COOPERSTOWN ADVENTURE!

Cooperstown, NY, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr.

Megan, the kids and I headed up to Cooperstown this morning. I took this opportunity to show them my favorite places in Cooperstown: Brookwood Gardens, The Indian Mound, the stone bridge, Council Rock.  I think Megan particularly liked Brookwood Gardens.

By the time we were finished up at Council Rock, it was lunch time. We went to the library to use the restrooms and the kids and I spent a couple of minutes in one of the art galleries while Megan walked back to Estlie Avenue to get the car.  She picked us up in front of the library and we went to the DEPOT DELI and purchased sandwiches and took them to Badger Park. Unfortunately, we did not find the picnic tables in the woods until after we ate our lunch on a picnic table out in the sun. The kids and I looked briefly for the geocache (THE LEGEND OF THE CHOPPER), but did not have any success

Then we drove to the temporary BLUE LOT at the elementary school, where we parked and then caught the trolley  which took us  downtown where we did some shopping and sightseeing.  The kids each got a baseball card, and Tyler got a YANKEES baseball cap.  We kind of wanted to go to the HALL OF SHAME, but the directions we were given were a bit confusing, so we skipped it.   I suggested to Meg that the kids might like to see DOUBLEDAY FIELD so we headed down in that direction.

When we got to the statue of THE SAND LOT KID, Cassy said she wished she had a baseball bat so she could pose like the statue. I went to a nearby gift shop and borrowed a bat, and both of the kids posed for photographs..
  In the store where we borrowed the bat, we purchased some postcards and I think Meg bought a couple of other items.

Then we caught the trolley back to the school and headed towards Oneonta.  We stopped at POP'S PLACE for ice cream.  I had the creamsicle flavor burst which was really good.  One more stop after that was at WalMart so Megan could purchase some beach/bath towels for our upcoming trip to Canada's Wonderland.

Tina's Birthday Lunch

As part of celebrating Tina's 59th birthday, Megan wanted to take her and Mike out to lunch.  She wanted a place not too expensive but very nice and settled on THE STELLA LUNA, and Mike and Tina and their grandkids, Lexy and Cody planned to meet us there.

Megan, the kids and I went to Walmart and the library first and we had some extra time so we went over to Neahwa Park where I showed the kids the 400 year old tree,  and the caboose.  They played on the new playground for a while.

When we got to Stella Luna, we found it CLOSED.........even though the website says it is open Monday through Saturday.  Mike and Tina arrived a minute later and a quick decision was made to go to MOREY'S.  We had a nice lunch there and all of the kids were very well behaved.

Megan dropped the kids off at Mike and Tina's house for a couple of hours so she could take a very well deserved nap!  I took one, too.

Tina and Mikes Birthday Celebration

Megan ordered and picked up an ice cream cake at Dairy Queen and she also picked up rolls, lunchmeat, salads, chips, etc. and took it all over to Mike and Tina's house, since  today was Tina's birthday (I think she turned 59) and Mikes birthday was a couple of weeks ago.  Everything was delicious.  Mike cut GINORMOUS (one of my grandsons favorite words) slices of the ice cream cake, but we all managed to
finish ours.  It was a nice afternoon!

SHOPPING ADVENTURE (and a bit more)

SHOPPING_FLYCREEKCIDERMILL 013, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr

When we woke up to drizzling rain, we decided to scratch our plans to go to Cooperstown in favor of going shopping just outside of Utica. Megan wanted to get some beads at MICHAELS CRAFT SHOP and look for some clothing for her and the kids. So, we headed out about 9:30 a.m.   Along the way (I think it was West Winfield) we saw an Amish stand and we stopped and purchased pies, bread, donuts and cookies.

First stop in New Hartford was at  FIVE DOLLARS AND UNDER, a store where everything is priced at five dollars or less. The kids found some LEGO people and their mother and I each bought each kid one. Next stop was the craft store, which is very big and has a great selection, but we could not find any modelling clay in small amounts. Third was a huge shoe store and the last shopping stop was OLD NAVY, where the picture at the top was taken.  We had fun getting large bouncy balls out of a machine and trading them with each other.  Both the kids and I have a collection of smaller ones.  .

Then it was time for lunch.  I suggested FIVE GUYS and we were able to locate it, but the kids did not want to eat there, so we checked out at Chinese Buffet, and Tyler did not want to eat there.  We then checked out Ninety Nine and decided to eat there.  It was a good lunch.

After that, Megan said "what next?" and I suggested we go to the FLY CREEK CIDER MILL.  She had never been there, and she and the kids enjoyed it.  They purchased a few items, fed the ducks, I took a lot of pictures and then the kids located a geocache APPLE OF MY EYE.    After that we headed for home.

FROGPOND, etc. ADVENTURE

Masonville General Store: Masonville, NY, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr.

Linda and I set out for the FROGPOND this morning. They had a LOT to offer today and I purchased potatoes, sweet potatoes, plums,
peaches, nectarines, grapes, black cherries, melon and probably one or two more items.

Then we went to PINE RIDGE GROCERY (commonly known as The Mennonite Store) but they did not have the one item I wanted, their honey meat sticks. They did, however have KUTZTOWN SODA at about half the price I paid the other day in GALLUPVILLE, so I bought a dozen or so bottles.

