Hershey, which is said to include more than 100 rides, a dozen or so rollercoaters, and a several water rides.

And, just for the record, people truly need to be able to visit an exact replica of the Wonka chocolate factory set from 1971. This trip would have been perfect with a river of chocolate.