New Years Eve Day Geocaching Adventure

I never go out New Years Eve (I am too old and boring for that), but I like to do something on either New Years Eve Day or New Years Day. A couple of weeks ago, Leslie and I agreed to go out on New Years Eve Day for some geocaching and lunch out. We met up in Laurens around ten a.m. this morning and headed towards the area of Springfield Center, New York (at the top of Otsego Lake, close to US 20). Along the way we stopped ate the Glimmerglass Opera House so that Leslie could check on one of her geocaches. It is hidden near this trailhead:
She located it and decided to take it with her so she could clean it up a bit.

Our first geocaching stop was so I could find a geocache in a very tiny cemetery. The name of the cache is ITHY (I haven't figure out why yet) and I found it very quickly.
Leslie had found it before, so she stayed in the car and worked on punching coords into her GPS for some other geocaches.

We were in and out and around the tiny village of Springfield Center (Town of Springfield) and I took several pictures. This pic is of an old, colorful building that is for sale: in its most recent life I think it was an antique and collectibles store.

I think our second stop was at AUNT JAKE, which was a micro hidden on or in a sign. Leslie found this one and we headed out. Our third stop was at BEST CACHE BY A DAM SIGHT. Although we had a pretty good clue, and looked for over a half hour, we did not find this one.
Its in a pretty spot, at Shipman Pond. After that we headed up to Route 20. Leslie found the large geocache ROCK OF AGES, while I checked out the little deli in a small store across the road. The deli part of the store is closed down for the winter. I think then we drove back and Leslie found CACHE AT THE MARKET, one I found earlier this year. This old barn is right next to the market.
And then to the best geocache of all: LOG SCHOOLHOUSE. The school house is long gone, but there are some ruins and a New York State historical marker.


We debated a bit about where to have lunch and decided to head back to Cooperstown. Once in Cooperstown, we needed to decide where to have lunch. We had pretty much settled on eating in THE PIT in THE TUNNICLIFF INN. However, when we got there, it was closed. We crossed the street and checked out a coffee shop, and then Leslie noticed a new place down an alley. THE COOPERSTOWN BACK ALLEY GRILLE just opened three months ago. Finding it and eating there was a pleasant surprise, and a great way to end the day.

I had bbq chicken, bbq ribs, coleslaw and french fries for about twelve dollars and it was delicious!

Movies with Linda ADVENTURE

During Christmas dinner, Linda asked me if I would like to go see the movie WE BOUGHT A ZOO. I agreed. This morning I called her and asked her if she wanted to go today and she said yes.

We met up at Applebys
and had the ALL YOU CAN EAT BREAD, SALAD AND SOUP for seven dollars. It was very good! Then we went to a couple of stores and then to the theatre. We both enjoyed the movie.

After the movie, while still in the mall, they were giving away FREE very large
poinsettia plants. I chose one to take home.


It was a fun afternoon! I hope I can keep the plant alive for a while!

SHARON SPRINGS revisited ADVENTURE!!

My sister and I decided to take a day trip today. I was looking through my notes for ideas about interesting places we might go, and I had a few ideas in mind but then I came across my information about SHARON SPRINGS! Its been over a year since our last trip there and we LOVE that adorable village, so we headed out first thing this morning.

We turned on my GPS and followed its directions, but when we got to Cooperstown and were pointed down the road on the east side of the lake, and the ROAD CLOSED signs were still up, we tried to find another route. I think we probably drove for about fifteen extra minutes but we finally reached our destination.

Our first stop was at the BEEKMAN 1802, a shop in the Old Roseboro Hotel.
This year, they have some very nice miniature scenes set up in some of their front windows.
Then we went to THE BLACK CAT. We looked at the menu and decided to return later on when we were hungrier.

We "urban explored" the Columbia Hotel and the building next to the IMPERIAL BATHS. I got some great pictures. Both places have deteriorated a bit since the last time we went inside. Its apparent that a lot of people have been in The Columbia, and also that there is water leakage. In The Columbia, we could not find our way into the basement area that used to be used as a bathhouse.

We drove around a bit and saw another large old hotel, on the corner of Union and Willow Streets. The steps and porches have been removed.
There was a open window leading into the basement on one side of the building, and we think that urban explorers may use that to get inside. We looked for the ruins of the PAVILION HOTEL and we may have seen them (kind of behind the Adler on Pavilion Avenue), but we are not sure. I took a picture of this old water tower.


We decided to not eat at THE BLACK CAT and instead we had a smaller, cheaper lunch at one of the convenience stores on the corner of 10 and 20. We checked out the one that looked more interesting from the front: but it had kind of an eerie feel to it, so we had chicken salad sandwiches and chocolate milk at the Stewart's across the street.

