I Heart Cooperstown

I visited Cooperstown a few times this summer but never wrote about any of them. Since it is now a distinct possibility that Maggie may visit me and we might go to Cooperstown (yay!) I thought I'd write about a few of the things I did there, and what it's like.

Cooperstown is a small town that is inundated with tourists in the summer because the Baseball Hall of Fame is there. Seriously, all the hotels for next summer's Hall of Fame weekend are already booked because Cal Riken Jr. is being inducted. As a result, all of the locals either love baseball or are absolutely sick of it. Luckily, since I don't care about baseball, there are other cool things to do. For instance, The Farmer's Museum, which is like a small town from the 1860s with a tavern, church, farm animals, blacksmith, basket weaving, general store, etc. All the workers dress to the period and actually weave baskets, blacksmith, etc. At Christmas time, the oxen pull people around the tiny village on a sleigh and the tavern is open selling cider and hot chocolate, and there's a big bonfire. It's magical. There's also an art museum, The Fenimore House, but I don't go there as often as I do the Farmer's. Oh, and the Farmer's just added an old time carousel that is all hand carved. It's beautiful.

There are also cool touristy places to check out, like the Ommegong Brewery (Belgian) and the Fly Creek Cider Mill. There's also my granddaddy's old farmhouse, Longview and my Aunt Barbara's house, which has an amazing view of the valley below. Oh, and every fall they have Pumpkinfest. I haven't gone yet, but people bring the biggest pumpkins they've grown and they're weighed, measured and judged. Afterwards, everyone carves out the pumpkins, sits in them, and paddles across a small portion of Otsego Lake in the pumpkin race. Seriously, I"m not making this up. Of course, the race doesn't last long, I hear a lot of people fall out of the pumpkins pretty quickly. Still, it sounds incredibly entertaining.

I was there for the week of July 4th, but we didn't get to see fireworks until July 10 because there was insane flooding. The day before I left our house had no power and my Mom and Mike had stayed up the night before because the basement was full of power, and they were afraid the 4 sump pumps would break down. On the plus side, the entire family was together for the first time in a year in a half (this is mostly Dave's fault, he lives in NYC and doesn't get a lot of time off from work). Anyways, all the siblings got to go see Paul Simon play at Doubleday Field. We were in the unofficial locals section, and Ames and I saw people we hadn't seen since middle school. It was a random, surprising reunion ("Scottie's so tall! Ben's in art school! etc.).

I came back later on in the summer and got to see a play, Sleuth. It was awesome. Not only were the play and actors amazing, but the stage set up was really cool. It was in Hyde Hall, a historic building with no power, so lights were hooked up. The stage was in the middle of the room, with the audience sitting around it, which caused the actors to constantly move around so that other sides would be able to see their faces. I was in the front row, and the actors had so much energy! I won't ruin it in case others haven't seen this play. It's all about playing games, and what happens when those games start to go too far. I've heard they made a movie of it in the 70s which is probably worth checking out. I'm now eagerly looking forward to URI's theater season. One of the advantages of going to a larger school is that there are enough drama people for there to be 2 plays every semester. This year they're doing Fat Pig, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Buried Child and Pride and Prejudice. Should be interesting....

Here's a few pics of Cooperstown:
Otsego Lake= http://www.littleviews.com/lv_art/cooperstown_01.jpg
Pumpkinfest= http://www.pumpkinnook.com/giants/pics2004/cooperstown2004.jpg
Farmland =http://www.cooperstownrealty.com/OtsegoView2.jpg
Kingfisher Tower= http://www.smartdivers.com/images/photogal/his1.jpg