Cooperstown, NY

OK, to be fair, Cooperstown is located right between a county that I have lots of genealogy history in and one that Pat does....it's just SO lucky for Pat that the Baseball Hall of Fame happens to be right here also!  "The 5th" is currently parked in a rural campground located on what can only bring the movie On Golden Pond to mind.

This area is very rural with either forested hills or hills with small farms (mostly dairy or corn). 

The towns are extremely tiny.  In three large counties, we have seen only two real towns (and only one Walmart and one Lowe's; no other big stores anywhere).  Pat got his baseball fix and then we spent the time wandering around the area, checking out cemeteries, doing research in historical societies and courthouses, and just catching up with life in "the 5th".  Tomorrow we head south to Pennsylvania.  We are looking forward to spending the week with Connie and Addison in New York City, Gettysburg, and Amish country.

View from my dining area.

NY Adirondack State Park/Slaves to Technology!

After over three months of heading east, we have turned around and headed west!  We said goodbye to Massachusetts and hello to the Adirondack Park in upstate New York.  How beautiful.  We think this area is prettier than Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire.  The fall foliage is every bit as pretty and the mountains are higher (more like real mountains!). 

New York Adirondack State Park

There are more evergreen trees and we both think this sets off the color of the deciduous trees making it more striking than those in Vermont and New Hampshire.  In addition, there are lots of streams and small rivers that add to the beauty.

When we decided to stay in this area, we hadn't realized how BIG New York is and how far away the various things we wanted to see and do were from the campsite where "the 5th" was located.  We did figure it out before we arrived and thought it would be a great place for some "down" time.  We could go for a day-long drive one day

Hudson River in upstate New York.

and spend the next day in "the 5th" doing genealogy research, planning our winter trip, writing our blogs, e-mailing friends and family, vegging out, etc.  Sounds like a great plan, right?  The park had no internet.  Even with our own internet hotspot, it was very SLOW.  Too slow, in fact, to do anything other than the vary basics.  Cell phone reception was also spotty.  In fact, a couple of miles north on the freeway, roadside signs indicated that there was no cell phone availability for the next 75 miles!  And, did I mention that the "World's Largest Garage Sale" was happening in town the weekend we were there?  Do you all know how much I enjoy shopping?  Particularly in other people's junk?  Cars were backed up for literally miles on all roads leading to town on Saturday morning.  My worst nightmare.  We ran (drove) the opposite direction as fast as possible!

So, we decided to use our newly acquired flexibility skills and re-think our week.  We decided we didn't want to do long drives everyday for a week to see/do all the things we planned.  We also didn't think we wanted to sit around "the 5th" and not be able to do things that we wanted to do that required technology (call us technology slaves!).  We decided to spend about half the week where we were and explore some of the areas of the park that were close to us and then relocate further southwest in New York in order to do some of the others things we wanted to do (and get a head start on our upcoming trip to Pennsylvania).  We saw some absolutely stunning scenery and ate in a couple of really fantastic small, local restaurants. 

Views from patio deck in a VERY little town where we ate lunch.

So, "the 5th" is currently parked in Cooperstown, New York.  You do know what's in Cooperstown, NY don't you????  The Baseball Hall of Fame!!!!  Oh joy........

Fall Foliage

A final day trip was north into New Hampshire to see the brilliant fall foliage.  It’s everything you’ve ever heard and/or seen about it.  Hill after hill, highway after highway of non-stop yellow, gold, orange, and red….it’s hard to know where to look to see it all.

We really loved this part of Massachusetts.  It kind of has it all.  Beaches, seafood, history, genealogy, factory outlet malls, close to a fascinating big city, farm lands, foliage; you really couldn’t ask for more.  We plan to return and spend at least a month (probably October) in this area in the future.

Cheers......Boston

A beautiful day in a beautiful city.

