Cooperstown, NY to Portland, ME - 320 mi
Waking up to a fresh, cool summer morning on top of a foothill of the Adirondack Mountains is a pleasant experience to say the least. And an early morning drive back to Cooperstown was just as pleasant. Arriving at the Baseball Hall of Fame twenty minutes after they opened their doors and having basically the whole place to yourself is something else entirely.
Baseball has always been my sport. Well, I shouldn’t say always- I played soccer from kindergarten to 4th grade, at which point I realized that running is not my thing, and so I switched to a sport that only requires you to run in short quick bursts, and where everyone looks as frumpy as I do running. I played baseball right up until that point in high school where it became not “for fun” anymore, but for competition, which sucked all the life out of the sport. But I love baseball. So to show up at Cooperstown and walk into the Hall of Fame, you feel like you’re a kid again, reading about all the greats of the game and the memorabilia and little-known facts, and finding all your favorite players and sports announcers bronze plaques in the Hall, and then finding a distant family member.
I’ve known for quite awhile that I had a great aunt (grandma’s sister, is great aunt correct?) who played in the women’s pro baseball league during and following WWII. What I did not expect, though, was to find her name and see her picture at Cooperstown. Aunt Audrey (for whom my sister is named) played for Kenosha in the women’s league, and has a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I had to walk that one off.
Anyone who has ever played or enjoyed baseball needs to make a pilgrimage to Cooperstown. It is a religious experience.
After Cooperstown, we hit the road toward Albany, which seemed like a really nice city, not small enough to feel like there’s nothing going on, but not big enough to feel impersonal and gross. After a Starbucks break, we drove out through southern Vermont and New Hampshire. I’ve seen the Rocky Mountains before, and they’re impressive and all, but there’s just something about the Appalachians that always gets me. I think I can some it up in this very dudelike sense: the Rocky Mountains are like that super-hot girl that’s really great to look at, but is just a little too distant and you know you’d never have a chance with her. The Appalachians, on the other hand, are much more accessible, like that super-cute girl that you can actually DO stuff with and have a conversation, and surprises you at almost every turn. Driving through the Green Mountains in Vermont was a fulfilling experience, both putting the car through its handling paces and allowing amazing views of the surrounding mountains.
A few more lakes and hills in New Hampshire and a quick run up the coast, and we arrived in Portland, hooking up with Adam and his dad, knocking back a few cold local brews and then calling it a night.
8.22.2008
8.18.2008
Road Trip - Day Two
Sandusky, OH to Cooperstown, NY – 500 mi
Today was a driving day, a day in which the full weight of “road trip” rested its full weight upon our shoulders. These things sound great on paper, when you’ve been working long hours all summer without a break, and you just want to walk out the door and walk until you don’t want to walk anymore. Road trips are kind of like that, except that you have someplace you have to be, so even when you don’t want to walk anymore, you have no choice but to keep on truckin’. And New York is not the state you want to truck across like that.
The day started with a failed attempt at finding functional wifi, as the Starbucks we stopped at before we left Sandusky was having issues with their system. So I had to settle for a cup of coffee, and then we hit the road, passing through Cleveland. If Milwaukee has a twin, Cleveland is it. An industrially-oriented Great Lakes city with a few skyscrapers and that rough-around-the-edges feeling to everything, you just get the feeling that the city is inhabited by people who work too hard to worry too much about keeping their city looking impressive at all times, which to me is impressive in itself and exhibits in the people a certain quality of confidence that while it might not be the pretty thing in the world, they are leading good lives. I could never live in Cleveland.
Upon exiting Cleveland, we realized that we hadn’t exactly stopped for food that morning, and it was approaching 11am. And it seemed as though as soon as that thought had been thunk, God placed a Waffle House just off of I-90. Anyone who knows Dustyn and I knows we have an obsession with the Waffle House, the cheap goodness that’s available there, and the refreshingly familiar yellow-block W-A-F-F-L-E H-O-U-S-E. For just a hair over six dollars, I got myself my “3-2-1” breakfast that I’ve developed over a period of 5 years sparsely frequenting the Waffle House: a triple hashbrown, a double waffle and a single glass of water, which is enough food so that toward end, you’re challenging yourself to finish it. It was wonderful.
