Cooperstown is beautiful!

We spent the night in Albany in a hotel room at the Comfort Inn that was just slightly better than a stereotypical "dive". But we survived the night to tell about it! Yikes. We drove from Albany to Cooperstown yesterday, about 60 miles. Upstate New York is breathtakingly beautiful. We drove through winding roads of amazing green with farms everywhere. It looked like a picture book, complete with clothes on the clotheslines. Avi informed me that he had never seen clothes on a clothesline before, which made me potently aware how different his childhood is than mine was.

We checked Avi into Cooperstown Dreams Park. This is one amazing place making somebody very rich. 104 baseball teams comprised of league age 12 boys compete here every week through the summer. The teams stay in barracks, one team in each barracks. The week is complete with a visit to the Hall of Fame. Each team is guaranteed 7 games and one team will win it all (it won't be ours). It is a tribute to baseball the way it used to be and the kids are required to wear their shirts tucked in at all times, wear their hats straight (not Griffey style) and their pants at the knee. Parents are not allowed in the park once you have delivered your kid to the barracks except to watch games and for a few other events. It is a week dedicated to the boys and a true baseball experience of a lifetime.

David and I are staying at a little bed and breakfast that has a bed hard as a board and yes, it really did have a piece of plywood under the mattress (we checked at 1 a.m. last night!). But it is very quaint and the food is awesome and I hope David doesn't tell the management that they have to buy a new mattress when he gets up today.

I mostly feel very lucky to be alive and experiencing everything I am. Life is good.