Road Trip: Day 3

Saturday morning we decided to take a stroll around the village. It was a beautiful fall morning and a good day for walking. We walked down to Lake Otsego, which is very tranquil and serene at this time of year. I imagine there's lots of lake activity during the summer. There were Canadian geese everywhere. It was fun just to sit and watch them for a while. (You can see a few of them swimming in this first picture.)

This statue overlooks the lake. It's called "The Indian Scout."

We then walked to the Otesaga Resort, which is also on the lakefront. It's one of these really old "Grand Dame" resorts that were so popular in the Northeast. (It was originally built in the 19th century as a girls' boarding school and became a hotel in 1909.) I can just picture Edwardian society ladies walking around in their big hats and sipping tea on the veranda.

View from the back of the hotel.

We then walked to Doubleday Field, the "birthplace of baseball." According to legend, this is where baseball was invented.

And I learned that the current structure was a WPA project!

It had the smallest dugouts ever. I think the ones at my high school were bigger than this. Seriously, how do they fit a whole team in there?

Here are a few more pictures from our walk:

In the afternoon, we headed to Brewery Ommegang, a Belgian-style brewery just outside of Cooperstown village. We got a tour of the facility and had a beer tasting. Our tour guide was amazing...amazingly hilarious! Among the facts he shared with us: he thinks using corks in beer bottles is "classy," he pours beer over his ice cream, and he enjoys drinking beer on Christmas morning. In fact, I think he might've been a little bit drunk during the tour. Anywho, here are a few pictures from that:

After the brewery, we drove around the lake and ended up at Glimmerglass State Park.

Hi Laurel!

This is what they call a "beach." FYI - the sidewalk is about two feet behind me.

The sky was quickly turning dark, and a few raindrops were starting to fall, so we headed back to town. Later that night we went back to the Hall of Fame, where a baseball film festival was going on. We saw a movie called "Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey" about former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee. It was a documentary about Lee playing baseball in Cuba. I really enjoyed it.

I'd also like to mention that one of the filmmakers was staying in our bed and breakfast. She was really nice and her film sounded great, but unfortunately it was showing on Sunday afternoon, so we weren't able to see it. Her film, Toots, is based on her grandfather, who was a saloon owner in New York in the 1940s and 50s. Everyone in the Yankees organization would hang out at his bar, so he got to know all the players and bigwigs. I'm sorry I missed the film, and I hope to catch it when it plays here in Washington.

On my way into the theater, I stopped to look at some baseball sculptures.

Whew! That was a busy day! Almost done!