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    • Nautical-Themed Serving Trays
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    • Unique Beach-Themed Wall Art
    • More Good Stuff
  • Custom Projects
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Good Day & Weekend Trips & Ideas

Phone-Based Scavenger Hunts: an Afternoon of Fun and Learning

11/11/2019

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Jay Bell

Running for Dad of the Year after getting my kids to combine exercise, learning, and smiles

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Portsmouth NH's scavenger hunt led to learning about more of its history, and fun with friends.
​Sometimes we have those cities that are our favorite go-to spots for a weekend away or a day trip. Other times, we venture to a new locale, but might not be clear on the best way to explore.  While most people whip out their iPhones to take their Instagram pictures or to look up places on TripAdvisor, they can also be used creatively to help you learn more about these places. 
​​Several companies offer iPhone-based scavenger hunts now. We’ve tried a few hunts and found two companies that do a good job, both with similar approaches. These hunts last for an hour or two, cover a mile or two, and have roughly twenty clues. Each clue involves a question and you have three shots at a correct answer. Then you get directions to your next clue.
 
The scoring is based on a combination of correct answers and travel time between clues. They rank you against others who recently took the challenge, allowing you to compete virtually. However, you could also break into teams if there were enough of you and you wanted personal as well as virtual competition.
​Part of the appeal of these scavenger hunts is that you can learn more about an area’s history and its attractions than you might typically realize surrounds you. As many times as we’d been to Salem, Massachusetts, we didn’t know about some of the lesser-known historical figures and places beyond the witch trials. 
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This hunt in Salem, MA, has much more to it than just looking for witches.
​Portsmouth was an old haunt for some of us, but less so for me, and I learned about more than just the bustling waterfront.

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An additional benefit is that you can pause the game after each challenge. When our hunger was getting the best of us in Salem, we paused the game, had a wonderful lunch at a local restaurant, then resumed playing. The same was true to check out a wonderful little store on Portsmouth’s main strip. This avoids the game from becoming a chore, letting you play at your own pace.
 
Not all cities have these scavenger hunts; these companies have found cities with history, variety, and a fairly self-contained route. However, all of the New England states have at least one place to offer. Some have mini-hunts as well, if you’re looking for a place or hunt that’s more abridged. Since these are national companies, it can be fun for vacations further afield, too: we played during a vacation in Nashville, which really allowed us to learn about an unfamiliar place.
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Our hunt in Nashville, TN, helped us learn more about the city, and involved noteworthy stores, in addition to more typical historical sites.
These have also helped engage our whole family. With two teen-aged girls, “family friendly” is sometimes too young of a focus for them. They also have a high bar for entertainment. This lets them take a tour without being bored by the tour guide, creates a game-like approach, and they can lead the charge, with their iPhones being assets, since some clues are best googled. It's also an easy activity for a friend to join.
 
So, the next time you’re thinking about visiting a new city or an old haunt, or looking for something fun to do with friends or family, consider a scavenger hunt. It could just be the highlight of your trip!
Key Details
  • Puzzling Adventures 
  • CityQuest 
  • Costs can be up to $50 per team but you may find discounts on their websites or Groupon, or if your employer offers a discount program such as ticketsatwork.com. For City Quest, choose the “1 person” ticket, meaning that only one person is the team lead. (Choose more if you want to have multiple teams)
  • Wear comfortable walking shoes and dress for the weather
  • Fully charge your phone, as one of them has to be the primary one; if you have a portable charger, it wouldn’t hurt to bring one (although we haven’t had to use one yet)
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5 Great (Free) Apps for New England Adventures This Fall

11/1/2019

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Jay Bell

Finding shortcuts to more fun stuff around New England

With summer vacations nearly past us, we will shortly return or focus to the hustle and bustle of school days and all of your coworkers back at the office. You may be dreading kids who range from bummed to melting down as they adjust to getting up earlier and having almost 200 days to count down before their next summer. Heck, you may be ready to melt down yourself at the thought of combining that with the sports and music lessons while cramming in your errands.
 
We’re not here to pig pile onto this pity party, though. We here at New England Good Life believe in finding the silver linings in such situations. So we looked around and found five apps for your phones that will offer inspiration for your upcoming fall and even winter weekends. These cover a range of topics and give you a chance for quick-hit inspiration. You can look for something while walking to that meeting you don’t want to go to (look out for the wall). Or sneak a quick peek during soccer practice (don’t forget to look up periodically). The bottom line is that these can help get you through the transition, while also being useful later on.
 
