Monday, July 21, 2008

World Tour 2008- PART I

Denver, CO-Detroit, MI- Rochester, NY- Utica, NY- Cooperstown, NY- Fly Creek, NY- Newark, NY- Palmyra, NY- Niagara Falls, NY- Niagara Falls, ONT CAN- Buffalo, NY- Minneapolis, MN- St. Paul, MN- these were the stops on our world tour. Getting in to Rochester was fine but getting out…

Tuesday was a travel day, we arrived (on time) to Rochester from Detroit. We arrived at our pretty nice hotel, Hotel Utica. I think we were all pretty bushed from traveling so we got some Mexican food. Somewhere in this sequence Joseph, wearing socks for the first time in awhile, lost one of his Lightning McQueeen socks (Kachow!) it may still turn up but as of now he’s only got 1.



This is Annie in the lobby of our hotel. Pretty nice for being in the Comfort Inn Family



This is from the lobby as well.

That night was the All-Star game and I intended to watch a little and then go to bed early because the next day was Cooperstown. We got back from dinner and I turned the game on just in time to see Matt Holliday take a pitch and deposit it into the seats giving the NL a 1-0 lead. It looked as if the NL was going to win but the AL tied it up in the eighth. I shoulda just went to bed there but I stayed up and watch the rest of the game which wasn’t over till like 2 am. NL lost again. Again! But our hotel was nice and I did get a little sleep until it was time to get breakfast.

Then it was on to Cooperstown. The Baseball Hall of Fame, which is certainly worth the pilgrimage for all you fans out there! We took a bunch of photos (about 800 total for the trip!) but the video was screwed up so there is little Cooperstown video. Mostly we stayed on the 3rd floor where we took a tour about stadiums and got to see some of the really cool artifacts and the record room. Our own Todd Helton was mentioned on a view, bolstering perhaps his chance at the HOF. We also watched the movie on the 2nd floor and hung out at the Great Bambino room (The King of Crash, The Colossus of Clout) It was cool to see his old bats and a spiffy signed ball. It was certainly enthralling. They also had an olde tyme movie playing about how a certain play would be ruled in like 1860. Very cool. They even had a special display on the 2007 World Series which was cool because it was our own Rockies! Joseph got his picture taken at the exhibit marking his first ever game!



Then we made it to the holy of holies the first floor where all the plaques were. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control we were rushed out of the first floor and so I had to miss the broadcasting/writing wing. But we strolled through the Plaques and took some pictures with a few of the interesting ones. Very cool, certainly a moment of reflection. I enjoyed it very much. The history and the memories was all right there- they even had Tulo’s triple play ball.

Then we had about 10 seconds to explore the town of Coorperstown which really had some amazing shops. We had to miss seeing Doubleday field (and there was a baseball tournament going on too!) I missed out on some sweet shops but in the end I got a pretty good deal on a Slugger bat (though it is engraved erroneously with some other kids name) but it was only $20. Not bad for a fine piece of Ash. We also got 2 HOF plaque postcards, a keychain/ornament, a HOF mini Slugger bat and a tiny cute baseball mitt for Joseph that actually fits him. But we have many memories. I’d say my favorite part was either the World Series exhibit or the Plaque room.

By the numbers:

Hotels stayed in: 4
Cities visited: 13
Movies watched: 5 (the Sandlot, (twice) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ghostbusters, 13 Going on 30
Money spent: I don’t even want to know
Different Airplanes: 4
Times at the Airport: 8

For some unexplained reason, after that we were rushed out of Cooperstown and we ended up stopping at Fly Creek so Leigh Anna could get a free apple slushy. We stopped and ate and enjoyed the little homestyle mill (where they have excellent Cider- it is very sweet and delicious) We saw Mullet Ducks and ate a lot of free samples of Salsa. It was a good place to let Cooperstown linger over us!






Then it was onto Newark, our Hotel which was about 1.5 hours away. We finally made it there, pretty tired and went down for a nice night’s sleep.

I plan to present our vacation in several parts so it doesn’t look so long. This is Part I. I’ll try to break it up into events- Cooperstown, Palymyra/Church History, Niagara Falls and Post Script. Come back later too for the fotos. As mentioned earlier there are hundreds of fotos so it’ll take us awhile to get through them all. But they’re coming. Also an update on the Thrill the Wedding Video everyone has been clamoring about- I am borrowing a firewire cable from my brother to be able to convert onto youtube. The hardware I have is insufficient and I wasn’t able to get the footage off the camera. Look for that in the coming weeks as well.

Come back soon for Part II.

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