We weren't in much of a hurry this morning because the Baseball Hall of Fame didn't open until 9 a.m. Mom got in a quick shower and we went down stairs and had some breakfast. This continental breakfast you could make your own McMuffin. I was excited that I didn't have to have a hotel waffle or toast and cereal. We got McMuffins! Mom had some apple juice and I had some orange juice. We went back upstairs and packed our stuff. Mom checked us out of a pretty decent hotel room (probably the best one out of all we stayed at) and we were on our way to Cooperstown.
We followed Nuvi's directions into town. I was so excited to finally be at the Baseball Hall of Fame. I've wanted to come here for years and now we are finally here. We weren't sure where to park so we drove around the block a few times before we found a place.
There was still some snow on the ground from last night. We grabbed what we needed and walked the two blocks to the front of the building. I imagined the building to be bigger. But still, WE ARE AT THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME!! We got a few pictures of us in front of the building including selfies and we had some nice lady take a few for us. We thanked her. She could tell we were from out of town and were super excited to be here.
We walked into the building and yes, it was magical. Even the lobby donned some really cool baseball memorabilia and memories. We got in line and purchased tickets, they were $25 a piece and totally worth the experience of coming here. I'm glad we waited because now we had two Mariners in the Hall of Fame, Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez to go see. We were probably the only Mariner fans in the whole building that morning. The tour guide gathered us in the lobby and told us the best way to enjoy the museum. He then asked the crowd if there were any Mariner fans in the group. Mom and I were the only ones. He said that there were tons of Mariner fans this past July visiting Cooperstown when Edgar was inducted. He explained, to start out our self guided tour we should begin on the third floor, then the second and then the first, where all the HOF plaques were.
Mom and I walked up to the third floor and began our tour. The third floor had displays such as Sacred Grounds, Chasing the Dream, One for the Books and Autumn Glory: A Post Season Celebration. Sacred Ground gave fans a chance to relive ballparks of yesteryear such as Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds though artifacts and imagery. There were a lot of artifacts that were over 100 years old and they were amazing to see. The Chasing the Dream exhibit had us explore Hank Aaron's baseball career from his minor league days to his pursuit of the all-time home run record to his vast philanthropic efforts. It also talked about African Americans in baseball and how hard they had to work to be treated fairly. It seems like we haven't learned anything from our past and this continues to be a problem to this day.
The Autumn Glory display showed us that a new chapter in baseball history gets etched every October. We viewed artifacts from the most recent World Series, which were the Nationals and the Astros, such as the rings from championship teams through the years and video highlights from memorable World Series. The third floor also encompassed the literary works as Who's on First, Casey at the Bat and Take Me Out to the Ballgame. We finished the third floor with the Special Exhibitions Gallery featuring the Latin American sports photographer Osvaldo Salas, who took pictures of Latin American heroes making it in the MLB. He took some amazing photos. The third floor was essentially a lot of history.
We made our way down to the second floor. There, we walked into the Locker Room. It showcased every major league team in a clubhouse setting, combining photos, video highlights and artifacts into 30 major league lockers. Of course we found the Mariner locker. Most of the people in our group were Yankee fans.
The next exhibit was Taking the Field, it was an in-depth look at baseball's beginnings which explored the game's earliest professional players and teams. I saw, what they think, was the first baseball used in the first game ever played behind a pressurized, temperature controlled box. It was so old it had started to crumble. We made our way through The Game (1900-1930) which also had a separate Babe Ruth exhibit and a Pride and Passion display of the African American Baseball Experience. It was so awesome traveling through history via the museum artifacts and documents that highlighted this generation of the game's heroes and the changes that occurred throughout the years. The Babe Ruth part was extraordinary. They had on display his actual uniform he wore! Just that alone is priceless. I bet watching some of those games back then were awesome!
The African American exhibit focused on the Negro and pre-Negro League eras and featured artifacts from some of baseball's greatest little-known stars. I learned a lot from this exhibit. History is truly a burden (because we will never learn from our mistakes) and yet fascinating at the same time.