1. Vermont Brewery Challenge
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The Vermont Brewery app led to the Alchemist in Stowe, VT, with its music and craft brews.
Rating: 3.7
Cost: free
Details: this app was developed by the Vermont Brewers Association. They’re renowned in the craft beer industry. There’s a bit of a game here, as you get your passport stamped by visiting the Vermont breweries. Now, you gotta understand, it’s almost impossible to keep up with all the innovation going on across the state’s breweries. So, sure, there might be a missing beer. Also, if you try to create a contest with friends forming teams to see who can visit the most then they’ve got a time limit before you can get a new stamp. That seems like a mighty good safeguard, even if you don’t like it.

All that being said, it’s a cool app. The map makes it easy to find new places. Another part captures your experience and favorites before you forget, and it’s sufficiently up-to-date that it’s still far easier than searching the thousands of page results you’ll get when searching the google machine. This is also more convenient than carrying around a brochure and getting frustrated when you don’t have a pen. If you’re a couple of hop heads looking for as much color in your beers as in the fall foliage, it’s a winner to download.

2. Farmers markets
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The Farmers Markets app offers a variety of tools to help you find and choose what works for you.
Rating: 4.7
Cost: free
Details: New England’s farmers markets dot the region, especially in summer and fall. But they do exist year round. This app allows you to find the ones closest to you. You can view it in either map or list versions. It can use your location to instantly focus on your area, but you can search elsewhere if you’ll be on a weekend away. This can also be a good way to quickly add some healthy food from local farms into the mix if you’re running errands and are magically ahead of schedule. (If so, buy a lottery ticket afterwards!)
 
The app also includes added details, such as what types of offerings are available at the market, season and hours, payment methods, and a website link. As with anything like this, it’s impossible to be 100% current but this will save so much researching that it makes it even easier to support local farms, businesses, and craftspeople while finding some great and unique things. On a side note, this is also a nationwide app, so if you’re in Oregon craving some good, local eggs, this is still going to help you out.
 
3. AllTrails
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The AllTrails app can help in a few ways, especially recent trail conditions from other users.
Rating: 4.9
Cost: free
Details: with fall foliage not far away and the days growing shorter, the combination can inspire you to get out for some great late-season hikes. All Trails is a national app, so it can be useful up in northern New England or the Berkshires, with their amazing foliage. But it can also be helpful closer to home. It doesn’t have mapping functions to let you string together the trails you want and which way you want to go at each intersection. But with its really large volume of common routes, there are still a ton of choices. What’s particularly helpful is the information posted by other users. If you’re hiking up in the White Mountains, for example, seeing a post from a day or two ago that notes the water crossing is dangerous can be really helpful. (pack your water wings!) But even on simpler trails, they might note a modification that’s been made to the trail or something that will be useful to you. It also graphs the elevation change for you to see where the hard parts are, rather than a total ascent or descent.
 
4. Sharktivity
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The Sharktivity app can give you reassurance if you need it.
Rating: 3.8
Cost: free
Details: sure, summer’s over. But September will still bring some warm, sunny days that let you squeeze in a final beach day or two. On a serious note, we’ve seen such a huge uptick in shark sightings with several bites and even a fatality sadly added to the mix. For anyone worried about them, this offers a chance to see what’s been spotted in the area. It’s not an elaborate app but is an easy and near-instant safety check. The details it offers give you a little more context to evaluate as well, such as whether a shark sighting was confirmed. And on a lighter note, if there’s nothing around and you have a perverse sense of humor, you can have a little fun freaking out your kid: “OK, we’re here! Oh, let me check quickly… yep. Wow. Looks like there was a shark right around here yesterday. So don’t swim out too far. Let’s go, kids!”
 