After that we decided to go out to lunch, but were undecided where to go. We drove through Sidney looking for SUBWAY, but did not see it and all of a sudden we were on the other side of Sidney and I saw the sign for six miles to Masonville, so I suggested that we check out the General Store there. We checked it out but they did not really offer food. They had a nice area with tables and chairs and some snack food, but thats about all. It seems to be more of a gift shop.........but its very nice and has many old fixtures.

By then we were getting hungry, so we headed back to Sidney. I saw a sign for the Chinese Buffet and suggested to Linda that we check it out, and if we were not satisfied, we could go to Subway.

We chose the Chinese Buffet and it was very good, but I did not care much for their fried rice.

After lunch, we headed back to Oneonta, it was a nice day!

Looooooong Day Adventure

The original plan for today was to go to Cooprstown, but it turned out that this weekend is HALL OF FAME WEEKEND, and Cooperstown will be very crowded, so we needed a new plan.  Even though we had recently been to this same area, I decided that a visit to the Blenheim Gilboa Visitors Center might be a good place to start.  So, I set up an itinerary, found some geocache information and we headed out early Friday morning with a picnic lunch

    I think we arrived at the visitors center around ten thirty a.m.     The visitors center features interactive activities (which have to do with power and electricity) which the kids loved. .  
 It is housed in a restored 18th century dairy barn.   After we finished up with the visitors center, we went to LANSING MANOR, right next door, which is a  historic house museum.  The house itself is almost 200 years old.
     After that, we had lunch in a picnic area on the grounds.  Then, after using the rest rooms in the visitors center, we headed down the aqua trail to find two geocaches: GIANT TWINS and AT THE Y.  The giant trees are beautiful and I took a few pictures.  AT THE Y was a bit of a challenge.......very hard to get to, in fact, I got stuck behind some very unforgiving vines and could not even get to the cache, which Cassandra (Cachysandra) found easily.
     After finding those two caches, we headed back to the parking area.  A tractor pulling a wagon was coming through and they stopped and offered us a ride, which we accepted.  They were doing a "trial run" for a hay ride they are having tomorrow.  One of the guys noticed our GPS's and asked if we were geocaching and when we said "yes", he started pointing out geocaches along the trail.  He mentioned a "parks challenge".
     Once back at the parking area, Cassy insisted on looking for CURBSIDE, one of the caches we heard about during our wagon ride.  But without coords, she did not have any luck.

     After that, we headed to Gallupville to go to the OLDE CORNER STORE.    This old store (circa 1834)     is now a bulk food store and deli.  We all purchased Kutztown Sodas (delicious) and chocolates and chatted with the proprietor, who was very friendly.  The kids said they liked this store much better than the Breakabeen store.
     Our plans for the day included heading to Route 20 and going to The TEPEE, but we realized we were running out of time, so we scratched that and decided to just take Route 30 back to Stamford and then 23 to Oneonta and home.  We made several photo stops, though: first at a covered bridge and old home, then an octagon house, a farm stand (where Megan purchased a lot of berries) and in Grand Gorge, we stopped to go in an antique store.

ANTIQUES in Grand Gorge, NY, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr.

which was our last stop except for a stop at Stewart's in Stamford to use the rest room and purchase ice cream.   Megan ordered and picked up a pizza at Long Island Pizzeria for our supper that night, which was a good thing, since I was pretty worn out!  It was a great day.

Thursday Geocaching

     Megan and the kids wanted to spend most of the day with Misty and her kids, so Leslie and I set up a geocaching expedition.   It was a bit cooler day compared to the few previous days.   After gassing up, I picked Leslie up at her house.

      We both wanted to wrap up our DNF's from last week near Bloomville so that is what we did first.  This time, it was super quick and easy to find the two cemetery caches (DUH)........I think we somehow got locked into various ideas we got from the cache info and clues last week, and were not able to see beyond our mindsets.  Anyways, we found them and then moved on to Harmony Hill, where we found BRIDGES AND BEGINNINGS under this little bridge.  The reason we did not find it last week is because this is a very strange place to hide a geocache.  When the rains come, and the creek starts running again.................what will happen to the cache?

Small Bridge, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr.

     And then we drove to the Village of  Bloomville to continue to find ZenanSparticus's ALL ABOUT THE TOWN caches.  We were unsuccessful with the bullet hole cache.  Also, we tried NANO, NANO, IT ALL STARTS HERE again, without any success.

       We had a picnic lunch at SAL'S TRADITIONAL MEAT SHOP, on the picnic table out in back, with Sal's permission.  And then we went on to find four more ALL ABOUT THE TOWN caches.   I had to "sit out" two of them while Leslie did all the work, one of them was under a bridge, and involved getting down on your knees and reaching under to find, and the other one was down a short, kind of steep hill.  The other two were easier to get to, though.   There was one down a short road right off of Route 10 that we could not get to because there was so much farm activity going on.  One of the geoacaches was found behind this large rock on a back road. 

      We got mixed up somewhat on our way back to Oneonta, and did a bit of extra driving in the East Meredith area!  But it was a great day, and I thoroughly enjoyed being in the outdoors today.