We didn’t struggle to find things to do in the Sunapee Lake area. We managed to find everything from full day trips to the Quechee Gorge area to nice evenings out picking blueberries at a U-pick farm down the road.

Probably our most eventual day was a trip to the Quechee Gorge hike, the amazing Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (VIMS) Raptor Center and the King Arthur Bakery, Café, Store & School. It was incredible how well the Raptor Center at VIMS held the boys attention. They loved seeing all the different birds of prey, watching the many live demonstrations they put on and exploring the 10 acre property which includes a natural play area, canopy walk and hiking trails. It was the perfect afternoon to work off the lunch and all the tasty treats we picked up at the King Arthur Bakery campus. Their campus is very impressive, with lots of options to choose from and one of the most modern looking cooking stores I have ever seen.

We also spent a day hiking up the top of the Mount Kearsarge (took Rollins Trail to Lincoln Trail) – the boys loved scrambling up the very rocky path with Remi and standing on the top of the mountain. It is a nice setup, Mt. Kearsarge is within Rollins State Park which has a 3 mile paved road that gets you within a half mile of the mountain’s peak making for a fun hike that doesn’t take all day.

After the hike we checked out the Mount Kearsarge Native American Museum with the boys. I was really impressed how well the boys did going through the exhibits which are organized by geographical regions. They did great, relating each region to a biome in Minecraft and thinking about the resources that would be available to them. That explained why different groups ended up making artifacts from grasses and bark vs. clay pots vs. animal remains.

In addition to our big adventures we also frequently visited Otter Pond to use the really nice road-side beach there, went indoor glow-in-the-dark mini golfing at Black Beard’s Cove Adventure and hiking the Great Brooke Trail in New London, NH. That particular trail turned out to be quite the adventure. A little over 2.5 miles into the trail you make it to what looks like a beautiful swimming pond courtesy of a picture perfect beaver dam. I had carried the boys swim things in my back pack so they threw them on for a swim.

It took about 2 minutes for a swarm of mutant sized leeches to descend on the boys. It was creepy watching them swim through the crystal clear water at the first sign of human contact. Just kneeling from shore and putting our hands in as “bait” we were able to capture a bunch in my epi-pen cases to take back as fishing bait.