5. Slopes
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The Slopes app is a really fun way to track all your skiing stats.
Rating: 4.8
Cost: free
Details: OK, we admit it. This is more winter-related than fall. But this is a really fun app for skiing. And since some places open up around Thanksgiving, technically, this is legit. Slopes captures your speed, vertical descent, and route. It weeds out time on the chair lift while giving you the time spent actually skiing. It’s not a serious battery drain, so lets you get a bunch of runs in, and you can then either see how you did or compare with other people. The 3D replay is a fun way to watch where you were flying or where you took a lengthy time-out after having a yard sale in the moguls. There’s also some synchronization with various other apps you may be using.
This app was fun for our whole family. But it also pushed my daughter, who had discovered it. She was psyched when she got (safely) past 30 mph in one particularly steep spot. This subtly helped build her confidence which, in turn, built her technique. Luckily, it didn’t inspire her so much so that she wound up like Lane Meyers skiing on one ski (a la John Cusack in Better Off Dead). ​​​

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While these won’t turn the clock back to summer, nor will they revolutionize your life, they may still lead to little discoveries or activities that help you adjust to fall with some enthusiasm. And if you have your own apps that are really helpful in maximizing your weekends, drop us a line and let us know!
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Franconia Notch Stables: enjoying nature atop a horse

10/31/2019

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Jay Bell

Wishing I could note my occupation as "cowboy" in the next census

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​Franconia Notch is a beautiful, rugged part of New Hampshire. The notch itself is lined with views and natural attractions, and Cannon Mountain and its ski trails loom large on the north end of it. But if visitors are willing to venture down some back roads, there’s more to be found. Franconia Notch Stables is one such place that, while off the beaten path, offers a chance to explore the area and enjoy the scenery in a different way.
 
Franconia Notch Stables, part of the Franconia Inn, is behind Cannon Mountain. It’s only a few minutes’ drive off of the highway. But it becomes quickly apparent that you’re in a more remote area. The Franconia Inn and adjacent stables are nestled in a little valley, surrounded by woods, mountains, and adjacent to a grass airfield. Everything has a more casual feel than the pleasant but more business-like places we sometimes run across in more hectic locales. This set things off on the right foot, as we prepared for our ride.
 
We’d lined up an hour-long trail ride at Franconia Notch Stables and were joining four other people. While we observed all of the horses to be well trained, each is still unique with its own personality. Accordingly, horses were matched with riders based on personalities, skills, and experience. However, prior riding experience isn’t necessary, and some riders had never been in the saddle. Also, these rides only proceed at a walking pace; no galloping to worry about for the newbie! ​
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Setting out from the barn, the trails traversed fields, rivers, and woods. At times we were nestled in amongst the pines, and other points afforded us views of the surrounding mountains. The trails often include switchbacks, allowing the guide to easily observe the group and to offer helpful pointers.
 
Our guide, Abbott, was perfect for the ride. He was conversational and casual, but always observant and clearly experienced. His demeanor, obvious enjoyment of his work, and his watchful eye put some nervous riders at ease, while his conversation engaged the group.
 
The ride was also a great chance to allow all of us to fully engage with nature. Traveling at a slow pace, being in the woods on narrow trails, and seeing the world from atop a horse instead of in a car allowed people to see things differently. After settling into the ride, some began asking questions while others conversed with strangers, bonding over the ride. Sometimes people seemed alone with their thoughts while other times we were locked in on the task at hand, such as a river crossing. It seemed as if people’s work stress or any broader themes in their lives melted away and they could lose themselves in the trail ride, atop these beautiful animals, either proud in overcoming their nerves or happy in the purity of that moment.
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We were sorry to see the ride end. But after taking a little extra time to walk through the Franconia Inn, we realized there’s plenty to enjoy with this property without having to leave: in addition to the horseback riding, there are tennis courts, a pool, Jacuzzi, restaurant, airplane rides, inviting chairs on the front porch, and in the winter the trails can be used for cross-country skiing. We resolved to come back and turn it into a weekend getaway, and are excited to have discovered a new place to explore further.
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Key Details
Franconia Notch Stables offers several types of rides but the most common is a one-hour group trail ride for $60 per person, offered several times each day.
Franconia Inn has a variety of rooms and packages to try to fit the type of trip you're looking for.
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Alphabet Day: a game for your day, your road trip, or time with your kids

8/13/2019

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Jay Bell

Having more fun with the alphabet than I ever had playing crossword puzzles

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Our version of this game started with a summer sunrise, but it can be completed in a normal day.
​Sometimes you have those days that are pretty wide open: no long list of chores, no big plans, maybe you’re on vacation with a light itinerary for the day. We found ourselves with such a day recently when we were on vacation, and weren’t sure how to spend it. So, just like my friends and I would do as kids, we invented a game, complete with rules and everything.
 
