Day 24 - Back to Massachusetts

June 30 - This was a travel day, so the writeup will be short and sweet. We got out of Oneida in great shape at 8:45 a.m. Both girls were inspiringly cooperative. Boston is almost dead east of Oneida, but we took a quick side trip west back to Can-of-soda to take a couple of pictures - most importantly of the purple house on the main street that we'd driven by several times.

The countryside in eastern New York State is beautiful - rolling hills and hardwood forests, the Erie Canal or the Mohawk River along side. Even the rest area on the New York State Thruway was pleasant - they had separate trash cans for recyclables - the first time I'd ever seen that. In Louisiana, we're happy if people use the trash cans at all. My attempt to photograph the Hudson River from the passenger seat of the CRV was thwarted by construction in the right lane and a bridge with a lot of steel.

We planned to eat lunch in Massachusetts countryside so we got off the Mass Turnpike almost as soon as we got on and started searching. The first two towns, Stockbridge and Chester, yielded nothing - any restaurant we found, and there were precious few, was either dinner only or closed on Monday. The song remained the same, almost, in Huntington, but Kay decided to keep looking after I was ready to head down the highway to Westfield, which was in bigger type on the map. Her determination was rewarded by the Foothills Grill, a struggling little place over the bridge on the other side of town. Their food was tasty even though the soup cook was out sick, and I enjoyed talking about the local economy (bad) with the proprietor. She laughed at my theory that the locals were trying to discourage travellers from passing through their paradise by failing to provide any services, but she did admit that their dedication to preserving the view prevented her from posting a sign to let travellers know about their restaurant.

We rolled into the Boston area right on schedule - early enough to miss rush hour, but as it turned out, not early enough to miss the amazing practice of driving in the breakdown lane (what we call the shoulder) on I-95 during rush hour. People don't just drive in this lane, they speed and pass other cars. Drivers merging from the on ramps have a new challenge--avoiding cars zipping along in the shoulder. God forbid someone should have a flat tire. I drove slack-jawed until we exited I-95 onto the next freeway, which didn't allow such a dangerous practice.

Sac took us straight to the Hampton Inn on Wood Road in Braintree, a wonderful hotel (a virtual palace compared to the Vacation Lodge in Pigeon Forge or the Super 8 in Oneida) that features free hot breakfast, a shuttle bus for trips to the mall and the train station, a pool, a laundry, wireless internet and duvets on the beds (no Bravo Network on the TV, to Kallie's dismay). We took immediate advantage of the laundry to wash dirty clothes that collected during our four days in central NY.

The laundry clean, we opted for a low stress evening - a quick dinner at a nearby restaurant and the 7:50 show of the new Pixar movie, Wall E. Pixar set the bar for animated features back where it was with their classics like Toy Story and Finding Nemo with an amazing story of "life" on a depopulated earth after humans have filled the planet with garbage and rocketed themselves into space to live (for the last 700 years). Title character Wall E is a robotic trash compactor. Early in the story he meets Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), another robot sent back to earth by the humans to look for signs of life. It's love at first sight for Wall E (whose ideas on the subject come from an discarded VHS tape of the movie musical Hello Dolly). The rest of the first act develops the love story between Wall E and Eve without dialogue, just clicks, beeps and "facial" expressions. It's amazing stuff. The second act takes place with the humans in space. What we become will give you pause for thought. The filmmaker clearly liked 2001: A Space Odyssey a lot, though we never see a VHS tape of it. Even if you don't have kids, go see this captivating and unique (G-rated) movie.

Day 23 - Hall of Fame Material

June 29 - I remember looking at a Google map to find our hotel in Oneida, NY and noticing just how close we would be to Cooperstown, NY, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. We'll go there, I thought, and we did--my first visit in more than 40 years. Sac said the 60 mile trip on back roads would take almost two hours--I finished it in less than 1-1/2 hours while still observing all posted speed limits.

While the girls got ready, Kay and I drove to Chittenango to eat breakfast with my Uncle Ed and Aunt Jessie and to see their house. I've been critical of Sac on occasion, but she bailed us out on this trip. I didn't listen too well to Jessie's directions and drove past The Hamlet to another intersection. There I drove in all five directions until Kay tried to find it in Sac's database - lo and behold it was there and she directed us to it just before I was ready to go back to Oneida.

Cooperstown is an uber-quaint town on the tip of Lake Otsego. The National Baseball Hall of Fame opened there in 1939 as part of baseball's centennial celebration--the myth is that General Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown in 1839. Interestingly, the museum's displays start with the Doubleday invention story and just a room later refer to it as a myth.