So off we went across the little corner of Pennsylvania that reaches up and claims the city of Erie, and then into New York state. Now, to get across New York, you have two options: the first one is the New York State Thruway, which is a bit more direct but is also a toll road. And we’re cheap. So we took option #2, the Southern Tier Expressway, Interstate 86 which winds through the hills of the southern part of the state. We pulled off at a rest stop to grab a map and ask how long we were looking at until we reached Cooperstown, and were told it would be about 5 ½ to 6 hours. This blindsided us because we ignorantly assumed that a) once you reach the state that contains your destination, you should be at least kind of close to said destination, and b) all states out east are small. So we put our heads down and did the drive. The closest thing I can compare it to is driving the stretch of I-94 between Tomah and Eau Claire, except that the hills are a bit bigger in New York. And the stretch is 6 hours instead of one. It was a struggle, not only staying awake, but keeping our sanity. We began singing silly repetitive songs, and creating faux church names based upon towns on the highway signs we were passing, such as “Jerusalem Hill Tabernacle Fist Congregational Assembly of God, Scientist” and other such things.
We finally reached Cooperstown, which is set back in the hills on a lake in east central New York, and has to be about the most perfect all-American town. All the houses are neatly kept, and there are little mom-and-pop shops everywhere, and a big baseball field complex and then, just around the corner… a gigantic Howard Johnson hotel. Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, so this makes sense, in a really odd way. It feels like plopping down a SuperTarget in a town of 300 or something. Anyway, we grabbed a variety-pack case from the local microbrewery, Cooperstown Brewing Company, and drove off to our campsite, which turned out to be about 25 minutes away from Cooperstown, set back on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. We set up the tent in the last remaining light of the evening and set about building our campfire and firing up the grill. Two steaks and a few beers later, we crashed for the night, and even in my dreams, I was driving across southern New York on a never-ending trip.
Today was a driving day, a day in which the full weight of “road trip” rested its full weight upon our shoulders. These things sound great on paper, when you’ve been working long hours all summer without a break, and you just want to walk out the door and walk until you don’t want to walk anymore. Road trips are kind of like that, except that you have someplace you have to be, so even when you don’t want to walk anymore, you have no choice but to keep on truckin’. And New York is not the state you want to truck across like that.
The day started with a failed attempt at finding functional wifi, as the Starbucks we stopped at before we left Sandusky was having issues with their system. So I had to settle for a cup of coffee, and then we hit the road, passing through Cleveland. If Milwaukee has a twin, Cleveland is it. An industrially-oriented Great Lakes city with a few skyscrapers and that rough-around-the-edges feeling to everything, you just get the feeling that the city is inhabited by people who work too hard to worry too much about keeping their city looking impressive at all times, which to me is impressive in itself and exhibits in the people a certain quality of confidence that while it might not be the pretty thing in the world, they are leading good lives. I could never live in Cleveland.
Upon exiting Cleveland, we realized that we hadn’t exactly stopped for food that morning, and it was approaching 11am. And it seemed as though as soon as that thought had been thunk, God placed a Waffle House just off of I-90. Anyone who knows Dustyn and I knows we have an obsession with the Waffle House, the cheap goodness that’s available there, and the refreshingly familiar yellow-block W-A-F-F-L-E H-O-U-S-E. For just a hair over six dollars, I got myself my “3-2-1” breakfast that I’ve developed over a period of 5 years sparsely frequenting the Waffle House: a triple hashbrown, a double waffle and a single glass of water, which is enough food so that toward end, you’re challenging yourself to finish it. It was wonderful.
