Cooperstown

Josh and I took a road trip last weekend to Cooperstown, the mecca of baseball fans. He and I have been planning it for several weeks, and he was definitely excited!

When I got home Thursday night with the rental car, he wanted to go outside and 'check it out.' At 2 a.m. on Friday morning, he was too excited to sleep anymore and asked if I'd come lie down with him. He was definitely ready to get up when the alarm clock went off at 4:45 a.m. He said something to the effect that this was going to be the greatest day of his life.

We hit the road around 5:20 a.m. It's a long drive -- about 4 hours straight up to Albany, and then back down along rural roads for the final hour. The fall colors were beautiful....I like to say they were a brillant, subdued hue, a little like the colors you see after it rains on chalk drawings on the sidewalk and they all run together. I really forget how beautiful New York State is....it's much more than Manhattan. I really want to explore more of New York State.

One note about "Never Lost", which is the Hertz GPS system. It's very good and helpful, but sometimes it just doesn't have a common sense feature. After reprogramming it for "Shortest Distance", it took us along the east side of the lake instead of the west side (which makes more sense and are wider roads). Yes, it was shorter as the crow flies, but not what I would have taken.

We made it to the Hall of Fame around 9:45 a.m. and found parking on the street (there's no parking lot and it's just a really small town.) We spent the first couple of hours looking for answers to the scavenger hunt quiz that they provide for kids -- with the prize being baseball cards, so this was definitely a "Josh activity". Some of the answers were really obscure. Quite honestly, I think it could have been done a little better. It was kind of like taking a test that didn't focus on the real learnings but pulled out very random facts. But Josh liked it. After finishing the first one, we did the second one, so he could get both sets of free cards. Then we did the Scouting one, so he'll get a Scout patch. That one was better....each question tied to a point of the Scout Law. "A Scout is Friendly...speaking of Friendly, Wrigley Field is known as the Friendly confines. Find the exhibit on Wrigley and ...."

We toured the museum exactly how you are NOT to do Disneyland, according to the kid Disneyland books. Specifically, you shouldn't shoot around the park like a ping-pong shot out of a cannon. We'd see something on the 3rd floor, then he wanted to see the art exhibit on the 1st floor, then remembered something on the 3rd floor he wanted to see, then back to the 2nd floor, etc. throughout the whole day. But it was fun and I let him choose to agenda and make the decisions, so I just went along for the ride.


Lots of great things to see, though it wouldn't be too amazing if you weren't a big baseball fan. But Josh is, so it all meant something to him. They had just finished putting up the 2007 World Series exhibit, and he loved seeing that.

We had lunch at a diner-like restaurant up the street -- chicken nuggets, fries and hot chocolate. Then we went back to the museum, but by 2:30 p.m., he was worn out. After the requisite visit to the gift shop, he wanted to go check out the hotel. He walked into the Best Western and said he wanted to stay there for 2 weeks. (Funny, I was thinking how it was below the standards of most hotels I stay at during business trips). We got to room 207 and he wanted to unpack and claim spaces, choose his bed, etc. Then he wanted to swim. I really don't like swimming, but the water wasn't horribly cold, so it wasn't too bad.

We went to the Pizza Hut in the parking lot for dinner, and he was basically falling asleep (he kind of gorged on bread sticks). So he wanted me to get him home quickly and I thought he'd fall asleep. But after 10 minutes, he was OK again, so we rented "Everyone's Hero" (an animated film about Babe Ruth's bat) from the video store in the parking lot and watched it on my computer. He was asleep by 8.

It snowed overnight and it gave the area a quaint little Christmas feel to it. It continued to dust snow for the early morning. After our continental breakfast, he decided against the morning swim (YEA!) and we got to the museum when the doors opened at 9 a.m. There wasn't anything new to see, but he just wanted to see it all again. And once again, we went from floor to floor in no particular order.

Finally, around 11:15, I suggested we head home, and he was very relunctant. He knew there was nothing else to see, but he just didn't want it to end ("Can't we stay another night?"). It was almost like admitting defeat. But he agreed after we said goodbye to the gift shop one more time. The drive home was fine (the snow disappeared and it was a beautiful fall drive). We dropped off the rental car, took the train from there to home, and Kathryn picked us up at the station after being at soccer.

All in all, it was the absolute perfect trip for Josh and me. It's really fortunate we live so close to it and it's such a passion for Josh. I think we'll both have memories for a long time.