A second day trip was to Boston.  We took the commuter train from Newburyport into Boston (about an hour trip through bright fall foliage and cute, old New England towns).  The Boston stop is connected to Boston Gardens, so Pat got his sports fix for the day!  The weather was, as usual, Indian summer perfect.  We were only there for the day, so we took one of those hop on-hop off buses, rode the entire circuit, and then got off and walked to the places we wanted to spend time at.  One of those places was the “Cheers” bar.  You know, from the old sit-com “Cheers”.  The outside is just like the pictures in the show and the show was based on that bar; however, the inside is different.  The owner caught so much grief from tourists since it wasn’t “the same” that he remodeled a second floor to match the LA set where the interiors of the show were actually shot.  Anyway, Pat and I decided to have a drink at the “original” bar downstairs.  So we are sitting at the bar and two women come in and sit a couple seats away from us around the corner.  One of the woman looked exactly like someone I met on my very first day of work at the COE (Ann Privasky, clinic administrator of CDRC in the Clinical Services Building who retired 10-15 years ago).  I thought:  can’t be; I’m in the “Cheers” bar in Boston for heaven’s sake!  However, Ann is a very distinctive looking woman; really short hair, always very put together; and this woman looked just like her.  Then I heard them talking and they sound just like Pat and me (and not like anyone else in the bar!).  Anyway……..it was her!  What a small world and I guess that bar really fits the theme song that includes the line, “….where everyone knows your name…” it was really true for me!  We thoroughly enjoyed our brief time in Boston and would like to come back and explore more in depth.

Plymouth Rock and Fall River

"THE ROCK"

 

  

The monument that surrounds (protects) the "rock".

While we were in Salisbury Beach, we took several “road trips”.  The state is so small north to south that nothing is very far away.  One day, we headed south.  Pat had never been to Plymouth Rock.  I’d been there and tried to describe “the rock” to him; but you have to see it to believe it (I have to admit, I don’t really think it’s the actual rock, if there ever was one.  Do we really think the pilgrims noted the exact rock, that they all actually stepped on the same rock, and then protected that particular rock for the sake of history?  Call me cynical-no surprise, huh!).  Anyway, another beautiful day; Pat was duly unimpressed with the “rock”; However, we enjoyed the boats bobbing in the blue harbor, and wandering the old part of town, and, of course, the old cemetery where many of the pilgrims are buried.

Mayflower replica and Plymouth harbor.

Pilgrim Cemetery

From Plymouth, we headed to the coastal town of Fall River.  One of the largest, if not the largest, settlements of Portuguese immigrants from the Azores, is in the Fall River area.  We shopped at the local Portuguese/Azores market and ate lunch at an Azorean restaurant where the menu really reminded us of restaurants on San Miguel in the Azores….made us want to make a return trip!

Pat with typical Azorean seafood dish.

Family

We are having a wonderful time; but still miss our family.  Last week was Emily's 10th high school reunion.  She took the opportunity to spend some quality time with grandma.

  Drew and Sara are enjoying being new parents and learning more about Jonah every day.

And Jonah remains as cute as ever.

Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts

Last lobster.

We spent the next week in the upper northeastern corner of Massachusetts in the ocean-side town of Salisbury Beach.  The weather was awesome the entire week.  Few clouds, wonderful blue skies, temperatures in the high 70’s or low 80’s the entire time.  Picture us on our last day at, where else, a lobster pound, eating (what else-lobster) outside, on the river, in short sleeve t-shirts; really a perfect day.  Earlier in the week, we had the same experience at a harbor-side restaurant, where I had some of the best fried shrimp I’ve ever had (apparently shrimp and crab were not out of season in Massachusetts as I had crab cakes and fresh crab at other times in addition to this shrimp dish!).

Great Shrimp on the harbor!

True to form, as soon as we arrived and got “the 5^th” setup, we went to a cemetery.  Pat and I both have ancestors that arrived in and settled this area in the 1630’s (yes, right after the Mayflower arrived!).   

First Burying Ground in Newbury, MA circa 1635 on land
donated by Pat's ancestors.

We figure, our ancestors were very probably neighbors, but so far, we haven’t found any common ancestors.  We know his ancestors were peace loving Quakers (and some of his other ancestors were Mennonites) and my ancestors were out to conquer every frontier at whatever cost (some of them fought in wars I had never even heard of until I started researching them)!  Not the most compatible types…hmmm.  Just to be consistent, we spent a large part of our last day searching for and wandering through amazingly old cemeteries.  These cemeteries are beautiful, quiet, and peaceful.  It’s a really unique experience to stand in a place where, you know; your ancestors stood almost 400 years ago.

Quaker cemetery from the late 1600's.