Weekend in Cooperstown

For Labor Day weekend, we decided to leave the City and get out to the country.  Another early Saturday wakeup call, we headed up to Cooperstown, hoping to avoid Manhattan traffic.  We hit the road around 6:20am and watched the sunrise over Queens while we made our way up FDR Drive.

Made it to Cooperstown by 10:30am or so and stopped for breakfast at the first place we saw, Doubleday Café. It did the trick, and gave us an extra boost to explore the downtown area.  We found a farmers market, a Beekman 1802 store (local celebs), and plenty of baseball memorabilia.

Plenty of baseball bats to go around




Note the lady to Gregg's left.  Must have had enough baseball for one day.



"How it's made."   OHHH...

Checking out Doubleday Field, where baseball was invented.  They even had an amateur game going on when we went in to see the stadium.

Grabbing a pick-me-up coffee.  Ended up being more like a chocolate milkshake.

HEYA...IMMA WALKIN HERE!

The Cooperstown Diner...Didn't eat here, but thought it was cutesy.

Posing with James Fenimore Cooper, famous resident but NOT the namesake of Cooperstown

View of Lake Otsego from our hotel

Dinner at Blue Mingo Grill on the water

Sunday Morning run in Glimmerglass State Park.

The glimmery glass

Everything was so green and luscious.  It was a great change of pace from our usual runs in Brooklyn.

Morning faces

Headed to Ommegang for lunch and a tasting.

Hanging hops leading up the entrance

Our tasting with lunch

Busy day, our next stop was the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum.  

 There was different players on every ticket so Gregg thought it was a pretty awesome coincidence that Willie Mayes was on his. 

Banned from baseball indefinitely and not allowed in the Hall of Fame...but here's his jersey.  Interesting.

Barry Bonds' record-breaking homerun ball, courtesy of Marc Ecko

After leaving the Hall, we checked out the incredible Otesaga Hotel just down the street.

The views of Otsego Lake from the patio were fantastic.

The biggest fire pit we have ever seen!

In front of the 18th green.  The tee box wayyyy in the background is on an island in the lake!

Crystal clear water and lily pads

Night time...view of the firepit

On our way back we decided to swing by Albany, NY state capital! Wahoo! Since it was a federal holiday, the town was dead and nothing was open, not even a Starbucks (which was unfortunate for Meghan's bladder).

The State Capitol building front

And back.   Meghan for scale.

Across the way, the Smith building houses so state departments

Funky bowl shaped building

NY State Education building, lots of pillars

Administration building for the SUNY schools

A cool church across from the Capitol

Side note that was not mentioned, it was our first time seeing Amish people in real life!  On our drive around the lake in Cooperstown we spotted a horse and buggy in the distance and sure enough, there was an Amish family on board!

In Williamsburg at "Smorgasburg"

Smorgasburg is an Off-the-Grid style gathering of various food truck tents hosted in Williamsburg on Saturdays and in nearby Brooklyn Bridge Park on Sundays.  We frequent the Sunday edition and thought we'd head north to give the "original" a try and see the neighborhood while we were at it.

The first stop, coffee!

We got off the subway and started walking towards Smorgasburg.  Meg wanted to find a cutesy spot to get coffee and there was no shortage here.  This one, however, caught her eye and did the trick.  Seemed to be popular for sit-down brunch, but they also had a walkup To-Go window which was perfect for what we had in mind.  Meg got her standard non-fat cappuccino and they called it a cappu-lean-o, a pun which we will be stealing and using from now on.

Oh hello boys! Yes, I'm being touristy and taking a picture, smile! Or just act cool, that's good too.

Made it to Smorgasburg after coffee. Meg was stoked to see another celebrity sighting, Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson) from Sex and the City, out with his family, but we didn't want to bug him by snapping a picture.

Meg's vegan meal choice

Hold the pork rinds please :)



Gregg's meal choice - the original Ramen Burger.  The line was HUGE but there were very efficient workers.

DELICIOUS

Meal with a view of East River and Midtown

After our bites, we set out to explore more of Williamsburg.  We walked up and down Berry St and Bedford Ave. two streets lined with shops and restaurants.  We were craving something sweet so we stopped in to this Turkish bakery. Very cute décor, but the chocolate muffin and pastry unfortunately did not satisfy (how is that possible?!).

Old Beir Haus, so vintage

Apparently we are constantly hungry so we stopped in to Allswell for an early lunch



After really getting around the neighborhood on a muggy day, we were ready for a drink.  We're always looking for a rooftop bar and we found a great one in Juliette.  The main dining room is downstairs with a greenhouse-type feel.  The rooftop had great people-watching (a must-do in hipster Williamsburg) since we sat on the side overlooking the street.  The service was pretty mediocre though.

The bottom level of Juliette... love the greenery

We called it a day and headed back to our neck of the woods but once we got off the subway found our second wind!  We discovered one of our new fav spots.  There's a very committed Hawaiian theme and various board games available.  We found out the hard way why they had bug spray at the tables when we got attacked by mosquitos at dusk.  They have a "Zombie" slushie drink that is on par with the famous Chambers Punch in Tahoe.  YUM!

Last stop...ZOMBIE HUT!