Doug and I agreed to be up at 7:30 this morning so that we could go and pick up the rental car around 8 AM. As it turned out, we got a little bit later of a start. Doug’s alarm didn’t go off as expected but it only delayed us a few minutes. I called a taxi to take us to the metro station, and from there we took the train to Silver Spring and walked a short distance to Hertz to get our car. We ended up with a Ford Taurus. We stopped for breakfast at IHOP and finally got onto the road at 10 AM. We arrived in Cooperstown nearly 11 hours later, just before 9 PM.
The first leg of the drive took just over four hours. We arrived in Suffern at just after 2 PM and stopped at Friendly’s off Airmont Road to get something to eat. We both got some kind of “melt” sandwiches, but Doug got the Philly Cheesesteak melt, which was made with somekind of cheese sauce dispensed from an aerosol canister. We were only there a short time before we got back on the road.
Doug drove the second leg of our trip, up to Albany to stop at Eric’s house, and we arrived there just before 5 PM. I struggled with the handheld GPS. I altered some setting on it that was making it not follow the roads correctly, but even so, we managed to find Eric’s place. Eric hopped in the car and took us to a beer place–and this place had something like 700 types of beer. I tried an English beer (the name of which I can’t recall right now, and the list of beers is in the car so I can’t look it up). Doug had a couple of different kinds of beer. Eric showed us his list of over 50 beers that he has tried.
When we got back on the road for the last leg of the trip, it was close to 7 PM. I got us a little lost initially, but we quickly recovered and got on track. We decided to take Route 20, which is the scenic route. On the way, it started to rain, and pretty much continued to rain for the rest of the night. The scenic route was scenic and the little towns we passed through were empty. Doug kept pointing out how much land there was and how big some of the properties were.
We arrived at the hotel just before 9 PM, and indeed, it is just around the corner from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. We checked in to our room, which is very nice. We then parked the car, and headed downstairs to the restaurant for dinner. We ate at the bar because the restaurant was closing. We both had chicken marsala, and about 3 beers each. Our waiter/bartender was very cool and so I tipped him well.
After dinner, we headed to a bar up the street and saw our waiter/bartneder there. We got some seats and ordered a pitcher of beer, and watched the Yankees make a great comeback from a 6-1 deficit, only to lose 6-5. Our waiter/bartender bought us each of shot of something with Southern Comfort in it. It was the first time I’d tried that, and it wasn’t too bad. We went through two pitchers of beer and by the time we left the bar, when it closed at 2 AM, I was stratospheric, and I think even Doug was feeling pretty good.
We giggled and laughed quite a bit back at the hotel as we were getting ready for bed, with the room spinning around us. It was a really, really fun day and I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend.
POSTSCRIPT: I wrote this entry at about 9:30 AM Saturday morning, and I am feeling fine, although I have a terrible headache. Doug is still sleeping.
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