Last week, Lily, Anna, Cecilia, Harris, and I drove to St Louis and back playing dances. I wrote about one aspect last week, and will probably continue splitting thoughts across posts. Today I'm thinking some about our approach to stopping along the way.

I grew up in a family with a very strong "maximize time at destination" approach to road trips. We would often leave before daylight, with stops determined by the minivan's requirements for additional gasoline. We would eat while driving, I recall creative efforts to handle certain biological needs, and we'd generally try to get the trip over with as quickly as possible.

I did sometimes see other people taking a different approach, but it wasn't until the first time I drove a group of college classmates a long way that I realized people have widely divergent preferences here. We were driving a van to Dance Flurry, about five hours North of Swarthmore, and around lunchtime people started talking about maybe stopping for lunch. I (really!) thought they were joking, and said that since we still had more gas and had brought along a bunch of food we didn't need to stop. There was a revolt, and we did not end up eating while driving.

Over time, I've come around to a view where one of the great things about traveling long distances by car is the opportunity for interesting stops. It's often the case that there are intermediate locations that are better places to spend the marginal hour than your origin or destination.

Before this tour we put some time into thinking about nice places to stop, and we also did some looking up options while driving. We ended up stopping at:

• Cecilia's father's violin shop, where he showed us how he repairs instruments:

  

  Lily and Anna both got to take turns putting on clamps:

  

• Niagara Falls, on the way from Rochester to Pittsburgh. I'd been there once before, ten years earlier with Amy and Audrey, but it was great to take the older two kids there.

  

  We also had a lot more time than on our previous visit, and so were able to take the elevator and boardwalk down to the base of the falls.

  

  Lily loved the powerful wind and spray; Anna wanted to stay a bit further from the most intense area.

  

• Golden Gate Park in Brookville OH on the way from Pittsburgh to Bloomington. Really big play structure (but Lily was worried about splinters and says it's a head bonking hazard), plus a creek. Lily did some vegan 'fishing':

  

• Bluespring Caverns, on the way from Bloomington to St Louis.

  

  It's an underground river, through a cave, with a boat tour.

  

  I'd been in smaller caves before, but this felt very different.

  

• Gateway Arch, another stop on the way to the St Louis dance. We went up to the top, in very small cars with tiny doors.

  

  The view was excellent.

  

• The Woodlands in Martinsville IL on the way from St Louis to Cincinnati. The headline attractions were a 90-foot slide:

  

  And a pretty great zipline:

  

  It was fast enough you'd go nearly horizontal when stopping at the end.

  

  There was also a little creek, some musical toys, and a nice play structure.

• Brookville Lake, on the way from Cincinatti to Indianapolis. Swimming and hanging out at the beach, very relaxed. The water was warm, though since I get cold easily I was glad to have my wetsuit with me.

  

• Pepper Pike Park, on the way from Indianapolis to Syracuse. Lots of green space, some water, decent playground, nice bench swings.

• Lee Athletic Field, in Lee MA on the way back to Boston. The playground and field were fine, but at the far end of the field there was the best stream we'd stopped at all trip. Lots of trees, cool water, squishy mud in places, a few skippable stones, and a small island you could wade to without getting your knees under.

  

There were also stops that didn't end up being so nice (usually: "too hot, no water, not much to do") but we generally kept these short, stretching legs and moving on.

I asked everyone to rate these:

Overall, I think this dramatically improved the tour. While I love playing dances, and that remains my favorite part, some of the things we saw along the way came close!