Empire State, Part 2 - The Glen, a Lake and the Hall
What a fine time we had in Letchworth but, alas, t'was time to move on.
Where to next? Let's go check out the Finger Lakes region a coupla hours drive east. What a wonderful drive along the two lane country roads passing thru small towns that all have really old buildings and houses.
But these towns are so different from all of the other small towns we've passed thru on our trip. Yes, the homes are old but the paint is fresh, lawns neatly trimmed and town avenues faithfully maintained, like townsfolks give a shit, pride in ownership sorta thing. A stark contrast from most of small town America we have been thru.
I gotta tell ya, western and upstate NY is very impressive! By the way, skip the maddening Interstate highways with the absolutely insane truck drivers and get off on some parallel 2 laners, pass thru some small town 'Merica, slow the f down and have some fun. That's a Howie tip for y'all.
As we traversed these back country Finger Lake 2 laners, we passed thru many Mennonite communities and their horse drawn carriages on the shoulder of a posted 55 mph highway. All smiles and waves, heading to church on a Sunday morning, but seriously dangerous as hell!
Let's face it, our 8 Ton motorhome going 55 mph against a 200 pound carriage holding a family of 5, laboring at 5 mph, sheesh, hopefully God is on their side. Happy to report all went well and we did not cause a single vehicular manslaughter against any Mennonites on this trip.
The days journey from Letchworth brought us to Watkins Glen, NY at the southerly end of one of the 5 Finger Lakes, Seneca Lake. As I alluded to in the previous post, Watkins Glen is a place I have visited many times before to enjoy a coupla US Grand Prix F1 races back in the 1970's. We hooked up in a sweet spot at the Watkins Glen State Park Campground with access to the Gorge Trail right next door.
Oh.My.God...what a righteous trail this baby was! Only about 2 miles long, you walk up 1200 steps thru this water carved rock gorge with tight rock outcroppings, waterfalls galore, ferns, ice cold water seeping from the rocks above and spilling onto your head...f'in heaven! I loved it, a walk in paradise fo' sho'.
The first nite there we head into town for dinner, have a somewhat OK repaste at a questionable joint downtown next to the Lake (overpriced and under served) but a beautiful lakeside setting, and head back to camp.
Seems there was a traffic accident on the only road into the campground and the NY staties had the road closed for an undetermined amount of time. Bummer, everyone OK, asks I...Statie says, yeh no injuries but may take an hour or so to clear eveything up. You can park over there with everyone else and wait it out. I say to Deb, instead of waiting around let's cruise out to the racetrack to have a look see...so off we go.
Get out to Gate 2 of Watkins Glen International Raceway and see that it is locked up tight as a drum. I notice an orange shirted security guy waving me in his direction...oh shit, what I have done now?
Cruise on up and he is all smiles and friendly as all get out. I say we're just some dumb tourists nosing around and wanted to take a look see. Dude was cool as hell, we talk for a few minutes, I express my interest in wanting to see the track and he responds with a 'how long you guys in town for?'.
Just tonite says I... oh, if you want, you can drive 3 laps on the circuit tomorrow at 5 PM. What? Say that again into my good ear! We will be here my man. Accordingly, we re-up for another nite at the campground.
So next day at 5 PM, after I've aired up the tires in the Fit and removed all the towing equipment and bike racks, we are race ready and promptly at the start line. Now over the years I have walked this track, spectated from every single vantage point but have always wanted to drive a car around it, so this was a really big deal for me.
There were 5 other cars in our group, following this same orange shirted security guard driving the pace car. We got up to about 70 mph but he was cool and held a high speed and followed the racing line thru all of the corners.
It was such a ton of fun and co driver Debbie really enjoyed it as well. The Glen will always hold a special spot in my heart and this was the icing on the cake, here's to you my Glen!
We gave the Fit the night off and headed off to another Finger Lake the next morning, Cayuga Lake and the town of Seneca Falls. As we're driving into Seneca Falls we start seeing the 'things to do in our town' signs and notice that this town was the centerpiece of the women's suffrage movement back in the early 1800's.
