She's rounding third and heading home

We got an early start to Goat Island which is in the middle of the river above the Falls and has trails that take you right to the brinks of both the American and Horseshoe Falls. It was impressive, but we did this at Yellowstone earlier in the trip so there was no novelty factor involved, just a lot more water!

By 9:30AM we were on the road again, with a goal of Cooperstown and the National Baseball Hall of Fame by about 2:00. We would have made it except we stopped for a long lunch at this little grocery/deli/restaurant off the main road about 10 miles outside Cooperstown. Our lunches were prepared fresh and we sat at the counter, chatting with some guy about our trip. He had a lot of questions and we enjoyed sharing info. Lisa resisted the cheesecake she had had her eyes on. We are both feeling the effects of an inability (or at least difficulty) to really eat properly on the road. Where’s the fruit?? Even this great place struck out on that count.

A few more miles later we saw signs for an old cider mill and store and figured that might translate to some apples. It was a really cool place, kind of like the Tahoe House on steroids, since they had a lot of their own name brand specialty food items.but it was about 4 times the size. They had Empire apples that had been picked last fall but stored in a special cold temperature and controlled humidity chamber that left them tasting as fresh as if they’d just been picked off the tree. It was no gamble to buy a few since they had samples sliced for tasting and they were delicious. Check out the Fly Creek Cider Mill if you are ever in this area.

From there it was into downtown Cooperstown. It seems every store (lots!) on Main Street is baseball-related, ranging from museum/collector quality to standard souvenir quality. We checked out many of them after we exited the museum 3 hours later. The town looks nice, not like Niagara Falls

The shrine to baseball was really very well done. The range of artifacts in the displays was impressive, from balls, bats, and uniforms to world series rings and baseball art. Because iof time, we scanned it all but I focused on the Pirates, specifically my baseball idols growing up, Clemente and Stargell, and the SF Giants. I enjoyed having the chance to increase Lisa’s knowledge of the history of the game, and was glad to find a receptive ear. She’ll impress her current or future boyfriends with some unexpected baseball knowledge. The film was great and the baseball park theater design was really cool.

We left Cooperstown about 6:00 so we could cover about half the distance to Mt Kisco, NY, where Lisa’s friend Sarah lives and whom we plan to visit tomorrow. We technically finished our sight-seeing today with the Hall of Fame. The remainder of our trip is Lisa checking in with a few friends/relatives in the next two days before she flies back early Wednesday AM. It was good to see some green hills today after three states of monotonously flat ground. It was hard to get excited when the highest thing in view seemed to be the tallest stalk of corn.

We did a lot of oldies singing on the way here (Kingston, NY). Lisa says she will be adding a lot of new “Dad music” to her iPod when she gets home. Yes!!!

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