Sept. 8, Donna

Yesterday we started at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooperstown is all about baseball. Every store in town sells baseball souvenirs, or baseball logo-wear, or personalized baseball bats, or baseball art. Apparently baseball was invented here, although they’re not entirely sure, but they’ve sure made a good business of it just the same.

We enjoyed strolling through the museum, which has more information about baseball than you ever knew existed. Our favorite sections were watching the Abbot and Costello comedy skit, “Who’s on First”, reading about integration of major league baseball, and posing with the sculptures out back. This museum was clearly well supported and high quality – guess there are a lot of baseball fans who keep it going strong!

We then visited the Fenimore Museum which had a strong collection of folk art in a lovely old mansion alongside the lake. Our lunch was at the Cooperstown Diner, which we picked because it looked so adorable. The food turned out to be fine, too.

We drove for a few hours to our next destination, Fleischmann’s. This town was the other major destination of our trip (third to Niagara Falls and Jamestown) because it was where Lenny spent his summers as a youngster. Amazingly enough, he managed to find his grandparent’s home, not knowing the street name or address (thanks, in part, to helpful information from Aunt Dotty and from cousin Eric). Read his blog entry for his thoughts on it. Fleischmann’s definitely had seen better times, but it was fun to hear Lenny reminisce about his adventures there, mainly with Eric.

We next drove on to our hotel for the evening, the Emerson Inn, which is a very modern and well appointed hotel with a spa. We even have robes, and all agree that it is the nicest place we have stayed in.

We went to Woodstock for dinner, strolling through the town which is well known for its many artists (also well known for the music festival that did not happen here, but happened miles away at Max Yaeger’s farm). Woodstock is a bizarre combination of hippie stores with hanging beads, peace symbols and tie dye, next to chic and expensive clothing shops. We had a wonderful Mediterranean dinner at Joshua’s restaurant. Woodstock definitely gets the award for cutest town on the trip.

Today we desperately felt the need for a walk given a lot of sitting in the car for the last few days, so we drove into the Catskills Mountains for a hike on a nice trail. It was a bit hot and muggy out, so we only did about 1.5 hours, but it felt good to be outside and walking.

We returned for a bit to eat. Lenny went back to Fleischmann’s to visit the museum in town, while Marina and I have been hanging out. We visited the “World’s Largest Kaleidoscope” which was pretty cool … you lay on the ground and look up at a dome filled with a video show magnified by the kaleidoscope. I just had a decadent treatment in the spa, and Marina has signed up for her first (mini) massage. I don’t recall having my first massage until my thirties … my how times have changed!