My family has a travel curse. So, when we started out on a two-week vacation touring the New England states, we vowed to remain flexible. It was hard when our flight was late leaving our destination, then, at the layover takeoff, there was a delay while a family discussed their very personal issues very loudly to the dismay of everyone on board. When that was finally resolved, we took off (late), and landed in Baltimore about midnight.

But the travel curse was not done with us yet. Nope.

There was a lack of cars at the car rental agency. It would be a wait, but we would get a car (minivan was what we rented), but we were warned it might not be the vehicle we’d requested. We waited nearly an hour, but finally a vehicle arrived in front of us. A small sedan. It was way too small for my family and the camping equipment we planned on taking with us, so we passed it to the next family and waited some more. Our travel curse must have been either asleep or distracted, for we did get a car. Not the minivan, but something better. A brand-new huge Ford Expedition. Wahoo.

We arrived at my brother-in-laws around 2 am, with the intention of waking up at 6 am so that we could get an early start. We made it out by 10 am. The delay impacted our touring of the day. We wouldn’t make it to Mystic, CT. Damn. We did get a great view of the NY skyline from the George Washington Bridge as we sat in traffic, but no one wanted to go straight to our hotel without seeing something.

Well, my brother-in-law is a genius with Google. We got a message from him in the lead car  of our touring caravan that a short way up the road was a Pez factory/visitor station. Did we want to go? Of course we did. I wasn’t expecting a lot….just a quick tour of how they made candy. Well, I was in for a surprise. The visitor center was entertaining. We participated in the treasure hunt, which took us on a tour of Pez dispensers from beginning to end. So many Pez dispensers! The kids (and I’ll admit the adults, too) had a blast.

Yeah, it wasn’t Mystic, but it was great fun. The day was saved….saved by the Pez.