So off we went across the little corner of Pennsylvania that reaches up and claims the city of Erie, and then into New York state. Now, to get across New York, you have two options: the first one is the New York State Thruway, which is a bit more direct but is also a toll road. And we’re cheap. So we took option #2, the Southern Tier Expressway, Interstate 86 which winds through the hills of the southern part of the state. We pulled off at a rest stop to grab a map and ask how long we were looking at until we reached Cooperstown, and were told it would be about 5 ½ to 6 hours. This blindsided us because we ignorantly assumed that a) once you reach the state that contains your destination, you should be at least kind of close to said destination, and b) all states out east are small. So we put our heads down and did the drive. The closest thing I can compare it to is driving the stretch of I-94 between Tomah and Eau Claire, except that the hills are a bit bigger in New York. And the stretch is 6 hours instead of one. It was a struggle, not only staying awake, but keeping our sanity. We began singing silly repetitive songs, and creating faux church names based upon towns on the highway signs we were passing, such as “Jerusalem Hill Tabernacle Fist Congregational Assembly of God, Scientist” and other such things.
We finally reached Cooperstown, which is set back in the hills on a lake in east central New York, and has to be about the most perfect all-American town. All the houses are neatly kept, and there are little mom-and-pop shops everywhere, and a big baseball field complex and then, just around the corner… a gigantic Howard Johnson hotel. Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, so this makes sense, in a really odd way. It feels like plopping down a SuperTarget in a town of 300 or something. Anyway, we grabbed a variety-pack case from the local microbrewery, Cooperstown Brewing Company, and drove off to our campsite, which turned out to be about 25 minutes away from Cooperstown, set back on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. We set up the tent in the last remaining light of the evening and set about building our campfire and firing up the grill. Two steaks and a few beers later, we crashed for the night, and even in my dreams, I was driving across southern New York on a never-ending trip.
8.17.2008
Road Trip - Day One
Milwaukee, WI to Sandusky, OH – 380 miles
As I write, I am currently sitting with my laptop at a picnic table, in the dark, at my campsite overlooking Sandusky Bay on Lake Erie in Ohio. Unfortunately, by the time I actually get this posted, it will be Sunday morning, and I’ll probably be sitting in the Starbucks a few miles away, because we’re in the far end of the campground and I can’t get a strong enough signal from the wifi transmitter. Meh.
So we ended up not going to Cedar Point. I will probably never outlive the personal guilt I feel, but it was hot, humid, and we weren’t really able to go until after 5pm, and the park is only open until 11, so with all the waits in line, we would’ve got about 4 or 5 rides in and wouldn’t have really got our money’s worth. So we decided to go and get some fish for the grill at the Meijer store nearby (Dustyn, a slab of rainbow trout; Ian, a hunk of garlic and herb-marinated salmon), have a few beers from Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Company (when in Rome, right?) and throw the Frisbee. This actually turned out quite nice, because between the two of us, we got about 3 hours of sleep, and seeing as I got 3 hours of sleep last night, that means Dustyn got zip for sleep, as he got off work at 7am and we left right away.
Shortly before 8 this morning, we left Milwaukee accompanied by The Cars’ greatest hits album. I stopped by the Dunn Bros down the road from Dustyn’s apartment, which is the apartment complex that I lived in when I lived in Milwaukee for a year, so I’m trying to get over the fact that the store opened RIGHT after I moved back to Minnesota. Anyway, we hit the road, drove through Chicago and Indiana, and into Ohio.
We were pretty much zombies all day today. But not zombified enough to notice what seemed to be the theme of the day, and that was smells. The air smells really funky as you go south and east in our great country. In Chicago, it’s your standard exhausty 10-million-people-are-surrounding-you scent, and then you drive into Gary, where you breathe sulfur, exhaust, smoke, and metal. Further into Indiana, fertilizer. Enter Ohio, more fertilizer, but with some really odd industrial toxic waste smells. I can hardly smell the Great Lake that’s about 100 feet away from me right now.