Kay and the girls spent about 45 minutes in the baseball museum; I wrapped up my visit in just under four hours. Highlights included information about Jackie Robinson, a railroad-tielike piece of lumber that Honus Wagner used for a bat, a Philly Phanatic exhibit, tickets from the last game ever played in Veterans Stadium, and Richie Ashburn's Hall of Fame plaque. I waited through 80 years of video about the almost every World Series ever played (which took about 10 minutes) to see the Phillies' win over the Royals in 1980. Toward the end of the day I played "So You Think You Know Baseball", the museum's version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, but without the prize money. My 10-year-old partner and I got six questions right, but got tripped up on naming the first pitcher to be named MVP of a League Championship Series. We polled the audience, who chose Dave Stewart. The correct answer was Burt Hooton, which I should have known, given that his Dodgers beat the Phillies in the 1978 NLCS. But enough about baseball.

The girls enjoyed their visit to the Fenimore Art Museum, and especially to a sidewalk book sale at the Cooperstown Public Library. When we got back together we sought and found a lakeside dinner at the Blue Mingo Grill. The Top Chef-like food was delicious, albeit a little expensive, and the view across Lake Otsego was beautiful. Kallie drove the first half of the trip back to Oneida. My finishing leg encountered the first serious storm we've seen--about 20 minutes of fairly heavy rain that stopped just before we got out of the car.

Day 22 - Hot Ham Rock Band

June 28 - Before we met my cousins from my mother's side for lunch at Eddie's Restaurant, Kay and I made a side trip to Syracuse. My cousin Nancy had invited us to come and see my grandparents' old house, which she and her husband Greg now own. They've done a beautiful job of remodeling and updating what must be a nearly 100-year-old building. I didn't recognize much of the trip into town; Sac must have taken us a different way than our path from Kirkville. Some construction near the house even got her confused, but she recovered.

On the way back to Oneida, we found the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Syracuse, where I went to church as a child. From the outside, it looks exactly the same as it did in 1970, except perhaps for a fresh coat of asphalt on the parking lot. Reverend Ellsworth Reamon and his wife Hope were like an extra set of grandparents to all the children in the congregation.

The girls slept (and searched for breakfast in Erin's case) while we were gone and were ready to go to Sylvan Beach as soon as we returned. The trip from Oneida to Sylvan Beach was short, so we some of the half-hour extra exploring the countryside--particularly looking for the Teelins' old farmhouse, or at least for its former site, given that it burned down after the Teelins' sold it a few years ago. Not knowing an address other than R.D 2 Blossvale, I couldn't put Sac to work on finding the site. I made one wrong turn and wandered through the back roads for awhile--finally, I asked Sac to find "downtown" McConnellsville, a town just up the road. Sac put us back on the highway, and amazingly, I guessed correctly as to whether I needed to turn left or right. I found the property by finding the hill behind it where we went sledding in the winter.

Even at 1 p.m. our party of 21 dwarfed the entire remaining clientele at Eddie's. The restaurant looked about the same - I was pleased; I thought that perhaps the eyes of a child glorified the place in my memory. No fewer than 17 Teelins, spouses and girlfriends arrived in shifts--a power failure delayed a few. In fact, the waitress asked if we were there because of the power failure. I had no context in which to answer this question, so I told her that we were "from out of town," which seemed to satisfy her.

It takes willpower to consume half an antipasto salad, a hot ham sandwich, a large chocolate milkshake and any coconut cream pie (my favorites from the menu), but I persevered. I did not feel underfed. My family all seemed to enjoy the food, though Kay mentioned that it wasn't worth a 1400-mile trip by itself to eat lunch at Eddie's.






We posed under a gazebo for a group picture (the only downpour of the trip so far happened while we were trying to arrange this shot). From Eddie's we headed out to my cousin Marge's house, which sits on a corner of the old Teelin family property.

Off to breakfast now; more later.

It's about 10 hours later. Breakfast merged into our trip to Cooperstown, which I'll describe in tomorrow's post. Entertainment opportunities were rampant at the (Marge) Radley house - baseball, basketball, swimming, and ATV riding outdoors and the Rock Band video game indoors. You can imagine what I chose, as did Kallie and Erin when we joined what I dubbed the "Hot Ham Rock Band". I sang vocals on a few songs I did know ("Roxanne", "Suffragette City", "Won't Get Fooled Again") and several more that I didn't know, at least very well. Erin played guitar and Kallie played drums. After awhile, both finally worked up the courage to sing songs they knew really well. Erin scored 100% on "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. We sang and played for the better part of three hours. I'm glad I didn't have to sing in the choir on Sunday.

While in the area we made two trips out to Blossvale (less than five miles away) to see the house where my mother was born and grew up. I actually lived there for a few months when I was an infant.




