Road Trip to Woodstock & Beyond - Day 8

 Click HERE to go to Day 1 entry.

Our room at Lake 'N Pines Motel

After checking out of the wonderful Lake 'N Pines motel, we went back into Cooperstown for breakfast. Either Cooperstown doesn’t have breakfast eateries or we just didn’t happen to find any that was open so we got back on Hwy 80 and headed toward our next destination 250 miles away – Niagara Falls. Hwy 80 (known as Cooperstown Road in this part of the country) is a 2-lane, black-top rural road with beautiful open fields and groves of old-growth trees with little towns every now and then. Going through one of these little communities (it’s called a community because calling it a town would be ridiculous), I spotted a little Mom & Pop store with a sign that said, “Breakfast.” A wooden building with peeling white paint, it looked like it had been there for many years, but there was something homey about it. Chip didn’t see the sign as he drove by, but I got him to turn the car around and return to it. I figured at the least we could get some road goodies to snack on (plus it’s nice to help support little privately owned businesses).

As soon as we walked in, conversations ceased and every head in the place turned to check us out. There were only a couple of small tables along the wall and the tables were occupied mostly by old farmers and ranchers wearing overalls and Massey Ferguson or John Deere gimme caps. These are the old-timers who come to town every morning to have their coffee at this little store and grumble about the weather, wives, and the state of the union. One asked in a polite but warry way where we are from. After we told them we were a couple of old U.S. Navy buddies who temporarily left our wives and kids behind to take a road trip to see the Baseball Hall of Fame and we were just passing through, they all seemed to relax, smiled, and after a few welcomes, went back to their grumbling with each other. I guess we passed their test. Everyone was very nice after that and we actually had a pretty decent hot meal cooked up by an older lady in the open kitchen. It was one of those places where people know each other by a nickname, where everyone got up, refilled their own coffee, got milk from the cooler, and chips and candy from the shelves, and then told the cashier what they had and paid up or put it on their tab. It was a nice little interlude - an enjoyable slice of small-town USA. Back on the road toward Niagara Falls, our luck changed. To say things didn’t go as planned would be to engage in careless understatement.

Just a few miles down the road, it started to rain. I’m not talking a little summer shower. I’m not talking about a mist. I’m talking full-on rain. A few minutes later, the sky really opened up and it started a heavy rain. Impressively heavy. As in monsoon rain. And it continued to rain. Every now and then, it would slow to a heavy downpour, but then back to the monsoon. And it continued like that for the next 250 miles! Instead of the expected 4 hours of driving, it took 6. My back started really acting up and every time Chip hit a little pothole, or the road got a little bit rough, a stabbing, red hot pain shot up my lower back. I ate Excedrin Extra Strength like M&Ms to keep the pain tolerable. In short, it was miserable.

When we entered Niagara Falls, it was still raining. We were hungry and tired. Open parking spaces were non-existent unless we were willing to pay $20 or more to park for 30 minutes so we could eat. We finally came across a hotel a few blocks away from Niagara Falls Park with a restaurant that advertised Chinese Buffett. We got lucky and found an open, metered parking spot just down from the hotel, so we grabbed it, dropped a few coins in the meter, and squished our way into the hotel.

As soon as we entered the restaurant, we knew something was not right – there was not a single customer in the place. That's not good. Thinking maybe it was because it’s the middle of the afternoon, we went in. The food on the buffet looked like it had been cooked yesterday morning and left in the warming pans since then. Every item had a film over it and everything just looked old and unappetizing. We started to walk out, but a waitress came over and told us they also had pizza. With her assurance that the ingredients were fresh, we ordered one each. A little surprisingly, they weren’t bad, so we sat in a booth eating our pizzas and watched it rain.

