McDonough Adventure

Ever since seeing a photo of the McDonough General Store in McDonough, New York in Chenango County, I have wanted to go to McDonough to check it out.

Today was the day! Carol and I met in South New Berlin late in the morning. We headed towards McDonough. We stopped first at TOPS so Carol could get some dog food. We also thought we might have lunch at Millie's Diner in Norwich, so we stopped there. However, they were out of burgers, and it had that "greasy spoon" odor to it, so we decided to have lunch in McDonough.

We had a bit of a hard time finding McDonough, but after some backtracking and stopping to ask directions at a residence (that used to be a church) in East McDonough, we finally found it. The old store is right at the intersection, amidst many other old buildings.

We had lunch at the store (pizza panini sub and iced tea), and I bought a couple of postcards. I was allowed to take pictures and the two women working there answered our questions as best as they could. After that we drove around and I took several pictures of buildings and churches. The highlight was finding the old COOPER SHOP. If there wasn't so much snow on the ground, we would have liked to peek in the windows.

On the way back to Norwich, we drove through East Pharsalia and Preston. I stopped to take a few pictures in both towns. Here is a picture of the vacant store, gas station and post office in East Pharsalia.
I am not sure I will want to return to either of these towns, but I do want to return to McDonough.

We looked for an "ALWAYS" geocache in Norwich at WalMart, but we were not successful this time. Then we picked up a few sale items at Price Chopper and then headed back to South New Berlin, where I dropped Carol off before heading home.

mt entire set of pictures taken today can be viewed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/juneny/sets/72157625959054845/

COOPERSTOWN WINTER ADVENTURE

We had another STAFF FUN DAY yesterday, February 11, 2011. We all met at FSA at 9:30and headed towards Cooperstown. Along the way we stopped to try to find a geocache called SUSQUEHANA RIVER BRIDGE, in the Index/Hartwick Seminary area. It is supposed to be "winter accessible", but this winter there is just so much snow that it was impossible to get near to the area where it is hidden. Also, traffic became pretty heavy and included a corrections officer from the nearby jail who looked at us very suspiciously............so we quit after about five minutes, deciding that most likely the geocache is buried under piles of snow.

We headed off to Cooperstown. The two cars got separated, but a few cell phone calls resolved that issue and we met up near the old Smalley Theatre on Main Street.

Our first stop was the Cooperstown General Store. Then we went to the library for the quilt show. We saw some beautiful quilts. I particularly liked the old ones that had a card attached telling some of the history of the quilt. This one is being raffled off, but I didn't purchase a ticket.

After the quilt show we went to TJ's for lunch. I had the five dollar fish lunch special. Just like before, it was very good. Then we went to a few gift shops. We also walked down to the lake. Here is a picture of everyone at the end of Pioneer Street.

The last gift shop we went to was THE TIN BIN. After that, I headed back to Oneonta with Carol and Kim. I think maybe Mary, Geneen and Eileen did a bit more rambling around, because they were not at FSA when I dropped Kim off.

It was a good day except for one thing. During the times when we were outdoors, I kept wondering WHY the cold was bothering me so much, it usually doesn't. It didn't seem to phase the others. By the time I got home, I realized that I did not feel well and I started with diarrhea. UGH I started taking zinc and vitamin C. It took me hours to warm up, I kept adding more clothing, more blankets and turning the heat up.