The rules were simple: do whatever we wanted, but find letters that the activities correspond to. The goal was to do stuff that touched on every letter of the alphabet. Intimidating? Nope. This didn’t require doing 26 different things, just doing stuff that involved words starting with all those letters. That meant one activity could score more than one letter. Ready, set, go!
Picture"A... for Abandoned."
​This had the potential to be a stressful challenge that could leave us feeling over-programmed. But we started with a couple of things we definitely wanted to do, a possibility or two, and an assumption we’d find other stuff along the way. We opened up a new Note on my iPhone and marked down letters and words as we went along. If things were duplicates, we didn’t worry in the moment. We figured we’d sort stuff out later in the day and see what was left to tackle.

We wound up having a blast. It was a way to frame our day. It also led us to observe things we might have otherwise missed. And it also provided its own unique laughs. For example, when we went to visit a historical society and they didn’t show up to open their building, we declared we’d been “A… abandoned!” (Sigh.) 

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Hog Island was a good pitstop for lunch, an "I.P.A.", and to take stock of our results so far.
​Conversely, when we went to a local brewery to have lunch and assess what we’d accomplished and what we had left to do, we proudly realized we could declare a trifecta, as we were drinking an “I-P-A”. We spontaneously hit a flea market, and I wound up with a $2 book by one of my favorite authors, eventually needing his N for Novel. And when we thought we wouldn’t come up with an X word, we thought about using Q for Quit. However, we’d learned earlier from a tour guide about the sappy pine trees that were pervasive in our area, and discovered that Xylem is like a tree’s artery, moving the sap through the tree. That became the final letter that gave us the win.
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We stumbled across this farmers market. The natural popsicle was tasty and memorialized as our "P".
​While we played this on a vacation day, and could start the day off before dawn watching a sunrise at the beach, it can be done anywhere. If your summer trips are over and you’re out of ideas for the kids while awaiting the start of the new school year, you can go at it the same way. If you’re a couple staying home for the weekend, it might be a way to discover some new things in your neck of the woods. Our longest activities were about an hour, from our sunrise at the ocean to a tour at an historical society (not the one that didn’t open on time). By contrast, the shortest was about five minutes as we snagged some seltzer water at the Eastham Superette.
 
It doesn’t really matter if you finish, just as long as you have fun in the attempt. Here are our final results, to give you an idea of how random the letters were. Start to finish, we were gone for about nine hours, making it a full day but still fine.
RESULTS
Atlantic Ocean
Beach glass
Conservation Trust (a nature trail)
Driftwood
Eastham Superette
Farmers Market
Guided tour
Historical Society
I.P.A.
Jetty
Ketchup
Lighthouse
Marsh
Novel
Outermost Brewery
Popsicle
Queen Anne’s Lace (flower all around downtown Wellfleet)
One Room Schoolhouse
Sunrise
Conservation Trust
Uncle Tim’s Bridge
Visitors Center
Wellfleet
Xylem (who knew science was exciting?)
Yarrow flower
Zucchini
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This bouy pyramid on a town green didn't wind up being used for a letter. But it was still a fun find, and we'd never have checked out if we weren't playing this game.
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Walking among shops, we noticed plenty of Queen Anne's Lace.
​Again, there’s nothing magical about this. But if you decide to take the challenge, you’ll likely wind up getting absorbed into the adventure, and probably walk away with some random stories and some new discoveries. If so, we’d love you to drop us a comment or email and tell us about your own adventure!
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Immersing Yourself in Your Own Surroundings

7/15/2019

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Jay Bell

Leaving no stone un-turned.

Sometimes, the joy of a vacation is letting go of work pressures, ignoring the lawn that needs mowing, and taking a timeout from your normal life. That certainly has its place, as you can de-stress, recharge, and return to your normal life with more enthusiasm. Sometimes, however, you can’t take that vacation. Maybe it’s the cost of a weekend away (“$300 per night for a double bed with no wifi? Aargh!”). Or maybe it’s a commitment that takes up part of the weekend (“who thought a Friday night game for a preteen was a good idea?!?!”). The bottom line is that sometimes you’re stuck locally but still with some free time and spending money available.
 