We then drove to Niagara Falls Park and looked around, but the paved walkways in the park were pretty much underwater. Plus, it was cold. Here it was May and the temperature was in the lower 40’s with rain and a strong, cold, persistent wind. We had on t-shirts and single-layer windbreakers. We saw a couple of hardy souls walking down the sidewalks. They had umbrellas and raincoats over their heavier coats and were walking in ankle-deep water. We were not prepared for the weather and with my hurt back limiting my mobility, I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk very far. In this case, “Skooter” (my mobility scooter) couldn’t be used. It runs on battery power and not only does water and electricity not mix but running it in water would cancel the warranty and I had only had it for about 6 weeks. That thing is too expensive to take a chance like that so Skooter stayed folded up in the back of the SUV. I had intended for us to take the Maid of the Mist boat excursion, but it was closed due to the storms and high water. I had also thought about us taking a helicopter tour of the falls, but it too was shut down. We checked the weather and the rain was forecast to last solid for the next 3 days. We reluctantly decided to put off seeing Niagara Falls until some other day. Big disappointment. Really big disappointment.

We entered our next destination, Rossford, Ohio into my portable GPS and set out for the Rossford Library where we could see the size 37AA shoes of Robert Wadlow. Standing 8’11” tall, he was the tallest man in the world. Turning onto the bridge the GPS told us to take, we were surprised to find halfway across that we were going into Canada! There are signs telling you to not turn around and walls on the side of the road to prevent it. So here we are, going into Canada with no passports (we both have one, but didn’t have them with us), a big bunch of packages in the SUV backend, and an illegal weapon (illegal in Canada anyway) in my possession. I knew it didn't matter in Canada that I have a carry permit and we just knew we were going to jail and there was nothing we could do about it.

The Canadian border guard was actually pretty nice – where are you headed (“back home to the U.S. hopefully”), why did you come to Canada (“we didn’t intend to”). You followed your GPS, didn’t you? (“Yes, sir, that’s exactly what happened.”) Is it just the two of you? (“Yes, just us 2, sir.) Where’s home? (Texas and Oklahoma, sir.”) Do you have any drugs in your vehicle? “(No sir, no sir. We don’t do drugs.) Are you carrying any firearms? Oh crap, what do I say?! I replied as calmly as I could - “No, sir” while thinking, please don’t check my bag, please don’t check my bag. "Oh, that gun? Gee, sir, I’m really sorry. I forgot that was in there. Silly me." I felt bad about the little white lie, but I would have felt worse being thrown into jail or even just having my gun confiscated. Fortunately, he just smiled at us, asked for our driver's license, and said, “This happens all the time. Pull over there by those doors and I’ll bring your licenses back in a minute with some paperwork you’ll need to fill out to get back in the states.” Yes, sir! Thank you, sir! Several minutes later, I guess after he verified we were not terrorists or wanted criminals, he gave us our stuff back and said to make a U-turn around the building, drive safe, and have a nice day. He seemed rather amused about the whole thing. We were not.

Getting back into the states was, what with the open southern border, inexplicably tougher. We explained what had happened and then the questions came. Where are you going? (“Back home.”) Are you U.S. citizens? (“Yes.”) Were you born in the U.S.? ("Yes.") Do you have passports? (“Yes, but not with us.”) Why do you not have your passports? (“Because we didn’t plan on going into another country.”) Why were you in Canada? (“It was a mistake. We didn’t mean to be.”) How long were you in Canada? (“About 10 minutes.”) Why do you want to come into the U.S. (“Because we live in the U.S and want to go home.”) Are you bringing anything back from Canada with you? (“No, we accidentally went into Canada on that side of the road and basically immediately came back on this side of the road.”) Are you bringing any plants into the country? ("No, we were just over there and now we're here and we didn't go anywhere else to buy anything.") Turn off your car, give me your license and wait here. 15 long minutes later, he came back, gave us our stuff, and told us to drive back across the bridge. No smile, no amusement at our predicament, no welcome home, just suspicion, and gruffness.

Driving across the Niagra River in
the rain

Driving back across the bridge, and low and behold, we saw the falls! I didn’t get my camera out in time to take a picture, but we both actually got to see Niagara Falls. From our vantage point, it wasn’t as impressive as I’ve been led to believe, but I’m sure it’s much different up close and not partially obscured by heavy rain. We were happy to be back in the good old U.S. of A. and we saw Niagara Falls after all!

