Cooperstown, NY- Sunday, July 1, 2012

We’re actually staying over an hour 's drive away from Cooperstown.  It’s not that far distance-wise, but the route you have to take is all country roads going through little picturesque towns.  We didn’t find any breakfast until we were actually in Cooperstown itself. 

Anyone’s first stop in Cooperstown is, naturally, the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.  Scott had been anticipating this part of the trip by re-watching most of Ken Burns’s Baseball  this past week.   We had been listening to Terry Cashman on the drive here.  (Scott jokingly told Julie that “Willie, Mickey, and the Duke” was not a song about a cartoon mouse and John Wayne.)   Of course we saw artifacts from Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, Willie, Mickey, and the Duke, and all the greats.  Scott was pleased that we were allowed to take lots of pictures and video.   Scott liked seeing items from the World Series era Blue Jays, but the highlight of today’s stop was seeing Roberto Alomar’s plaque in the Hall of Fame itself.   (Brian was at his induction ceremony last summer.)

We probably spent two hours at the Hall of Fame, and Julie judged it to be a better time than when she was stuck all day at the Football Hall of Fame with her father and brother.  Even the girls were into looking for a particular player.  Emma was a little disappointed that we didn’t see any items from Sammy Sosa.  She had read an article about him at school, and we were keeping our eyes open.  We’re sure there was something there, but didn’t happen to see it.  Anna had picked Ozzie Smith as a person to look for, and Scott told her he was the guy who did backflips.  Sure enough, we found a life-size picture of him upside down in midair near his Cardinals things.

We then did a little bit of shopping in a few of the many stores nearby.   “Are all these stores about baseball?” Anna had asked as we drove through town that morning.   “Yes,” Emma said, “Cooperstown is about baseball.”    We found a place for lunch and ate ballpark food for ballpark prices.  Then we found our way to the visitor’s center.  They directed us to a boat rental place on Lake Otsego.  Once we found the boat place, we arranged for a boat tomorrow (since they were all booked for today), and we made our way to the Farmer’s Museum.

The Farmer’s Museum has a lot of interesting things to see.  We started at the Cardiff Giant, a stone man that was part of a hoax to get people to believe they were seeing a petrified man.    Julie’s students had recently read about him.  The girls rode the Empire State Carousel, which is an elaborately decorated merry-go-round, filled with images of famous New Yorkers and scenes from around the state.  Even though Emma rode a skunk and Anna rode a dog, Scott liked the mule that was right in front of a canal boat.  Each could be ridden by a different person.   You could spend a long time looking at the details of this ride.

Then we went into the historic village of the museum.  The 1840s era village is made up of buildings that have been brought here from around the state.  It reminded us of Mumford.  Though it doesn’t have as many buildings as Mumford, we thought the interpreters in each one here were excellent.  We saw a broom maker, a weaver, and a printer who printed a sample page for Anna on his press.  Our favorite person was the guy in the apothecary’s shop.  He had live leeches that could be used for medicinal purposes.  He had one crawl across his hand as he explained that the “Hollywood” idea of leeches is quite different from reality.  They were not used to remove blood, but rather for their ability to thin the blood, and some plastic surgeons use them today for the same reasons.

There was a Methodist church there that looked a lot like the one that Scott and Julie got married in at Mumford.  Anna made a bracelet from wool from the sheep, and both girls got to see baby animals that were born this spring.  The girls’ favorite was a calf named Clover who had a sandpapery tongue.  We also spent time in the one-room stone schoolhouse.  The heat and activity were making Emma pretty tired, though.

After about two and a half hours at the Farmer’s Museum, there was still time left in the afternoon, so we drove around to the opposite side of Lake Otsego and went to Glimmerglass State Park.  Julie had heard about the covered bridge there.  After the bridge, we all went to the beach to wade into Lake Otsego for a few minutes.  It was a long drive back to the hotel in Norwich.  Scott played his new Terry Cashman CD (It seemed appropriate to get, since the Franks had bought his record album at the Hall of Fame back when Scott and Brian had visited it as kids).  Anna wanted to know if all the songs were about baseball.  Both girls fell asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel,  but after dinner at Denny’s they were both ready to swim.