July 27, 2016

A Cooper Barrel In The Town

As per the normal, except for last week, 'cause ya know, I am me, here's a fresh yet highly aromatic post from I Are Writer!, and you know you just wanna be the one who knows what's what with what with my writing.

Road Trip 2016 continues with day the 2nd: slightly below mid-state New York.

So while we was having morning eats at Burger King I studied the handy dandy Rand McNally to see what non-highway driving we could do.

A couple of points I should make clear before I continues:

  1. We budgeted $45 per day for meals, and yes, we were able to do a few sit downs during the trip and even did take out from the local supermarket.
  2. We also budgeted $75 per night for lodging, and except for the beginning and ending price gouges ($125 & $142), we were able to either stay at budget or under budget, and with money saved, was able to go slightly over budget. Those hotel/motel coupon books that you find at the various highway rest areas come in handy.
 I am a very firm believer in road maps. I actually enjoy reading road atlases, and using a atlas on this trip came in very handy for daily/hourly plotting of the driver. After perusing the Rand McNally, I discovered that NY 7 hopscotched I-81 all the way down to Cooperstown. What I mean by hopscotch is that the road in period intervals would cross the interstate, thus giving the driver an opportunity to hop back on the freeway to experience the best dull driving (among other things) that money can buy.

So, after devouring our very HEALTHY fast food breakfast of a sausage crossanwich, hash brown tater tots and coffee, we done hopped into the car and sped through downtown Cobbleskill (road under construction, which became a common theme on this trip) through the great New York countryside.

Seriously, New York does have a fantastic countryside. Great slice of rural America. Speed limit for the most part was 50, until you approached a small town, then it dropped to 40, then 30, then 25, they you drove through, blinked a few times until you got to the other side, then got back up to cruising speed.

I won't bore you with the details of the endless amount of regular farms, dairy farms, horse farms and farmer in the dells, but it was a seriously relaxing and peaceful drive.



Alas poor Horatio, I knew Mr. Alger, we eventually reached the city limits of Cooperstown, which surprisingly enough, was built up without being obnoxiously tacky. We arrived at one of the outer parking lots, where the trolley stopped there every twenty minutes or so and ran from 9 to 9. $2 got you an all day trolley pass. And one of the stops was directly in front of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

ahem, time to let loos the inner child.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Oh! My! God! It's the Baseball Hall of Fame!


enter the adult.

The Baseball Hall Of Fame is the place to visit if you're a baseball fan. Reasonably priced ($23 per, cheaper if you're a member), it is an excellent way to spend 2-3 hours. A self guided tour, it starts off by showing a sample locker with memorabilia from all 30 teams. Then it covers almost every piece of history and phase that you could possible imagine, from players to teams, fans to stadiums, and everything in between. You finish up the tour in the actual plaque area, of which the picture above was taken. I did take roughly one dozen or so pics of the plaques. And yes, we bought some souvenirs: a leather key chain and shot glass of the NY Mets, and a Boston Red Sox hat for the son. Daughter didn't want anything.

This place was the main agenda of my vacation, and it exceeded all my expectations. To finish up this stop, we got an impromptu trip around Cooperstown via the trolley, since it had about 13 stops to make and the parking lot where we were was the last stop. The driver was a blast to talk to and the ride was about as smooth as you can possible get for public transportation.

Up next: Highway Driving!

(c) 2016 BOOKS BY G.B. MILLER. All Rights Reserved.

14 comments:

  1. Sounds like you had a wonderful trip. Having never watched a baseball game I think my trip around The Baseball Hall of Fame may have been a little quicker than 2 to 3 hours. :D

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  2. It's important to let the inner child out every once in a while. Glad you enjoyed the Baseball Hall of Fame!

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    1. I did, thank you very much. This makes two sports Hall of Fames I've been to (Basketball was the other). Some day I'll get to Canton, Ohio to see the Football Hall of Fame.

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  3. My wife loves mapping out trips and is very good at it. She always brings us in under budget

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    1. Mine was pretty good at find hotels that were reasonably priced with those hotel coupon books. Plus, she was a very good navigator for me while I was navigating those small mini-cities via the back roads as well as the interstate.

      This year, we only charged about $225 total, which was for a couple of attractions as well as a couple of hotels.

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  4. If you found decent places for under seventy-five, you did good.
    Glad the Hall of Fame exceeded expectations.
    I think riding the trolley would've been fun.

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    1. I'm thinking next year I need to budget about $100 per stay, just so I have flexibility. It definitely exceeded expectations and the trolley was definitely fun, as we got to see quite a bit of the downtown area.

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  5. Our meals on trips consisted of picnic lunches at roadside parks when there were roadside parks.

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    1. I remember those roadside rest areas. I saw one or two in NY. Overall though, only the larger highway rest areas had picnic tables, etc. to eat your meal at.

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  6. Nice! I eat very boring, cheap, healthy, repetitive meals when I'm at home, so when I'm on a trip I don't feel bad about splurging on milkshakes, fries, bacon omelettes, chicken and waffles, etc.

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    1. Definitely sounds like a good plan. I'm somewhat the same way too.

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