Friday, January 16, 2009

Upstate NY - November 7-8, 2008

Mel and I headed up to Utica, NY in November for a visit with Michelle & Georgie.   It was sooo good to see my brother again, and I've never before seen where he lives.

(By the way, if you're going to be in Upstate NY and would like some insider information on great sights to see and places to eat, check out Michelle's blog)

They live in an adorable little craftsman style home in a nice neighborhood where you can walk all over the place.   I have to say though, I really don't understand it - it's COLD out there!   I had to wear my coat the whole time!    Georgie was laughing at me.   

Georgie & Michelle took us over to Cat Town where Michelle's great- grandfather had lived and showed us this cool barn that he had built himself!

I think old structures like this are even more interesting to me because you don't often see them in California.   Here, things like this are torn down to build condos.    It's pretty sad.

One neat thing about this barn is that it's built right along a creek, and I don't know if it was built this way, or just fixed up, but the creek actually flows a little under the barn, and a corner of the barn is propped up on stones to keep up from falling into the creek!



This area was really quite pretty.   Michelle & Georgie then took us up a little country road where we saw nice meadows and hay fields.   It's funny, I saw big rolls of hay in the field for the first time - I think the only times I've seen that before has been in artwork and movies!




And we saw some snow!    Georgie and I got out of the car and played in it  :-)



After a nice drive through the country, we ended up at Fly Creek Cider Mill.

I loved the Cider Mill. It has a cute little store and, of course, apple cider, but so much more than that. There were all sorts of apple food products - salsa, bbq sauce, salad dressings, wine... I bought a bunch of stuff and had it shipped home to make gift baskets for Christmas. There was an area where you could see how cider is made (it wasn't operating while we were there though) and outside the mill there were lots of things to see and do.

You could ride a tractor, for example:




And there was also an area where you could feed ducks and chickens.  This was pretty funny - you'd get food out of the dispenser and boy would they come running!     A few of them were eye-ing Georgie & me a little too hungrily for my comfort.

There were 2 ducks though that really cracked us up.   They had such a distinct "look"!    One had this top-knot that looked like an unruly thatch of hair - we named him Elvis.   And the other had these curly poofy feathers - they looked like one of those formal dresses we wore to dances in high school back in the 80's.   We named her the Prom Queen:

Elvis and the Prom Queen

On my last day in Upstate NY, Georgie took us over to Cooperstown, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.    I'm a big baseball fan, and so is my grandma who lives in Las Vegas, so I was excited to go there!    

Almost the first thing we saw was Doubleday Field!    This used to be the home of every year's Hall of Fame baseball game.   It was so neat!    It was also in the movie, "A League of their Own", which of course, I loved...




This is the Baseball Hall of Fame!   We got to go inside, but I didn't actually get to do the museum tour - we were just out of time.   I'd really like to go back and do that though.   I think it would be interesting!    But, we did manage to find time to check out the museum gift shop and I found lots of great Christmas presents there (for my baseball loving family!)

As we were leaving Cooperstown, we turned down a little side street and came upon the most spectacular sight.   This is Lake Otsego.    Enjoy.....



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Georgie and I miss you both very much. I love all of your pictures Vera! We hope to see you and Mel soon!