We recently challenged ourselves to fill an entire day without leaving the boundaries of our town. OK, granted, we have a place on Cape Cod, so this wasn’t a terribly intimidating challenge. But we constricted it further to just our quieter part of town, to see what we’d make of it, and had a self-imposed rule of focusing on the fun: no chores allowed while at home.
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If you start the day by watching the sun rise, you're off to a good start (regardless of where you see it from)!
For me, the day started off at dawn, finding a scenic spot to watch the sun come up. It had this mindfulness aspect to it in which I was really plugged in to the sights, sounds, and smells around me. Again, I fully acknowledge that it’s not hard to be present watching the sun coming up over the ocean, so I’m not going to win any awards for perseverance on that one. But plenty of towns have mountains, bigger expanses of woods, farms, or even office parks perched on a hill that serve as lookout points to watch the sky transform from darkness to color before brightening enough as you then continue on with your day.
 
After returning to the house, the general game plan was put together over a second cup of coffee on the back deck. We threw some food in a cooler, tossed the beach chairs in the back of the truck, and headed off to the beach. Yeah, I know; not the most agonizing of decisions on a sunny, hot day. But so many towns have conservation areas, state forests, or some sort of green space if you want to have a picnic, go for a bike ride, or enjoy the outdoors in some way.
PictureBeach glass: you can lose yourself hunting for this stuff!
We spent a few hours on the beach reading, walking and searching for beach glass, watching boats motoring out of the nearby harbor, and relaxing. Then we packed up, returned home, and showered up. We’d considered a few options on the next part of the day, from browsing local small businesses to sampling craft beer from a brewer in town to looking into some of the town’s history. We settled on grabbing a drink and appetizer at some casually upscale local restaurants.

The first was at The Pheasant, a restaurant in an historic barn, which had changed ownership and undergone some changes recently. It was a chance to see how the place was evolving and how it might be worth a longer visit another time. As it turns out, we wound up chatting with the bartender who had developed the cocktail program, as well as the owner, who exuded enthusiasm.
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Limiting ourselves to appetizers and drinks at some of the nicer restaurants in town provided an opportunity to explore and combine the best of some great places.
Both were friendly and engaging as they explained about making homemade bitters and the subtle perfection of directionally frozen ice.  We also learned about some interesting classes they planned to offer during the next off-season.

The second pit stop was at Encore Bistro and Bar. This restaurant and pub is situated next to the Cape Playhouse and Cape Cod Museum of Art. A performance had just ended so the place was packed and energetic. While the attentive bartenders hustled to deal with the crowd, we were reminded that the playhouse is an option we don’t take much advantage of, and we've found an entertaining-looking play we plan to see next month.
 
Our final stop was right around the corner, at Harvest Gallery Wine Bar. Aside of their top-notch cocktails and ever-rotating wine selection, it’s a fun chance to sample several wines instead of having to commit to a single glass.  They feature a wide array of musicians across genres. This might leave you singing along, as you blend in with others and pretend you’re pitch perfect. Or, you can get out on the dance floor to burn off the calories from the cheese plate or meals that are always spot-on.  Artwork adorns the walls and is all for sale or a potential conversation-starter.  Its friendly atmosphere staff promote conversations among strangers, such as learning about the experiences of another couple who relocated from Tennessee (tip from all of us surrounding them: never, ever relocate from the South to New England during the dead of winter). While we always enjoy this place, the pit-stop on this day reinforced to us that it stays fresh and interesting.
 
When the night was over, it was only a mile back to our house. We finished with more ideas for future weekends than we started with. Some of the more interesting moments weren’t the parts that were planned; they were the conversations that occurred spontaneously with the people around us, as a result of enjoying the moment instead of wishing we were doing something more exciting.
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When thinking about our small town in Central Mass where we spend the majority of our time instead of a beach community in the summer, it still offers opportunities: small batch coffee in an historic building with occasional wine tastings we've never been to; a nearby farm with an array of fruit for picking; conservation trails we've never explored; and a farm stand that recently underwent a renovation and serves up local ice cream along with products from a number of local small businesses.
It’s a reminder that there is often more going on than meets the eye. You don’t need to be in a bit city or a vacation destination in order to find something interesting. You can work with budgets big and small, and find activities for families, friends, or couples. It was a framework to our day that challenged us to
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Checking out new conservation trails provides a low-cost option for casual exercise, conversation, and adventure.
re-look at what was in front of us. Ultimately, it highlighted that we’re really only limited by our imagination.
 
So, now the challenge is yours: what can you (re)discover in your own surroundings?
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