I also notice a lot more classic Americana around here than up in Minneapolis. Aside from the dozens of John McCain campaign yard signs we saw all over (you just don’t see those in Minnesota), and the “Drill Here, Drill Now!” mantra being repeated by a fluorescent sign in front of a local bar here in Sandusky, I’ve never seen so many motorcycles, Dodge pickups and lightning bolt-illuminated Old Glories as I’ve seen here today. At the liquor store, the man put my six-pack, which had a perfectly good handle on the top, inside not one but TWO plastic grocery bags without giving it a second thought. You have to ASK for a bag in Minnesota! And at the campground here, we brought our tossables to the garbage area and began to sort out the recyclables from the garbage, before realizing that there was one large bin in which to throw everything. We got some sideways looks when we began playing our music (Cloud Cult, Death Cab For Cutie, Sufjan Stevens) and as soon as we turned it off, our neighbors in the campsite next door quickly replaced the musical silence with Pearl Jam and Limp Bizkit. I haven’t heard Limp Bizkit in 5 years. Are they still around? Dustyn and I feel a little out of place. Maybe we’ll go and chat with the Canadian group that’s set up camp down the path. I know they’re Canadian because they have a maple leaf flag hanging above their campsite, and I overheard one of them talking about “fishing for trow-oot” in the Delaware River.
Wait, no, Dustyn’s passed out in the tent. Geez.
I think I’ve calculated that I’ve got about 12 hours of sleep since Wednesday, so I’ve got some catching up to do. Unfortunately, I think I just overheard one of the campground employees tell some people he’d been hunting a bear for the past couple of hours and warning them that he might come around tonight. I might just sleep in the car tonight. I don’t understand, though, because this area totally does NOT look like bear country. I guess I underestimate our furry friends.
I'd post some pictures, but apparently the capability is down for the moment... I'll check back later.
As I write, I am currently sitting with my laptop at a picnic table, in the dark, at my campsite overlooking Sandusky Bay on Lake Erie in Ohio. Unfortunately, by the time I actually get this posted, it will be Sunday morning, and I’ll probably be sitting in the Starbucks a few miles away, because we’re in the far end of the campground and I can’t get a strong enough signal from the wifi transmitter. Meh.
So we ended up not going to Cedar Point. I will probably never outlive the personal guilt I feel, but it was hot, humid, and we weren’t really able to go until after 5pm, and the park is only open until 11, so with all the waits in line, we would’ve got about 4 or 5 rides in and wouldn’t have really got our money’s worth. So we decided to go and get some fish for the grill at the Meijer store nearby (Dustyn, a slab of rainbow trout; Ian, a hunk of garlic and herb-marinated salmon), have a few beers from Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Company (when in Rome, right?) and throw the Frisbee. This actually turned out quite nice, because between the two of us, we got about 3 hours of sleep, and seeing as I got 3 hours of sleep last night, that means Dustyn got zip for sleep, as he got off work at 7am and we left right away.
Shortly before 8 this morning, we left Milwaukee accompanied by The Cars’ greatest hits album. I stopped by the Dunn Bros down the road from Dustyn’s apartment, which is the apartment complex that I lived in when I lived in Milwaukee for a year, so I’m trying to get over the fact that the store opened RIGHT after I moved back to Minnesota. Anyway, we hit the road, drove through Chicago and Indiana, and into Ohio.
We were pretty much zombies all day today. But not zombified enough to notice what seemed to be the theme of the day, and that was smells. The air smells really funky as you go south and east in our great country. In Chicago, it’s your standard exhausty 10-million-people-are-surrounding-you scent, and then you drive into Gary, where you breathe sulfur, exhaust, smoke, and metal. Further into Indiana, fertilizer. Enter Ohio, more fertilizer, but with some really odd industrial toxic waste smells. I can hardly smell the Great Lake that’s about 100 feet away from me right now.