We wanted to go into this shop which I had heard was formerly a drug store but it was closed. We located another place to eat that we had not known about before, and checked it out, it was also closed.


As we were leaving Stewarts to go geocaching, it started to sprinkle, but we did not let that stop us: we found three geocaches on the other side of Sharon Springs rather quickly. Then we headed back up Route 10 towards Route 20. We stopped to take a couple of pictures of THE BEEKMAN MANSION. It is quite impressive. We drove through a few very small villages, but none of them seemed very picturesque.

Once back in Oneonta, we made a couple of quick stops before getting back to my house around 4:30 p.m. We had a great day!!!

Mini-Shopping and Lunch Out Adventure

Fred's Inn: Norwich, NY, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr.

I offered to take my friend, Carol, out for lunch in liew of a Christmas present and she agreed. We set today as the day to do it, but it took a few days to decide where to go for lunch. I wanted to try someplace I had never been before.

Carol suggested Fred's Inn in Norwich. I had heard about Fred's, and I called to find out if they serve lunch, and they did, so it was a go.

We met up in South New Berlin and headed out. Both of us needed to complete our food shopping for Christmas dinner, so we made that part of our day.

Lunch at Fred's was very good....we both had the hot prime rib sandwich. Although it was not on the menu, we are told that one trip to the salad bar was included in the lunch price today. The salad bar was great, and the sandwich was very good.

One neat thing about Fred's is the old photographs of Fred's and other places in Norwich. Here is a picture of Fred's the year it opened,
and here is a poster announcing it.

We really enjoyed our lunch at Fred's Inn.

Then we went to WalMart, Price Chopper and Dollar General, where we both completed
our shopping for Christmas! Carol suggested we drive down Main Street, so we did. We stopped at the Caboose so Carol could get a cup of coffee, but it had already closed for the day. It turned out to be a nice, relaxing afternoon.

Seven Smiley Adventure!!!

Today was the local geocachers Christmas event (smiley #1) at the Holiday Inn in Oneonta. The turnout was great and I had a great time. Here is a picture of "the log" for this event:
I think everyone enjoyed it! This year they offered the breakfast buffet. A new item was the black cherry french toast which was out of this world!

Part of the event was the ornament exchange. Each person brought one ornament and then chose another to take home. Here are the ornaments displayed before the drawing;


The highlight of the event for me, though was when Leslie gave me this book as a Christmas gift.
I could hardly stop myself from looking at it during the event.

After the event, Leslie and I went geocaching. Our first stop was at STUMPED AT THE MALL. We had been looking for a few minutes when several other geocachers who had attended the event joined us.
We were glad for the extra help, but we really did not need it, since Leslie zeroed in on the extraordinary location. (Smiley #2) Then we headed towards Cooperstown, stopping along the way to find three geocaches. The first was PARKING FORE CACHERS, near a miniature golf place. Leslie found this while I was heading in the opposite direction. )Smiley #3)after that, we went to the location of DON'T BLOW YOUR TOP. Once again Leslie found this one before I even figured out how to get to the location. Another great hide! (Smiley
#4)and then we headed to the the GREENOUGH FISHING ACCESS. We pulled up and parked right behind Tundra Wolfs truck. He and Macman2u had already found part one, so we teamed up with them to find part two. The guys had their dogs with them, and while I am not really a dog lover, these four dogs were so well behaved and well, even kind of cute! Anyways, we all laughed when that tiny cache
(Smiley #5) was found since we were looking for something MUCH larger!

Then on to Cooperstown, to HISTORIC WARRANTS, a geocache hidden right outside the Cooperstown Police Department. Tundra Wolf had already found this one, but the rest of us hadn't, so we let him give us little bits of hints, although I am not sure any of them helped us much. I did a little better with this one, since I noticed the hiding spot first. (Smiley #6)I said "It can't be in there", but I was wrong and we retrieved it. Who would have thought an ammo can could be hid so close to the Cooperstown Police Department. Kudos to IrishTala and KiltlifterScott for their creativity.

Then we all headed to Fairy Springs Park for TROLLS AND FAIRIES. Leslie found this one first. (Smiley #7) I never quite made it up to the exact spot, since I am a bit fearful of climbing uphill esp. when there it might be slippery. I am glad we found this off season, since in the summer months, you have to pay $5.00 per person to enter this small park, which is right on the lake.

We said goodbye to the guys and decided to have a late lunch in Cooperstown. There was a parking spot in front of the Cooperstown Diner,
so we stopped there. I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and chickey barley soup. It was very good. We had planned to go to Hartwick to find the rest of IrishTala's hides, but it was getting kind of late so we headed back to Oneonta.

