This was our first trip ever. Really Deb's idea, I went along for the ride since John and Pat volunteered to drive. We got a hotel in Albany which made the triip easier and a lot cheaper, and more fun at night, as Cooperstown is a little village surrounded by farms for 100 miles.

Pat drove. Pat's a mutli-tasker who can simultaneously drive, open, read and re-fold a paper map, fidget with a malfunctioning GPS, switch around the radio channels and chat .
Luckily, both lanes were marked "Pat Only". . .


Deb relaxed in the back seat . . .


I snapped pictures through the window. Upstate NY is farmland forever.

I was kind of surprised at how small and museum-like the HOF was, and it is right on main street in a little town. Looks like the library. The displays inside were really excellent, even if you are not a diehard baseball fanatic. The little poster stories and quotes really established the . . . um . . . the "nobility" of the players and fans in the early days (I'll say before the 1960's or so). Of course, nostalgia dripped from the walls, but it was a lot more than that, and if you took the time to read and give it some thought, it was pretty emotional stuff.

I was sure to grab display shots of the Giants (Dad's team), Brooklyn Dodgers (my team), Yankees (everybodies team) and Red Sox (John and Debbie's team).

The "a-mays-ing" Willy Mays . . .



My Boyhood Hero . . . "The Duke of Flatbush" . . .



A piece of my heart . . .

This and that . . .

We took Rt2 (originally, The Mohawk Trail) home and stopped at Williams College for no reason, chatted with the town character, then stopped at The Yankee Candle Shop in Deerfield for candles and lunch . . . then drove home.







A mini-train set at the candle shop . .