The next room we visited was Diamond Dreams: Women in Baseball. For all of you who watched A League of their Own as a kid, this room was inspiring. It proved that women can do anything and you shouldn't limit them. The artifacts in this room were mind blowing.
There was a section that talked about baseball from the 1930's to the 1970's and chronicled the documents, photos and memorabilia of those decades. Viva Baseball celebrated the heritage of Latin American players in the museum's first bilingual (English and Spanish) exhibit. The last room, Whole New Ballgame showcased the changes that came in fast and furious for the National Pastime starting in the 1970's and this groundbreaking exhibit exanimated the names and numbers as well as the cultural impact of the game's last 50 years. This room displayed the baseball cards (we got to make our own), the records, the scandal's, the stadiums, fans, pieces of the fields that no longer exist...and the list goes on.
There were a lot of pieces of information on this floor. We spent a lot of time reading, looking and admiring. At the end, they had special displays for the current inductees, Edgar Martinez, Lee Smith, Harold Baines, Mariano Rivera, Roy Halliday and Mike Mussina. In a nutshell, the second floor was a lot of stats, memorabilia, cards, movies, stadiums, etc.
We went back down to the first floor and we had made it in time for another tour guide to tell us a little bit more about the Hall of Fame plaques and then he released us to look at the ones we wanted. Mom and I chose to look at all of them but spent a little bit more time at Griffey and Edgar's. This was such a cool experience! We got several pictures of the plaques and even a couple selfies.
I asked mom if she was good, we had to have spent at least 40 minutes looking at the plaques. They had them arranged by decades and then by the years they were inducted. After we got our fill, we walked across the hall to visit the gift shop. They had several things on clearance. I got two shirts, some postcards, a sticker and a HOF stat sheet for Edgar. I couldn't find one for Griffey. We paid for our stuff and walked back to our rental.
We dropped off our stuff and decided to walk around town for a bit. We went inside many of the shops, which we ended up getting a few things...including a Cooperstown pint glass and a towel, both were on sale so why not right?
I wanted to find at least one cache before we left so I picked the one by Doubleday Field, Birthplace of Baseball (GCKN32). The field was closed but we found a way in so I could get some pictures.
Then we looked for the cache. The only place it could be was at the end of the green guardrail. Sadly, it wasn't there and I didn't want to come home with a DNF. So, we found a baggie and a piece of paper, we signed the paper, shoved it into the bag and hid it where it was suppose to be. I wasn't sure how often the cache owner came into town and I didn't want another out of towner to leave empty handed.
We wanted to see Otsego Lake so we walked down to Lakefront Park which was a few blocks away from the rental. As we got closer, we could literally see the snow cloud rush towards us because of the lake effect. It was actually pretty cool. It started snowing pretty hard when it got to us in a matter of seconds. I also found out that Otsego Lake is the source of the Susquehanna River which we've driven over several times throughout this trip.
We walked back to the rental car in the snow. I don't think I've been in snow this early. I usually don't see snow until long after my birthday in December or January. However, we are in an area that does see cold weather and possibly snow around this time.
We hopped into our rental, hooked up Nuvi and headed east towards Ithaca. We left Cooperstown around 2:00 and followed the roads our GPS told us to go on. I had it set for the quickest route. It said we would roll into Ithaca around 4ish since it was about a two hour drive. I hoped we got there with some day light left so we can do a little exploring of the town.
While we drove I noticed that every medium sized town has some sort of SUNY college or community college. We got onto I-88 and headed south back to Oneonta. We followed the interstate until we got to Bainbridge in which we merged onto state route 206. We followed that road until we got to the town of Greene. We continued down the 206 until we drove under I-81 at Whitney Point where the road turned into state route 79. We drove through Richford which took us all the way to Ithaca on the 79. We got into town around 4 p.m. and noticed signs for Cornell University. I knew Cornell was somewhere over here but I had no idea it was in Ithaca. So far on this trip I've learned a lot.