We made one more stop: at Annuto's Farm Stand, so Leslie could look for a particular sauce that her mother likes. They were out of it. I saw this holly at Annuto's
She dropped me off at NBT bank near Hannafords where I had left my car. It was a great day!

Another Cooperstown Adventure

Terry and I decided to go to Cooperstown for lunch this afternoon. It was a fifty degree afternoon and the sun was shining when we met up at Price Chopper. We drove to Cooperstown and decided to try COOLEY'S STONE HOUSE TAVERN.

Cooley's Stone House Tavern: Cooperstown, NY, a photo by JuneNY on Flickr.

Terry had the pulled pork and I had a grilled reuben. We shared an order of sweet potato fries. It was a good meal. Cooperstown was kind of quiet this afternoon.

We went into a gift shop next to Cooley's and to a art shop/gallery across the street.

I suggested we check out the library since it has a couple of art galleries. There WAS a gallery set up today, local artwork for sale. We browsed around that for a while and Terry bought a few books at the libraries ongoing book sale.

Then we went to a new shop, I don't know the name of it unless its just CHOCOLATE.
It was a bit disappointing, because it is very small and does not offer much, and prices are not out in plain sight. We also went to Schneiders Bakery, where Terry purchased several items.

It was a nice, relaxing afternoon.

Hyde Hall, Christmas Trees and geocaching (not all in that order)

Leslie asked me a few days ago if I would be interested in going to Glimmerglass State Park for a Christmas open house at Hyde Hall. It sounded good to me. Late Sunday morning, I made a couple of sandwiches and then met Leslie in Laurens around 12:40 p.m.

We stopped in Cooperstown to see if we could find a geocached hidden by Mr. Science. The name of it is Heisenburgs Uncertainty. Leslie had looked before without success, but today she found it quickly. It was in a very tricky spot that required getting right down on the ground to reach in and get it. It was finally retrieved.

After that, we headed up the east side of the Lake (our usual route to Glimmerglass) but we had to turn back when we came to barriers closing the road. We had kind of ingnored the warning sign. I guess the warning sign should have said ROAD REALLLY CLOSED. Anyways, we used my cemetery map to find another route, which turned out to be kind of interesting. We drove through Middlefield Center, in the Town of Middlefield. There wasn't really much there, though.

Hyde Hall
had vendors, music
and craftspeople and refreshments in one of the rooms, plus some decorations in the entry hallway.
We walked around the property and went into the small museum that tells about the restoration of Hyde Hall. Very interesting. I purchased a postcard. Then we went to the FRIENDS OF GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL OF TREES. Several trees have been decorated and will be raffled off.
This year they had a Santa Claus. They had lots of small Christmas items and cookies, etc. for sale.

Leslie suggested that I might find a couple of geocaches hidden near Hyde Hall, but I wanted to go to Hartwick to look for one or more of IrishTala's micros. We decided to take a different route back, driving down the other side of the lake. There was a detour on Mill Road, which got us confused, but somehow we ended up where we wanted to be. Once we got to the Town of Hartwick, we used our GPS's to find SCARRED FOR LIFE, in a very old cemetery MAPLES CEMETERY on MAPLES ROAD. I took this picture
After that, we found RUSTIC ROSE, on Route 205. We saw this there: By time we finished up with this geocache, it was just starting to get dark. I really wanted to try to find CRUSOE'S, one we had looked for before but did not find, but I realized I was almost out of gas, so we headed back to Laurens instead.

Downtown Oneonta Adventure

Mary, Geneen, Kim, Carol, Eileen and I met up at Family Services at noon today and headed out to lunch. We had lunch at THE YELLOW DELI.
I had the veggie burger, which was pretty good. It had tomato and avocado on it. I also tried some of the "hummus" that Eileen ordered. It was pretty good! If I go in again, I will just order their delicious homemade bread and a side dish of hummus!


After lunch we headed down Main Street to window shop and go into some of the small shops. Many store windows had gingerbread houses on display, from a recent contest. Here are a few:
This one won first place in the "family" category.


Some of the small shops we went into:
Maxwells (both sides) is very colorful inside!

We also went into the Artisans Guild and the Art Supply Center. Some of the "ladies" made several purchases today. We checked out the Hospice Consignment store. I picked up this postcard at the Artisans Guild.

I noticed this picture of the Health Bar (really a restaurant) in the basement of Bresee's Department Store.
It is posted on the front door of the Bresee building along with a couple of other pictures.

It turned out to be a fun afternoon. We finished up around 4:30 p.m. I drove Carol home and then headed to West Laurens. Its not often that I spend any time on Main Street in Oneonta and I have to make a point to do it more often.