Cooperstown, The Town

Cooperstown--The Town (itself)!

Here are some shots of the town, itself.  It is a very Dreams Park oriented place.  Every store has souvenirs.  You could go broke here! 

We were doing quite a bit of shopping.  Had to have something with which to remember it all!

Here is the Baseball Hall of Fame.

A little shopping with Ty.  We were able to check him out as needed or wanted.  It was quite a long process and wait.  Sometimes took more time than we would have liked.  But we did what we could to make it fun.

Some vintage bats were to be found!

This is Shoeless Joe's Hall of Shame.  Jamie called it Shirtless Joe's.  And so it is!

June 1, 2013 pt 2

Then later on the first day at Cooperstown, it was a very, very hot day.  I put my sunscreen on and my hat, took an umbrella, as well.  I have that vitamin d problem and it is very difficult for me.  I get some bad problems, so I was a bit nervous about it.  I do notice some things, plus some heat rash.   But so far, I am still kicking.  There isn’t much shade, just little bits here and there.  So my muscles are achy and I have a slight headache.  I will survive!  All this from too much vitamin d.  Here are a few shots of the local scenes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the New York state countryside.

 

Got back to the cabin about 9:30 or so.  We bought a few supplies and  have settled in.  Miss a lot of things from home.  But don’t want to spend more money on too much comforts from home.  Our cabin is literally a cabin in the middle of the woods.  Here some pics:

My room.

This is next to my bed.  We stayed at Duckpond cottages #1.  We did have a few problems as the TV didn't work till about Wednesday afternoon.  And when it got cold in the night, the heater didn't work.  And the big ants were there.  I did like that it had a kitchenette, though.

This is the way to Jamie's room in the loft.  It was a tight fit up there.

This is the screened-in porch.  That is our rental car in the front.

This is the view from every window.  We were in the forest.  It was pretty.  There was a firepit and picnic tables, and laundry in a separate building.

Another outside view of the cabin.

 Then yesterday there was the opening ceremonies, with the founder and soldiers and players who marched around the ball field and a special grandparent tribute where we got a free shirt and photos taken and a recognition.  Felt bad Spencer wasn’t there as he is such a backer!  Grabbed a shirt for him.  They were all the same size, and doubt it will fit him, but did the best I could.  It is the thought that counts.  Tyson was in an event as the “road runner”.  They didn’t have any water given at this time as far as I could tell.  Then from each category of events, the top 6 were chosen and competed in the closing events that day.  Tyson scored 14.93.  It was about average.  But he was standing for so long and hot and tired, I was glad when that was over.

 

Opening ceremonies.  At the Little Majors field.

 

The ladies and men in the background were chosen to perform randomly as the moms and dads.  The men performed YMCA.  Some were pretty funny and animated.

This is the founder and owner giving us some background information.

Three parachute hang-glider guys arrive.  They were all older men.  I wouldn't be so good at this as my knees wouldn't like the landing too much, not to mention the "drop".

Jamie and I at first were sitting on the side far away from where this picture was.  A worker told us that section was closed and that if I was a grandma, to sit in the roped in section.  I wasn't sure how I could sit by Jamie, but we found a place on two sides of the "rope" so we could still sit together.  As it turned out, the 104 teams marched in with their banners and our team, the Lehi Scorchers ended up directly in front of us.  That was really cool!  Here is Ty smiling at mom as waited in their spot.  There were also pictures taken of the grandmas and grandpas.  I felt so bad that Spencer wasn't there.  We did get free grandma and grandpa shirts to wear for the pictures that they took of us.  I never did see the pictures, but I will have to go to the Cooperstown site to see if they are there.  Jamie did take a picture of me with my recently purchased Cooperstown giant umbrella.  It was a little awkward to use at times but kept that blazing sun away from me.

 Another view of the team as they waiting for all the teams to join the circle.

I know the picture is small, but there are teams that wrap all the way around the field.  The fact that Ty's team was in front of us was so amazing!

 The grandma-grandpa section!

The banners proudly displayed of the teams.

The military tribute. 

Ty, who is always number 7 at home is number 15 at Cooperstown.

 

Then after the opening, there were their individual activities.  Here is Tyson at the Road Runner field getting instructions.

 

 

Later in the evening there were the finals of each division.  This is the batting finals.  One guy could really handle that bat.  Pretty amazing as he knew exactly how to get the ball every time.

 

So today begins the games. His is at 11:00.  I had hoped to go to church, but church is at 10:00 so did laundry and straightened up the cabin and the car a bit.  Now we are really to go again.

 

Cooperstown Livin' the Dream!

Saturday June 1

Today we went to Cooperstown.  Our day started out on a bad note.  We found out on Friday night, rather later in the night, that we would have to be at Cooperstown at 8:00 rather than 9:45-10:00 in the morning.  Not good news.  So we had to get up and out of there, (Niagara) by  3:30 am.  Nothing fun for us.  I slept about 2 hours that nite because I woke up and then couldn’t get back to sleep anymore. 

So we got out and the attendant at the hotel was helping to put the luggage in the car and Jamie was out in back of the car with him and suddenly there was a big boom sound.  And all the lights in the area went out, as though a transformer had been hit.  So then Jamie saw a car with something being dragged by it and about 7 police cars following it in hot pursuit.  Good way to start out. 

Then we got in the car and because it was dark because of the power outage, it was hard to see and know where we were going in the dark.  We got a little lost because the GPS wasn’t working.  So then we finally got to the border and finished that part of it.  It was a bit nerving.  Because my GPS wasn’t functioning, we used Jamie’s on her phone.  And followed along to we realized that we were going west, instead of east.  Not a good plan….So we got off and through another toll booth and regrouped. We turned around, got back on the toll road and we were behind a Fedex truck and so Jamie moved to pass on the left side of it.  As we did the Fedex truck hit a deer and the deer literally skidded across the road in front of us.  We saw quite a lot of deer at the side of the road after that.  It is really hard to see them.  But it was really scary as it slid across the road.  It was odd how it did that, it was almost a little miracle that we didn’t “re-hit” that deer.  Anyway, after all this I said to Jamie, should I say a little prayer?  So I did, and after that we got on the right road and nothing else “exciting” happened after that.  So I guess we were just lucky at first, in a strange way.

We got to Cooperstown about 8:15 despite all the bad start.  It is a cool place and they are pretty organized and here are some pics:

This is the entry gate to Cooperstown. 

This is the road around the "campus"

 This is the family pavilion.  We ate a BBQ chicken lunch here on the first day of registration.  The lines were L O N G and took quite a while to get through.  There were lots of family members there.

Here is a closer view.

After we got through the gates, the cars had to wait to be assigned a route to the appropriate dorm room.  It took a while because there were so many people that had to register.

 

 

Here is where Tyson stayed with his team.  The only day we could go and hang out at his dorm, was the day that we registered him.  After that it was off-limits. Mostly for the safety of the kids, I would think.

There were lots of fields with open areas to practice in.

This is the Youth Hall of Fame board with pics of the teams that participated.

This is at the entry.  Very nice scenery.

This is the emblem which appears on most of the apparel and souvenirs, etc.

Here is a direction sign, so us family member don't get lost on campus!
That's all for tonight.  I hope to have more time tomorrow.  This is a delayed post because we had no Wifi.  More on that later!