I also notice a lot more classic Americana around here than up in Minneapolis. Aside from the dozens of John McCain campaign yard signs we saw all over (you just don’t see those in Minnesota), and the “Drill Here, Drill Now!” mantra being repeated by a fluorescent sign in front of a local bar here in Sandusky, I’ve never seen so many motorcycles, Dodge pickups and lightning bolt-illuminated Old Glories as I’ve seen here today. At the liquor store, the man put my six-pack, which had a perfectly good handle on the top, inside not one but TWO plastic grocery bags without giving it a second thought. You have to ASK for a bag in Minnesota! And at the campground here, we brought our tossables to the garbage area and began to sort out the recyclables from the garbage, before realizing that there was one large bin in which to throw everything. We got some sideways looks when we began playing our music (Cloud Cult, Death Cab For Cutie, Sufjan Stevens) and as soon as we turned it off, our neighbors in the campsite next door quickly replaced the musical silence with Pearl Jam and Limp Bizkit. I haven’t heard Limp Bizkit in 5 years. Are they still around? Dustyn and I feel a little out of place. Maybe we’ll go and chat with the Canadian group that’s set up camp down the path. I know they’re Canadian because they have a maple leaf flag hanging above their campsite, and I overheard one of them talking about “fishing for trow-oot” in the Delaware River.
Wait, no, Dustyn’s passed out in the tent. Geez.
I think I’ve calculated that I’ve got about 12 hours of sleep since Wednesday, so I’ve got some catching up to do. Unfortunately, I think I just overheard one of the campground employees tell some people he’d been hunting a bear for the past couple of hours and warning them that he might come around tonight. I might just sleep in the car tonight. I don’t understand, though, because this area totally does NOT look like bear country. I guess I underestimate our furry friends.
I'd post some pictures, but apparently the capability is down for the moment... I'll check back later.
8.16.2008
Road Trip - Day Zero
Minneapolis to Milwaukee – 390 miles
Yeah, so I took the long way. But let me tell you that there is nothing more soothing to the soul than driving down Highway 61 along the Mississippi, with all the hills and bluffs slowly drifting by, while listening to the latest Sigur Rós album.
I decided to take the “long way”- Highway 61 to LaCrosse and then Highway 14 to Madison- because I had an experiment to carry out. I set out with a goal of driving about 60mph the whole way and seeing how far I could go on a tank of gas. I figured that if I took Barack Obama’s advice and properly inflated my tires and didn’t drive like an ass, I could really make this happen. And I did. I’ve gone 402 miles on this tank, which will end me up somewhere in the neighborhood of 34mpg, which is about 5mpg more than the EPA estimates I’m supposed to get in “realistic” conditions. So, my nerdlike tendencies aside, I’ve saved a few bucks to spend on something else. Huzzah.
The other reason for taking the “long way” is that I wanted to drop in and surprise my parents. Which I did, quite successfully. And I even got a bonus out of it- steak was for dinner, and seeing as my family seems to eat at 8pm every night, arriving at 8:30 was close enough to earn me a steak. Not like the store-bought Cub stuff, but the small-town Wisconsin stuff- my family just bought an entire side of Angus beef, as in half a cow, from a local farmer. Yum, steak. And for dessert they also happened to have two pies from Michael’s Frozen Custard, which is pretty much the best frozen custard ever. My Minnesota friends will insist that Culver’s frozen custard should carry that distinction, but that’s okay because, well, they don’t know any better. And my Milwaukee friends will insist that Kopp’s frozen custard should carry the day, which I agree it is a close match… but I’m sticking to my guns.
As long as we’re talking about food, I’d have to say that if Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, then Wisconsin has to be the Land of 10,000 Frozen Pizza Brands. Seriously. On top of the Jack’s, Tombstone, Bernatello’s, Freschetta, DiGiorno and Tony’s that you find in Minnesota, you’ve got Roma, Orv’s, Palermo’s, Connie’s, Home Run Inn, as well as Uno, Gino’s East (!), Infusino’s, and scores of little ultra-local mom-and-pop brands. What’s a hungry dude to do at 2am? Which begs the question: what’s a dude who just ate an amazing steak doing still hungry at 2am? And why is he up?
Because he’s on vacation.
Anyway, here’s some pictures. We just bought us a new camera at the National Camera Exchange Tent Sale, so I was able to mess around with it some:
The moon was really bright, and this picture turned out well.
Catching everyone offguard...
My little sister Audrey is amazing. She won 15 blue ribbons, 2 red ribbons, some super-important trophy, and two other top-notch awards for her 4-H projects at the Dane County Fair.