The National Park Service has preserved the location where the first women's convention was convened back in 1848. Now think about this dear readers, this was 1848 and these fine women traveled from all over the world to have their voices heard in this small town in upstate NY. In 1848 there were no real established roads or traveler support services but these women said 'we're going'. And went they did and their voices were eventually heard.
It wasn't until the 19th Amendment in 1920 that women were allowed to vote in this country. They set the stage, but isn't it sad to look back on this? That it took this country nearly 100 years to hear their voices and then act on it.
Yes, sometimes progress comes slowly, but I believe what's right is right and what's right will eventually rise to the top....ah, patience, patience. Have hope dear followers, cause this young Nation has much more positive growth ahead, patience is a virtue, as they say.
No, we're not quite done with Seneca Falls just yet. As the local tourist commission would have you believe, Seneca Falls was the fictional town named Bedford Falls, chronicled in, my fav-o-rite movie of all time, "It's a Wonderful Life".
Having researched this claim, I have come to find out that my favorite movie was filmed on a backlot in Hollywood, but as we walked the town I could definitely see that the writers and screen producers had just this type of town in mind when developing the film.
Most definitely not filmed here but inspired by it for sure. Did not see the Bailey Building and Loan Association office or Martini's Tavern but the vibe was there.
Next stop was at a mountain high lake in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, Gilbert Lake State Park. As a side note, I've noticed that most lakes in the eastern US, and we noticed this in Canada and Alaska as well, that the word Lake comes last. In CA and other western states usually the word lake comes first, like Lake Tahoe, Lake Mead, etc. Interesting, but I digress.
So Gilbert Lake was a spot that we hoped we would find on this trip. Spring fed lake, high up in the mountains with heavy forest and peacefully wooded ridgelines surrounding it, heaven on earth, this place fit the bill and then some.
Checked in, went down to the lake for a swim on a glorious sunny afternoon and watched Deb and her new right knee do some strong leg kicks and she even did a water ballet leg extension with toes pointed!
Yeh, she was showing off, but very impressive action and happy to report that her rehab has been a complete success, no pain and I'm so happy for her.
We ended up spending the weekend at Gilbert Lake which has been a kinda standard MO for us on this trip. We try to hunker down for the weekends at a campspot and ride out the hordes of weekend campers until things relax a bit for the rest of the week. Then we pretty much freestyle Sunday thru Thursday and have our pick of places to go and stay, works pretty well.
What's this? Cooperstown, the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame is a mere 20 minutes from Gilbert Lake? We are there.
This is a place I've dreamed of going to since I was a little leaguer back in the day. But, you know how your childhood dreams take some shape and maturity as you grow older? Do I really want to go to a museum and look at an old baseball glove that Honus Wagner graced or a bat that Tony Gwynn used to great effect? Hell yeah I do! So off we go.
We tool into Cooperstown, not knowing where we're going, and drive thru the very old downtown Main Street. I approach a traffic circle and, casually, glance to my right and say to Deb, hey, I think that's the hall right over there across the street from the post office.
Now I was expecting this place to be on the outskirts of town, a huge complex in a campus like setting, but no, this joint was in an old building, 1936 vintage, smack dab downtown with other older downtown buildings built zero clearance against her. OK, I'm getting into it now.
Parked the car and paid the man at the door and entered a phenomenal space. I'm not really much of a museum guy but this place was fabulous. 3 floors, in a really small space, so with a limited area to work with they had to focus on the high points to tell the right story.
First floor contained all of the plaques of the 388 members of the Hall and floors 2 and 3 contained really well done panels and kiosks containing memorabilia and an assortment of other baseball treasures.
We spent about 2 hours there, and that's the other thing, you can see this place in about an hour or spend a week going thru everything, the final destination will be the same. Very well done, we enjoyed it so much. God I love baseball!
Dear readers, I'm closing this Part 2 of NY off for now, but oh nooo...we are not yet done with NY, or is it NY is not done with us yet?
On the next installment we embark on a fool's folly to find a place we've held sacred, only not to find it. Hey, some things are to remain sacred aren't they?
Stay well all, thanks for following along.
Peace out, Deb and Howard
Always informational and entertaining
ReplyDeleteFelt like I was there
On the road again
Can't wait to hear the blogs of Salem and wedding
Love u guys
Thanks Nise! Stay tuned
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