LazerZone Exclusive Offer

Our new Dispatches sponsors at LazerZone (Marlborough/Randolph) are offering Dispatches readers a coupon for $2 off lasertag if you mention the DayTripper Dispatches or The Compleat Day Tripper at the check-in desk! The offer is subject to change, so call or ask at the 'Zone for the latest Dispatches exclusive.

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"We hope all DayTrippers are able to enjoy this holiday season despite the painful economy. Try to remember that all bad things do come to an end and that lazertag is a great way to clear your mind. Be safe & have a great couple of weeks! DayTripper subscribers, purchase $25, get $5 FREE! Purchase $50, get $15 FREE! Purchase $75, get $25 FREE! Mention the DayTripper Dispatches when you call (508) 303-9900 to order over the phone or stop by the store. We will be open from 9:30am-4pm on Monday 12/22 for Gift Certificate sales only!" - From Steve & Michael at LazerZone

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Get the Dispatches NOW or buy the book in January 2009!

Welcome, Earthlings!

Star Log, Nov. 26: The DayTripper Divas beamed down to one of our favorite rainy-day spots, LazerZone on Route 20 in Marlboro just before Thanksgiving. It was early afternoon, just before the teen crowd started rolling in, but we had a nice visit with owner Steve Taylor and his attentive staff. Under the watchful eye of LazerZone's alien mascot, we tried the arcade games, peeked in on a rousing game of lasertag, and sent our 8-year-old into the huge split-level playground. Steve even gave us a sneak peek at the new karaoke room, and noted that the dining hall converts into a "bungee wall" which was a new concept to us! View the evidence, below:

Cross-Country Skiing for Kids

Get your kids involved with a fun, healthy, inexpensive, safe and relatively cheap lifetime winter sport! There is an excellent cross-country instructional league based at the Weston Ski Track, called the Bill Koch League. They encourage parents to get in on the act, too! They welcome all abilities and will teach kids 7+ how to ski and even do a bit of fun racing. There are over 80 kids in the local program. The season has a wonderful grand finale ski festival in Gunstock, NH. In December, practices will start again at our usual home-base at the Weston Ski Track on Saturdays at 9:30. In years past, our first on-snow practice is generally in mid-Dec., due to excellent snow-making equipment at Weston. For more details, email Lauren Hefferon of the Arlington Outings Club.

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See the Compleat Day Tripper for Weston and other family-tested cross-country ski destinations!

Sea Turtle Rescue on Cape Cod

One of the great things about living on Cape Cod is the tremendous number of opportunities to get involved with ongoing work to preserve the environment and to protect wildlife, reported reader Rick Silva on the Dispatches Gather group. Rick and friends volunteer at the Humane Society's Cape Wildlife Center, and are involved in saltmarsh monitoring through the Association to Preserve Cape Cod (also see the author's recent article on fish monitoring with the APCC). On Monday, Rick was among a large crowd of spectators who came to Dowses Beach in Osterville MA to watch a group of sea turtles get released into the wild.

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A few of the turtles seemed a bit confused at first, but then slowly headed down the beach...

Be a Compleat Day Tripper!

The Compleat Day Tripper

• New Metro Boston Edition coming in September - completely revised & updated
• Cape Cod & South Coast Edition due out by October!
• Vermont/NH and Western Massachusetts editions in development!

Get out and about with these wildly popular, newly revised and expanded guides to family-friendly expeditions. By popular demand, the latest editions will feature sections on accessible activities, birthday parties, and swimming pools. You'll find some very frank reviews, plus great index, destination websites, and contact information for each family-tested Day Trip. A portion of the proceeds benefit local public schools. The electronic editions make perfect companions to the books, and include clickable website links. Put the PDF on your PDA or iPhone!

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Click Here to Order

Take a Nice Jaunt to Nahant!

We've had a lot of fun taking our kids to Long Beach, Nahant Because our 2-year-old can generally only handle a couple of hours at the beach, we found the parking prices on the North Shore a bit prohibitive. The great advantage of Nahant is that there's loads of parking (1300 spaces!), it only costs $3 per car during the day and !bonus! it's free after about 4.30pm. So it's perfectly suited to a quick visit. The parking is very close to the beach too. We're often parked only 30 yards from where we sit, which makes exits nice and speedy. The beach is a relatively short drive from Cambridge/Somerville (map) and is sandy and quite shallow and good for kids. As the name suggests, it is very long, so is much less crowded than Walden Pond or the closer North Shore beaches. Plus, there's a Dunkin Donuts at the entrance to the car park -- great for a parental iced coffee or bagel snack for the kids. - Thanks to Serena Hildenbrand, Somerville, for this beach tip!

Canobie Lake: Now Toddler Tested!

