- Most hotels in Cooperstown require a two night minimum to stay on the weekend in the summer. Because I didn't think it was necessary to go for two nights (not to mention it was very expensive), I needed to have his receptionist reschedule his patients on a Thursday so we could go up on Wednesday (his day off) and come home Thursday. I thought I was being sneaky by calling his office and leaving her a message until the next morning I got a text message from Ryan saying "I got your message, what did you want?" What dentist checks his own messages at the office?!?! He swears he didn't listen to the whole message (should I be offended?) so he didn't know my plan and a few days later I called back and got everything arranged with the receptionist.
- While my mom was here the day before Ryan's birthday, I asked her to sit with Connor for 15 minutes while I ran to Wegmans, as I wanted to get him a couple bottles of various Ommegang beer for his birthday to include with a note that we were going to tour the brewery. I made my selection and went to pay for it, only to be rejected because my license was expired (I think there should be a rule that if you are 9 months pregnant at the time your license expires, you get an automatic extension until you lose the baby weight so you are not stuck with a fat picture for four years)! Because I was overly hormonal from giving birth 4 days earlier, my chin quivered and my eyes welled up with tears as I ran out of the store empty handed, a scene which was repeated the next day when I gave Ryan his birthday card with a pathetic note that his birthday present was going to Cooperstown at the end of July. Luckily, Ryan does not have my "only-child-who-favors-quantity-over-quality-when-it-comes-to-presents" syndrome and didn't really care that he had "nothing to open" on his birthday.
Thankfully, I remembered to bring a hat. I did not, however, remember to apply suntan lotion and therefore had a very nice seatbelt tan line across my chest.
It took about three and a half hours to get to Cooperstown. Bear Pond Winery was on the way in to town, so we stopped there first.
As with most wines from New York, we were less than impressed and not willing to pay $24.99 for a bottle of red wine. Let's just say the best part about this stop was the crackers they give you between tastings. We hopped back in the car and made our way to Cooperstown. We parked and took a lap around the main street, grabbing a slice of New York pizza from Sals and some cookies from a local bakery. We knew we were going to save the Hall of Fame for Thursday morning so we didn't spend too much time browsing the souvenir shops. We decided to hit up the Fly Creek Cider Mill before checking in to the hotel.
This place was really neat. They make hard cider (not much more appetizing than the Bear Pond wines) but the real draw is the fact that they have a huge store with all sorts of gourmet dips, cheeses, breads, etc. and you can sample them all (including homemade fudge, as much as you want!). Normally I am a little bit like Reuben Pfeffer in Along Came Polly about samples where everyone puts their grubby hands in the pretzels/crackers/other vehicle for sampling dips, but this place was so glorious I didn't care. We bought a couple of goodies to take home before heading to the hotel.
After a quick stop at the hotel, we called a cab to take us to Ommegang. We discovered Ommegang beers when we were living in Philly but have recently really gotten into them. The brewery was built in 1997 on 136 acres that used to be a hop farm. Their beers are mostly Belgian style.
I stole this picture from the website.
We took a brief tour and then did a tasting of all 6 of their current beers. They are all delicious. Then we went into their cafe and had some more (full size) beers and snacks. We shut the place down (at 6pm. Clue #1 that Cooperstown is not exactly a party-all-night kind of place, especially on a Wednesday) so we called our cab driver friend to take us downtown. We quickly learned that there are exactly two bars in Cooperstown and they are right across the street from one another. We first went to Sherman's Tavern, and ran into our tour guide from the Brewery who was doing a promotional event there, and she gave us samples of one of the specialty beers that was not offered during the tasting. Once we ran out of $1 bills to dump into the juke box, we decided to check out Cooley's Tavern across the street.
We hadn't planned to eat here, but it was getting late so we ended up ordering food at the bar. It was okay, but nothing memorable. After a few drinks we decided to try to find the Hawkeye Bar, which is in the Otesaga Resort on the lake (thought about booking us a room there, until I saw that it was $600/night, at which time the Holiday Inn Express looked pretty darn good). We went down the wrong street and ended up at another hotel bar on the lake. At 1130 they were mopping the floors around us and turning off the lights, so we called our cab driver friend to take us back to the hotel. I was missing Connor and was glad to receive a text from Courtney with an update and this picture of Baby Linn:
On Thursday morning we headed back to the main street of Cooperstown and had a quick breakfast before the Hall of Fame opened. The Hall of Fame was really impressive.
My cell phone camera doesn't do this place justice - it was a beautiful building!
So much to see, it would take days to really get through everything. We got there right when it opened and it was crowded. When we left two hours later it was PACKED. I can't even imagine trying to go on a Saturday during the summer. Of course, the most obnoxious and pushy visitors were all wearing either Yankees or Red Sox jerseys! After we finished at the HOF, we took one last lap around town. We didn't buy any souvenirs because everything was so expensive and I'm sure in a few short years we'll be taking Connor there so we decided to wait until then to spend $40 on a t-shirt!
As we were heading home, we heard weather reports of severe storms in New York/Pennsylvania. We were hoping we would beat the weather, especially since we had the top down, and we almost did...but when we were about 20 minutes outside Hughesville, the skies opened up. We had to drive through the rain until we could find a spot to pull over to put the top up. And it didn't work the first time so we were soaked! It stopped raining until we got to Hughesville where my car was parked, but as soon as I started to drive back to Williamsport, the skies turned black and the wind picked up. There was a tornado warning and it was raining so hard I had to pull in to a parking lot until the rain/wind subsided a little. That was a very scary drive home, and I was so happy to get back to Debbie's and pick up Connor. Thankfully, she said he did great for her (only woke up once during the night) and she didn't back out of babysitting for him next month while we are in Ireland!
Overall, it was a great trip. Even though it was difficult to leave Baby Linn, I was ready for a little break and I think it is important to be able to get away sans kids once in a while. It is necessary to preserve sanity!
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