marco esquandolas

Jamestown, NY - A soggy foggy night in western New York state, this day has taken some unexpected twists and turns and I find myself in some Comfort Inn

I drove a pretty long way today. After a fairly short drive to Vermont yesterday, I spent roughly eight hours battling across New York State's underbelly today. However, I did get some really good pictures of Ted Williams, so it all kinda worked out.

Last Sunday, I was trying to dot my i's and cross my t's before hitting the road again. I folded up a bunch of laundry and spent hours writing a blog, making hotel reservations, and buying baseball tickets. I put everything of mine I could find into one big pile in the kitchen, to be packed in the car later on. I was determined to not leave anything behind, as I ALWAYS do when staying with my sister.

I drove to Standish to have one last dinner with my folks. My dad grilled up some steaks on his little Weber while my mom pointed out that spelling and grammatical mistakes had been made on my last blog. Some things never change. My mom has been correcting my grammar and usage from birth up until a couple days ago. I was glad to get the input though, and considered bringing on an editor for the blog.

I drove back to Portland, stopping in Gorham for a minute to watch a ruby-red sunset. It was about 9:20 or so. I love the solstice. I really do. The week before and after the summer solstice is almost creepy. You gaze up at the sky and think "Geez, is the sun ever going to set?" This is the happy time.

In the morning, I packed everything into the car and gave Alex the Cat a five-minute head-scratchin' session. The last thing I did before leaving was grab lunch with my old high school friend Mike. Mike and I had gone on a couple road-trip adventures ourselves when we were teenagers. It was good to catch up with him, no doubt.

I gave Alex the Cat one more pat on the head and hopped in the car. I drove back over the Piscataqua River and headed westward through New Hampshire. It was a hot n' sunny afternoon. Driving along New Hampshire's 101, I realized that I'd never actually been to Vermont before. I grew up only a couple hours away from it, but never had any occassion to visit. I figured the most fitting thing to play on my iPod was lots of Phish. The three hour drive from New Hampshire to Vermont was filled with a soundtrack of Phish albums, namely: Hoist, Lawn Boy, The Story of the Ghost, and A Picture of Nectar.

The best part of the drive was riding along Route 9 in Vermont, which skirts along the state's southernmost edge. For an hour or so I had a great time driving the Integra along the twisty and hilly road. With Phish blasting out the speakers, I drove with the windows down and felt like the car could lift off at any time. Route 9 winds through dense hillside forests and an endless number of farms. This particular stretch of road would be ideal for driving a convertible upon.

Around 4pm I arrived at Woodford State Park and found myself a campsite. At the front office, I chatted with the park ranger for a while. He was surprised that I was driving around the country with absolutely NO fishing tackle. He told me he would have brought four or five fly-fishing rods with him, if it were him.

Campsite 45 was a dandy. In the corner of the campground, my site sat right along a picture-perfect reservoir. Not so perfect were the bugs, which were relentless. As soon as I got out of the car, I could feel bugs nipping at my legs. I doused myself in bug repellant, which seemed to do the trick. Once camp was struck, I put on the Sox/Braves game and made soup for dinner. The Sox got beat up pretty badly by Atlanta that night, but the soup was very tasty.

For the first time, since Sequoia NP, I had a campsite where I could make a fire. I thought of the bundles of wood that had been burdening my car since Arizona. My eyes got a little droopy, and I sighed, because there was no way I'd be able to stay up long enough to watch a fire. I was ready for bed as soon as the sun completely set. The AZ firewood would have to wait another day. The sound of insects and frogs lulled me to sleep pretty quickly.

I woke up at about 6am. The sun was already up and knocking on my tent door. Groan. I made some coffee and oatmeal, packed up the car, and showered. A little after 8am I drove out of the state park and found a nearby spot for breakfast called the Top Notch Diner. Pretty good eggs and bakey. (A-)

From there, I drove across the state line into New York. The first half of New York was a bit complicated, as I had to take about three or four separate highways and routes before connecting with I-88. It was another bright hot sunny day. After twenty or so minutes on the 88, I saw a sign indicating the exit for Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

My hand slapped my forehead.

"Duh! How did I miss this amongst all my planning?"

And with that, a new course correction had been made. It was just by dumb luck that I happened to choose a route west which included I-88. Cooperstown is a mere 17 miles from the highway. I turned onto Route 28 and drove through some gorgeous towns before reaching "The Hall". It was a hot and sticky day in Cooperstown. The white wonder's air conditioner just wasn't cutting it. Windows were lowered.

Coopertstown's main drag is like a giant strip mall for baseball ... like a strip mall from a Normal Rockwell painting. When you walk into the Hall, the first thing one sees is two giant wax statues of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. From there, I made my way to a multi-media auditorium. The auditorium is decorated to look like a ballpark, complete with old-style seats. The show consisted of sound clips and a video footage montage of historic catches and home runs. It included old photos of kids playing stickball in New York streets and "Wild Thing" Charlie Sheen throwing a fastball through the head of a cardboard-cutout batter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_%28film%29). The point of the montage was that baseball pervades all levels of American life. As I'd noticed the same thing during my trip, the show struck a chord with me. When the lights came back up, a man emerged and started everyone singing "Take Me Out to The Ballgame." Everyone sang it sort of quietly, which didn't seem very ballpark-like to me. So, when the time came, I was sure to sing proudly:

"Let me root, root root for the RED SOX!"

Ah bliss. From there, the museum was a bit of a blur of thousands of historical baseball artifacts. Gloves, bats, helmets, uniforms, baseball cards, programs, photographs, posters, and ballpark remnants. It was too much information for me to try and absorb in a single visit. Despite my searching, I couldn't find Curt Schilling's bloody sock from Game 2 of the 2004 World Series. I know its there. They just didn't have it on display. Babe Ruth. Cy Young. Rolly Fingers. Frank Robinson. Pete Rose (yes, he's in the museum, but was denied induction into the Hall). The All American Girls Professional Baseball League (popularized by Penny Marshall's "A League of Their Own"). It was all fantastic.

The last part of the tour is the actual Hall of Fame, which more resembles a monument in Washington D.C. than a museum. The best of the best hang on those walls. The gods of baseball. I was sure to get some pictures of me and the some of the finest Red Sox: Carlton Fisk, Carl Yastrzemski, and Ted Williams. Good stuff. I was one happy camper.

When I returned to the Integra, I noticed that it had gotten even hotter outside. I made my way back to I-88 and hoped for the best from my weary AC. I took the 88 to I-81, then to Route 17, and then to I-86. Occassionally, the sky would open up and dump cats and dogs upon me. Traffic would sometimes stop with these outbursts of rain, and then five minutes later it would turn sunny again. Traveling on the 86 was slow-going, as roughly 75% of it was being worked upon by road crews. That meant traffic moved along at about 45 mph. Sneh.

I reached the area of Allegany State Park around 6:30pm, but it was too late. It was raining pretty hard by that point. I sat around at a Burger King, waiting for the rain to let up. After a half-hour or so, I looked into lodgings. The only hotel in Salamanca (with wireless internet) was booked. So, I pushed on a little further west to Jamestown and found a very comfortable Comfort Inn. That pretty much brings us to the present.

Tomorrow, the baseball extravaganza continues in Cleveland, where I'll see the Indians host the Phillies at Jacobs Field. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobs_Field) I'm crossing my fingers for a rainless night.

Today was a tiring haul, but I covered a lot of ground. The next few days will be made of up shorter drives around Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.

Its fun to be on the road again.

More soon.

Andy

To see the westbound trip pics from Maine to New York:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AcMnLVq3aN2Jq