We just took our (22 month old) daughter to Canobie Lake Park last week, and she loved it. Loads of great kid rides, and she loved the train that went around the park. Totally worth it (especially because she was free - up to age 3). Love the Compleat Day Tripper, thanks! - Jess McDaniel, Somerville

Perfect Fun at Kimball Farm

Recognize the cover of The Compleat Day Tripper? Once again, my son's annual birthday party expedition to Kimball Farm on Friday night was perfect. This is the fourth in a row! Birthday parties are an easy do-it-yourself operation at Kimball Farm. We went from the bumper boats, to the mini-golf, back to the bumper boats, then pizza and ice cream! There's also a driving range and playground, and a great grill service during the summer with shaded picnic tables. You can put together goodie bags with candy & knicknacks from the Country Store. Kimball Farm can be crowded with school & camp groups, but it wasn't yesterday, probably because of the heat & humidity (not a problem for five 13-year-olds with 3 gallons of ice water! The crowds seemed to thin out after about 5 p.m. Phone (978) 486-3891. Prices range from $7.50 for bumper boats to $10 a round ($6 repeats) for mini-golf; discounts bundles and children to age 12.

Heading to the Harbor Islands

The Harbor Islands make a great day trip out of Boston Harbor Tours at Long Wharf. The boat ride itself is a blast, and George’s Island offers tours of Fort Warren, an old stone fort that's fun to explore, with lots of paths to walk on and open areas to run around (wear shoes and dodge the goose gifts).There are tons of fun kid-friendly things to do on many of the Harbor Islands and at Hull. Nantasket Beach on the Hull peninsula is a favorite, but be advised that the boat landing in Hull does not really get you very near the beach, though there are taxis.

Perpetual Motion Saves the Rainy Day

I just have to thank you again for your book. My friend and I (plus two 2 year olds and a baby) just spent 3 blissful hours on a rainy day at Perpetual Motion in Lowell. We would never have heard of it without the Compleat Day Tripper. - Christine Power Thielman, Arlington

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Editor's Note: Perpetual Motion now offers areas for school-age kids as well as pre-schoolers, plus they offer a coupon for Dispatches subscribers. Please visit our sponsor site to claim your discount!

Discover the Forest on Drumlin's New Trail

Drumlin Farm's new Forest Discovery Trail is a favorite with younger children, reports Banks Poor of Mass Audubon - a fact confirmed by my own daughter, who is attending Explorers Camp for incoming 2nd graders there this week. This interactive trail through the famous Red Pine Forest lets visitors explore the forest as one of the animals. You can get a hawk's-eye view of dinner, build a gnome home, and cozy up in a giant bird's nest. The trail habitat is a unique change of pace from the farmyard and a wonderful place for nature lovers of all ages to hike, explore, and learn more about the forest and the animals who inhabit it. - by Charlotte Pierce

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We invite you to "Gather" with the Day Tripper Divas!

Art Goes Wild! at Garden In The Woods

Garden in the Woods' ART GOES WILD! exhibit runs daily through October 31, 2007. The site-specific environmental art installation features eleven "Destination Gardens" by W. Gary Smith, and celebrates 75 years of New England Wild Flower Society’s Garden in the Woods. Live demonstrations and exhibit are included with admission.

• July 28: Demo "Best Native Plants for Fall Color"
• July 29: Family series "Les Julian and Color Outside the Lines"
• Aug 6, 10 am: Live Animal Show "Owls of New England"
• Aug 26: ART GOES WILD Meadow Madness festival
• Aug 11, 5:30 pm: ART GOES WILD Twilight Music Series with D'Rafael of Gitano
• Sept 15, all day: Gardener's Day Festival
• Oct 14, 12-4 pm: Fall Family Festival

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"WILD" gift purchases, native plant purchases, and memberships support the Society’s plant conservation programs. Click here for Exclusive Garden in the Woods Dispatches Coupon

Boston Movie Tours

Video: BMT stop by the State House at Boston Common

From Amistad, Mystic River, and Good Will Hunting, to such classics as The Thomas Crown Affair and The Brinks Job, Boston is a favorite destination of film makers and actors. Catch a comfy bus with Boston Movie Tours and get a low-stress, fact-filled, behind-the-scenes tour of Boston and its legendary cinematic sites, plus tidbits about TV favorites like Cheers, Ally McBeal, The Practice, and Boston Legal. New information is added daily - contribute your own to the tour guide!

The Word Is the Bird

Did you find a robin's egg in your yard this year and look up to follow the chirping you heard admid the foliage? Report it to Mass Audubon and help enhance our understanding of how populations of Massachusetts' breeding birds have changed in the previous three decades. Noted local birder Marj Rines reported that scores of volunteers are now fanning out across 970 ten-square-mile blocks to spot nesting birds and collect data on them for the Massachusetts Audubon Breeding Bird Atlas II. After five breeding seasons, the new data will be compared to that collected for the 1974-1979 breeding seasons, detailed in the first Atlas. MBBA II will serve a critical role in documenting population trends – not only of the rarest species, but of all of the 200-plus breeding birds of the state. For information on how to join this vast and amazing volunteer effort, please visit MassBird.org, which is coordinated by Rines, or contact the Massachusetts Audubon Society project website.

Care for Some Nettle Tea, My Dear?

Care for some Stinging Nettle tea with your Milkweed muffins? Russ Cohen, noted local wild foods enthusiast and environmentalist, and the author of Wild Plants I Have Known...and Eaten, will be giving several of his engaging lectures and walks on wild foods foraging in Greater Boston this summer. Some talks & walks require pre-registration (see website).

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