Canastota, NY, (Kallie calls it "Can - of - soda"), the next town westward from Oneida toward Syracuse, pictures itself as the home of boxing - apparently a couple of successful fighters hailed from this small town. We didn't go to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, but we did eat dinner Saturday night at Graziano's Italian Restaurant across the street. As I understand it, Graziano wasn't a fighter (at least not a champion), but he knew a lot of them, including recently defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whose autographed photo hangs in prime position behind the bar. Next door to the restaurant is Graziano's "World Famous" Inn (free wireless internet - sounds good to me!) All of this splendor is summarized by the sign "Titletown, USA" (which all the time I thought was Green Bay, Wisconsin). To cut to the chase, the food was surprisingly good - Kay and Kallie had chicken, I had baked haddock, and Erin had ravioli. By the time we finished it was almost 10:00, almost time for bed to rest up for a busy Sunday.


More pictures from the day are at http://www.photoblog.com/dadlak/2008/06/28/hot-ham-rock-band---day-22.html

Day 20 - New York Air

June 26 - We spent almost eight hours making what Sac estimated to be a five-plus hour journey from West Chester, PA to Oneida, NY. The trip didn't involve quite as much adventure as the above statement implies. After one last round of cheese steaks, we drove smoothly to Exit 95 of the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-476) at which point we left the highway to find Big Pocono State Park, supposedly about 15 miles away. Their website mentioned twisty roads and mountain views, which would satisfy Kay's need to see the Poconos. There were even two signs after we left I-476 directing us to the park, but when we arrived where the park was supposed to be - nothing. Either the park had closed, changed names or we just missed it. Well at least we could stop and go to the bathroom. Well, almost. The gas station we found at the end of the search for Big Pocono had portajohns instead of inside bathrooms. Half of our party passed on the opportunity. At least the search caused us to double back toward I-380, a second interstate highway that almost paralleled I-476 toward Scranton, PA and I-81, which would take us the rest of the way to central NY.

Unfortunately for our time on the road, much of I-380 and I-81 in Scranton was under repair, with traffic limited to one lane at evening rush hour. At about 5 p.m. (four hours after our departure from PA) we arrived at Clark's Summit, PA, just north of Scranton, where the PA Turnpike meets I-81. We stopped here as a family on our trips from PA back to see relatives in NY and ate at Elby's Big Boy restaurant. I didn't see Elby's (commercial establishments have a nasty habit of changing drastically in 30 years), but there was a Damon's Grill. Oh boy, trivia to go with our dinner. And maybe we could outlast traffic. It was "Bike Night" at Damon's - but that didn't start until 6, so we cruised right in and got our menus and game boxes.

The food was better than expected, based on our experience with the now-defunct Damon's in Baton Rouge. Trivia worked out well to as I now hold the top two places on their top ten for June. Kallie finished a strong second in each game, mostly due to her sitting next to me. A lack of pop culture questions put the girls at a disadvantage. My second score ranked 21st in the country and led Damon's to a 46th place finish.

Back on the road, traffic had more or less cleared out but we were still a long way (more than 150 miles) from Oneida. At the PA/NY border we opened the windows and breathed that great NY air, just as we did when we were kids "driving back home" after we moved from NY to PA. Kallie howled because the open windows put her in a "wind tunnel".

Our next stop was in tiny Marathon, NY (pop 1,107) just south of Cortland, NY. Kay thought it was precious and quaint. It looked pretty threadbare to me. Otherwise, the scenery in northern PA and southern NY was lovely - forested with a slight haze from a abnormally humid day.

We got off I-81 and loop road I-481 south of Syracuse and took the "back roads" the rest of the way, passing through towns I remember as a kid - DeWitt, Fayetteville, Chittenango and Canastota before we arrived in Oneida. Given the loss of population by the region, these little towns looked pretty good, especially Chittenango, which is quite proud of being the birthplace of "Wizard of Oz" author L. Frank Baum. Driving in northern latitudes just a few days after the summer solstice, we were able to make almost the entire trip in daylight, another plus for sightseeing.

There should be plenty to do in this area. We plan to visit the old neighborhood and school today and go to Chittenango Falls State Park, where I remember a rocky creek. Cazenovia Lake, a minor Finger Lake, is also nearby. The real five Finger Lakes are too far away for us to both "sleep in" and be back by 3 p.m. for the Zimmerman picnic on Oneida Lake. Tomorrow we'll check out the local Erie Canal Museum and enjoy hot ham sandwiches at Eddie's Restaurant in Sylvan Beach. I should also be able to show everyone the area where my mom grew up and where my some of my cousins on her side still live.