What happens when you combine three (relatively) small children craving entertainment and two parents craving beer? The answer, of course, is a road trip to a magical land that offers the best of both worlds — a place where the sun always shines, the streets are paved with gold and visions of sugarplums dance in the heads of all who come to share the good times. I speak, of course, of the greater Portsmouth, NH area: just over an hour north of Boston, and an easy day trip even for those dragging along their unholy legion of offspring bringing along the kids for a little weekend fun.
Specifically, our target was the Children's Museum of New Hampshire in Dover - a quick 10-15 minutes outside of Portsmouth - but as we somehow didn't get on the road until about 10:30 in the morning... well, the kids needed lunch, right?
Well, children: what a happy coincidence. Because, as it happens, directly on the way to Dover are not one but two spectacular brewpubs — both of which feature kid-friendly menus and a flotilla of outstanding brews for parents who might consider a reinforcement or two necessary before plunging into the nightmarish miasma fun-filled goodtimeyness of a kids' museum. The first of these (and a longtime favorite of TheWife and I) is the Portsmouth Brewery in downtown Portsmouth, a sister business to the popular Smuttynose Brewing Company and easily one of the best brewpubs in all of New England (FYI: beyond the Smutty brews, they also produce a lot of their own stuff, and it's generally outstanding. They also have non-liquid food, should you feel so inclined, and it's honestly quite good. Check it out, yo.)
On this particular Saturday, however, we decided to forego downtown Portsmouth and instead stop by option #2, which is only a couple of minutes off Rte. 4/16 (the main road between Portsmouth and Dover) and turned out to be extremely satisfying as well: the Cataqua Pub at the Red Hook Brewery. The Brewery itself is a massive, green-roofed facility, and after winding our way through the maze of office park roads at the Pease International Tradeport we found our way to its welcoming arms: a big, open pub area offering an extensive range of Red Hook's exceptional offerings and a very respectable pub-style menu (much expanded from the far-more-limited options available when we'd visited two years previously). TheWife and I ordered a sampler flight and a monstrous pile of nachos, the kids got hot dogs and burgers, and everyone enjoyed a very happy hour or so soaking up the bright, open atmosphere and good times.
Thus saturated with hops and guacamole (or chocolate milk and fries, in our kids' case, as we tend to limit their beer consumption during daylight hours to a pint or two), we resumed our journey and traveled onward to Dover... and the New Hampshire Children's Museum. The Museum itself is in downtown Dover, which is kind of charming beyond the remarkably poor civil engineering of its traffic light system (constant gridlock. Seriously. I had to travel to Dover on business a couple of years ago, and at 11am on a Tuesday I hit the same terrible gridlock as I did at 12:30pm on a Saturday. It's unavoidable, and a pain in the (fill in anatomical reference), but ultimately a 10-15 minute delay that you and your family can survive. Because once you navigate the lights and find your way into down, on-street parking is relatively easy (at least, it was for us) and Shazam: you're in.).
After shelling out $40 for admission for five, we made our way in — and our kids were immediately entranced by the fun & interactive yellow submarine just beyond the entrance. The submarine actually turned out to be quite emblematic of the museum as a whole: an interesting combination of educational value and imaginary play facilitation. There were a couple of hands-on items inside for the kids to play with (e.g. sonar, navigating the sub) as well as some bunks and portholes that allowed them to pretend to be underwater and attacked by a wide and fascinating array of bloodthirsty undersea creatures, including but not limited to giant sharks, giant squid, giant octopi and giant sea monsters. By and large, the part of the bloodthirsty giant thing was played by me.
From there, we proceeded to the immediately adjacent Build It, Fly It exhibit, which basically allows your kids to stick together a couple of pieces of foam and then put them on one of four conveyer belts, which they crank via handle up about 40 feet into the air... at which point the foam goes over the top of the belt and then flutters downward to the delight of all small people. You'll get bored after the second foam flutter experience, but your kids will be enthralled for a good twenty minutes, guaranteed.
Much of the rest of the Museum is dedicated to exhibits much more conducive to imaginary play than hands-on experimentation — for example, there's a large, old west-style post office where our twin 4yo girls spent a happy 20 minutes pretending to be mean-spirited postal employees, as well as several other sections that invite kids to put on costumes and imagine themselves as part of different cultures or to play field paleontologist in a dinosaur dig.
The Museum offers two levels of exhibits, although most of them are limited to the large first floor. The second floor features a couple of all-ages exhibits, including one faux-castle that the 4yo former postal employees lovingly transformed into their own tyrannical dominion, but is dominated by a larger area designed for kids 3 and under. This turned out to be something of an issue for us, as the under-3 area includes an elaborate Brio train area that our 6yo wanted to play with – leading to his subsequent meltdown when told he was too big/too old for that section. Leading to the discovery that, despite the title of this post, in New Hampshire everyone can - in fact - hear you scream; in particular, they can hear your 6yo scream bloody murder as he throws a massive fit to the point where you have to pick him up, carry him all the way down the long ramp from the second floor to the first, and finally physically remove him from the premises.
Which was fun. I highly recommend ending all museum outings that way.
Overall, we found the museum to be a very positive experience (except for, uh, the way it ended). The facility is spacious, bright & colorful, and the exhibits are visually interesting and VERY MUCH geared toward the facilitation of imaginative play (with an educational bent). If your kids prefer more concrete, hands-on play, keep this in mind before you make the trip. Otherwise, go for it — for us, we found it a very worthwhile addition to our coterie of New England Children's Museums.
(And don't forget to stop for a pint or two on your way in and out. Your kids get a museum trip, you get a delicious microbrew and some good eats... it's a complete win-win.)
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