Vacation 2012

I am just going to apologize in advance for the length of this post...when you are gone for 12 days there is a lot to write about. On June 21, Dave and I left for New York City. The 13 hour drive went a lot better than I expected. I don't mind riding in the car, but Dave's not a fan. After much begging I was able to eat lunch at the Waffle House. I love the Waffle House. The first time Dave tried it he got REALLY sick so he doesn't like it at all. We planned to stay over the bridge in New Jersey b/c the hotel was $76 compared to $250+ in the city. We weren't planning on going into the city that night when we got there, but as we approached the city we thought it would be cool to see Time Square at night and figure out where we needed to be for our bus tour the next morning. At 10pm we ate at the Olive Garden in Time Square and then walked around. The screens are so bright and the amount of people around would make you think it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. The next morning we got up early and attempted the very scary drive into the city. For those unfamiliar there are only a couple ways into the city which include at least 8 lanes merging into 2-3...not a fan what so ever. We were actually bumped the night before. I planned for the 12 mile trip to take around an hour with a half hour to park...We arrived at the bus tour with 2 min to spare.  We took a bus tour from 9-4 that showed us pretty much all of New York. We got out at St. John the Divine Cathedral (largest around...it was cool), Central Park, Little Italy (lunch), and we took a boat tour of the Statue of Liberty. We saw a bunch of other stuff. The tour said we were going to go to Ground Zero but we never got off the bus there :( that was the part we were both looking the most forward to. The boat ride to the statue was very interesting. Right when we boarded a huge storm came in. There was lightening all around and the loudest thunder ever...We got drenched!!!! After our tour we ate an early lunch at the Hard Rock and then headed to Cooperstown. We arrived late and headed to bed. The next day was the family picnic and opening ceremonies. The team scheduled to meet the families for lunch at 12 but opening ceremonies wasn't until 430 so we drove around and went into town. The area was so beautiful. There were mountains everywhere. Our drive to and from the hotel was awesome except at night when it became a death zone. The three night rides we came across a dozen deer, 1/2 dozen cats, a chicken, a dog, and a porcupine. The area was also filled with several really old cemeteries that I made Dave pull over for so I could check them out. Most stones had faded so you couldn't read them, but some had people born in the 1700's. The opening ceremonies were awesome. Three men jumped out of a plane with flags and the owner, Lou Presutti, gave an amazing speech. He stated that this season was dedicated to the soldiers (past, present, and future). He told a story of a Vietnam Vet who saved several people's lives and that he had passed away the following week and how sad it is that our media doesn't recognize more people like him, instead they focus on Lindsey Lohan and the Kardashians. The games started Sun. They had two games Sun, Mon, & Tues. They lost all 6 games...all by mercy rule. The poor boys ended up with early games almost every day so they were up by 6-630 (5-530 our time) with very little sleep and lots of activity around. Poor James had a rough couple days on Sun and Mon. They were losing so badly (like 30-1) and he was sooo tired that he just wanted to go home. We checked him out for a few hours and he was doing much better on Sun, but then Mon was more of the same. Mon we had a larger break between games so we drove about an hour to go to the Howe Caverns. We spend the afternoon doing a cave tour and then James' got to sift for gemstone treasures. Tues he was doing better. Wed was when the single elimination tournament started.  There were 104 teams there this week and his team was ranked 103...if they lost the first game they would have taken last place. We were hoping for at least one win. They won the first game 5-4...and went on to play the 51st team that beat us pretty bad. The boys at this tournament were so respectful. If a kid hit a homerun/grand slam they would high five the player. The team that beat us in the end came over after the game to the parent's sideline and clapped for us. After we lost on Wed the team and parents went to the Hall of Fame. It was neat but you really have to be a huge old time baseball fan to appreciate it. Thur we met up with James in the morning and spend the day together doing some shopping, eating and checking out a cute little farm store called Fly Creek. That night was closing ceremonies where the boys were presented with their Hall of Fame ring, fireworks, and the championship game. James came back to our hotel that night so we could leave right away in the morning for the next adventure. We were all pretty tired by this point and James was very homesick. He was fine skipping the rest of the vacation and going home, but we knew he'd be fine once he got some sleep. Fri morning we left early and headed to Niagara Falls. It was pretty awesome. We took a boat ride down into the falls. Since we already had our passports we walked into Canada and had lunch at Planet Hollywood. After a few hours there we headed to Cedar Point. We got to Cedar Point just in time to go to bed. The next morning we were up early (if you stayed on grounds you were able to enter the park an hour early). Much to my surprise for being a Sat we had a very successful day at the park. We had ridden all but 2 coasters and eaten lunch by 1. Dave wasn't feeling well and James was tired so we went to take a break in the AC of our hotel...3 1/2 hours later (napping) we all felt better. We ate dinner, rode the rest of the rides and were ready to head home. I figured being a weekend we would need all day Sat and Sun to do the park. Sun we got up rode the rides we liked the most, got James' picture draw, and mini golfed...We planned to stay until 5, but were ready to head home at 11. Oh I forgot to mention...on our way to Cedar Point I convinced James that he needed to try the Waffle House...Dave dropped us off and went to McDonalds :) and then when we left Cedar Point James' begged to go again...so I got to eat Waffle House 3 times in 2 weeks :) It felt good to be home and our doggies were so happy to see us. I took just shy of 800 pictures so instead of posting them here I will post a few of my fav and include the link to check them out. Cooperstown Pictures