The reason why we came this way was to see the waterfall in town. I plugged the coordinates into Nuvi and away we went. We didn't have long before it got dark so we had to act fast. We found a lot for the waterfall so we parked our rental there. I checked the caching app and found out there was a geocache here.
I decided I would look for it on the way back from the falls. We followed the trail and rounded the corner. Wow! Look at those falls! They were massive!
There were a few groups of people also there enjoying the falls. We got a few pictures, a selfie or two and just enjoyed being here for a few minutes. I love exploring new places! I wish I could do this all the time.
We walked back towards the rental and I grabbed GORGED (GCMA21) which was hidden in one of the crevasses and was missing its lid. I let the cache owner know that the container needs some maintenance. After signing it, I put it back where I found it.
I asked mom if there was anywhere else she wanted to go and she said she didn't know. We still had a little bit of daylight left so I checked my caching app again and saw there was a earthcache nearby and it was located near another set of waterfalls. Let's go!
I plugged in the coordinates and it took us to a neighborhood so we found a free parking place, grabbed our stuff and headed out. I had no idea this was going to be a beautiful walk. We walked as far as we could before turning around due to it getting dark.
I did finish the requirements for the earthcache, Frozen in Time at Cascadilla Falls (GC1GQYZ). It asked us to find a fossil in the rocks and to let the cache owner know what kind of a fossil it was. It was pretty easy.
I asked mom if she was hungry so we looked at our phones to find some food around here. We decided on pizza and tried to get to the place downtown. The traffic was insane and there were many detours on these one way streets so we decided to go somewhere else.
We ended up going towards our hotel in Horseheads, NY but had to stop at a Walmart outside of Ithaca. Mom wanted to see what a New York Walmart was like. I told her it was probably going to be like all the others in the United States. We went inside and grabbed more snacks and drinks. Mom had to have more peanut butter and applesauce. She also bought a hat because it was cold outside and you could never have too many thermal hats. We paid and got back on the road. I had mom put in the nearest KFC into the phone and there were none is Ithaca which surprised us. The closest one was in Elmira, south of where our hotel was. Well, we weren't doing anything else so why not? We followed the directions and it seems like it was taking forever to get there. This KFC better be good.
We finally got there. It was sorta busy but not really. I ordered one of those $5 fill ups with a chicken breast, mashed potatoes and gravy, a biscuit and it came with a cookie and a drink. Mom got the mashed potato, corn and chicken bowl and I shared half of my cookie with her. We ate our food and people watched. A lady who worked there was waiting for her taxi ride while she ate her complimentary dinner. She shouldn't have been sitting in one of the barstool type chairs because she fell out of it and fell on the floor. Her coworkers helped her off the floor. We threw our garbage away and headed north to our hotel for the evening.
We got to our hotel around 7:45 and checked in. The hotel's front entrance was under construction so we had to avoid the flagged off areas. I let mom out while I parked our rental. She came out and told us we were in room 212. We grabbed our luggage and bags and wheeled them to the front. We got onto the elevator and into our room. I immediately got onto my caching app and checked to see if there was one at the hotel and there was! Welcome Travelers to Big Flats Hide #2 (GC89QCW) it was in the northeast corner of the parking lot under a lamp skirt. Took me about five minutes.
I went back into the hotel, I got a shower and found out the drainage in the tub sucked but at least I was clean. I got my pajamas on and worked on my Penguins sign while I watched really late college football on the west coast while mom slept.
It took me about 2.5 hours to finish. I knew I wouldn't have time to do it tomorrow before the game. I got on the internet for a bit and we had a really bad internet connection but I toughed it out.
I went to bed around 11 and slept pretty hard. Tomorrow will be another long day.
We picked up three traditionals, an earthcache, one new state and three new counties.
Next Adventure: Watkins Glen, Williamsport, Penn State and Pittsburgh Penguins Game
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