Our opportune breakdown

After we left Cape Cod, our goal was to go berry picking for a few hours, have dinner, and then head back in the car around bed time for one last push home. That didn't happen.

We DID go berry picking:

 

But then we stopped for pee-pee and doughnuts on the way back. Elizabeth must have either been very thirsty or, more likely, defiant, because she kept drinking her water even after we told her she had enough. So, we took her water away and drove off. Thirty minutes later, Elizabeth yelled "Me pee-pee!" and we pulled over as soon as we could ... at some random park-and-ride off some random exit outside some random town in central Connecticut.

I turned off the car and let Elizabeth and Kate out. But Kate suggested that I continue to drive around for a minute since Henry was sleeping. So I turned the key and ... nothing.

Thirty minutes later, after Kate had pulled out the picnic blanket and had a fresh blueberry feast with the kids on a green patch of nearby grass, I finally accepted that I had no idea what I was reading in the owner's manual nor any idea what I was looking at under the hood. So I called AAA and became a member.

Kate and I worked out logistics and ended up spending the night in Groton, which we figured out was only two exits away from Mystic, Conn., a touristy town with huge casinos, a huge aquarium, and a delightful 'old port town' complete with old buildings, actors, and an easy, breezy, beautiful little harbor with a few old sailboats and a lot of kayakers, canoers, and yachters.

In the morning, after AAA replaced the car battery, we were off to the aquarium, which we thought Elizabeth would like the most. We then learned that the aquarium was $30 per adult, so we opted for the seaport (which was still expensive, but offered a children's museum, a planetarium (we didn't go, but I would assume they teach you about how sailors of olde used stars to navigate at night), and a few kitchy, old-towny attractions like horse-and-buggy rides, and old apothocary, schoolhouse, tavern, and a boathouse where you can help put boats together).

What a great place to breakdown!

No one is asleep here. These are 'sailor beds' in the children's museum

It was then naptime, so we got back in the car, drove a few more hours until the kids woke up outside Stamford, Conn., and then found a mall where Kate could buy all the things we never knew we needed. 

We then made it home, 34 hours after leaving Cape Cod. The car is fine. And Kate and the kids are off again enjoying another beachy adventure in North Carolina. Pics to come soon.