I really do miss my family. And my wife.
But tomorrow is the real fun, and the actual "road trip" begins. Stay tuned...
Yeah, so I took the long way. But let me tell you that there is nothing more soothing to the soul than driving down Highway 61 along the Mississippi, with all the hills and bluffs slowly drifting by, while listening to the latest Sigur Rós album.
I decided to take the “long way”- Highway 61 to LaCrosse and then Highway 14 to Madison- because I had an experiment to carry out. I set out with a goal of driving about 60mph the whole way and seeing how far I could go on a tank of gas. I figured that if I took Barack Obama’s advice and properly inflated my tires and didn’t drive like an ass, I could really make this happen. And I did. I’ve gone 402 miles on this tank, which will end me up somewhere in the neighborhood of 34mpg, which is about 5mpg more than the EPA estimates I’m supposed to get in “realistic” conditions. So, my nerdlike tendencies aside, I’ve saved a few bucks to spend on something else. Huzzah.
The other reason for taking the “long way” is that I wanted to drop in and surprise my parents. Which I did, quite successfully. And I even got a bonus out of it- steak was for dinner, and seeing as my family seems to eat at 8pm every night, arriving at 8:30 was close enough to earn me a steak. Not like the store-bought Cub stuff, but the small-town Wisconsin stuff- my family just bought an entire side of Angus beef, as in half a cow, from a local farmer. Yum, steak. And for dessert they also happened to have two pies from Michael’s Frozen Custard, which is pretty much the best frozen custard ever. My Minnesota friends will insist that Culver’s frozen custard should carry that distinction, but that’s okay because, well, they don’t know any better. And my Milwaukee friends will insist that Kopp’s frozen custard should carry the day, which I agree it is a close match… but I’m sticking to my guns.
As long as we’re talking about food, I’d have to say that if Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, then Wisconsin has to be the Land of 10,000 Frozen Pizza Brands. Seriously. On top of the Jack’s, Tombstone, Bernatello’s, Freschetta, DiGiorno and Tony’s that you find in Minnesota, you’ve got Roma, Orv’s, Palermo’s, Connie’s, Home Run Inn, as well as Uno, Gino’s East (!), Infusino’s, and scores of little ultra-local mom-and-pop brands. What’s a hungry dude to do at 2am? Which begs the question: what’s a dude who just ate an amazing steak doing still hungry at 2am? And why is he up?
Because he’s on vacation.
Anyway, here’s some pictures. We just bought us a new camera at the National Camera Exchange Tent Sale, so I was able to mess around with it some:
The moon was really bright, and this picture turned out well.
Catching everyone offguard...
My little sister Audrey is amazing. She won 15 blue ribbons, 2 red ribbons, some super-important trophy, and two other top-notch awards for her 4-H projects at the Dane County Fair.
I really do miss my family. And my wife.
But tomorrow is the real fun, and the actual "road trip" begins. Stay tuned...
8.14.2008
Road Trip Bloggings!
After a long, hot summer (actually, it wasn't so bad, but still... summer's summer) I shall be cashing in some vacation time, hopping in the Focus and taking off across the country. Two countries, to be exact.
My friend Dustyn (college roomie, best man, and veteran of numerous shared hole-in-the-wall apartments in Minneapolis and Milwaukee) and I will be driving to Portland, Maine, where we'll meet up with our friend and (my former, his current) roommate Adam, who chickened out on a road trip and decided to fly. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But there will be much merry-making, and between here and Portland, many delightful side-trips and other such nonsense.
All of which shall be recorded right here, on my blog.
So stay tuned...
My friend Dustyn (college roomie, best man, and veteran of numerous shared hole-in-the-wall apartments in Minneapolis and Milwaukee) and I will be driving to Portland, Maine, where we'll meet up with our friend and (my former, his current) roommate Adam, who chickened out on a road trip and decided to fly. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But there will be much merry-making, and between here and Portland, many delightful side-trips and other such nonsense.
All of which shall be recorded right here, on my blog.
So stay tuned...
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