For some reason, my back didn’t hurt as much if I was driving, so I took over those duties and Chip became the navigator. We headed on down the road, being very careful to stay away from the Canadian border! Our next destination was 300 miles away, back toward the middle of the country. From there, we could head south, catch a couple of interesting things along the way and be on our way back home. There’s an old saying, “Man plans and God laughs.” Too bad for us, God wasn’t finished laughing.

Road Trip to Woodstock & Beyond - Day 7

Click HERE to go to Day 1 entry.

The next stop on our northern road trip was the old Max Yasgur farm in Bethel, New York. Everyone born in the early 1950s knows what happened there August 15 thru 18, 1969 – Woodstock! This place has been on my bucket list for 52 years and I’m finally getting there!

In the summer of 1969, I had just graduated high school, had cobwebs in my empty wallet and didn’t really know what I wanted to do in life. A friend had a motorcycle and some family in New York. He kept after me to sell my old beat-up Chevy, buy a motorcycle and ride with him up to New York. We could stay with his family for a while and attend something being billed as “An Aquarian Exposition,” a 3-day music festival. I shopped around and found a motorcycle I fell in love with, a new, shiny 1969 Triumph Bonneville. I talked to the dealer several times. He came down until the price was right. And then, and then... I said no. I would have had to leave my girlfriend behind, I wasn’t all that confident in my motorcycle riding skills, once I bought the bike, I would have spent all of the cash from selling my car, and then what would I do for money? Also, at that time, I wasn’t really sure what an “Aquarian Exposition” was and that was a long way to go on a motorcycle for some little outdoor music festival. In life, you never know when one little decision might change your whole life. Looking back, that “no” decision was one of mine.

There is a little issue with staying in Bethel. It’s a small, rural town of 4,200 people with not many places to stay, at least none that wasn't a Bed & Breakfast, or rated just 1 star with a bunch of negative reviews or a middle-of-the-pack hotel with OK reviews but costing $250 - $300 per night. Looking outside of Bethel, we finally found a Best Western in the little town of Monticello, 12 miles away, with middling reviews, but only $125 so, due to the scarcity of hotels and flying in the face of our often less-than-wonderful experiences with Best Western hotels, we made a reservation while we were still several hours away. When we arrived, we noted the outside looked rather old and not all that well maintained, but we're here now. Chip let me out at the front door to check in while he looked for a parking spot.

When I walked in, the front desk person, a man of Indian heritage, was on the phone and from the tone of his voice, not happy about something. There were eight Hispanic boys, all teenagers or early 20’s, sitting and standing around and each had all their worldly goods in one little plastic grocery sack. I stood at the counter while the hotel guy continued on the phone for 10 minutes. I finally said, “Excuse me,” thinking maybe he would get somebody to come up and help, but he just glared at me and said “Go sit over there until I get to you,” indicating a footstool. I caught some of what he was saying on the phone – “But who is going to pay me for this?” and “When will I get paid?” It seems a government bus just drove up, dropped off these 8 young men at the door with a piece of paper instructing the hotel to give them rooms, and left. The hotel proprietor was not happy at all about it. Seven of them spoke no English at all, one spoke a little broken English. I sat there frustrated but kind of amused while watching a man from India with a heavy accent trying to talk with a guy who spoke Spanish and knew only a few words of English. It was a full 20 more minutes before the boys finally got keys to two rooms and left. I'm not sure why somebody, somewhere thought it a good idea to drop 8 non-English-speaking Hispanic youths unannounced in a little northern town of 6,000, but there it is.

When we got to our room, it appeared to be old and had an odd smell, but clean enough. The TV was OK, but the desk chair I tried to use was broken. It wobbled from side to side and if you leaned back a little, it would fall over. The beds, in my opinion, were terrible and the bed sheets were old and stiff. The carpet was worn and stained in spots. The toilet seat was made of cheap, wobbly plastic - I hate those things. The toilet paper was so thin you could read a newspaper through it. Well, OK. On a road trip without reservations made more than the same day of arrival, you have to expect something like this to happen every once in a while, so make do and hope things are better tomorrow night.

After a mostly sleepless night in a bed that had a deep dip in the middle, I woke up, but before getting out of bed, I felt something stuck to my back. I reached around, touched it and a used band-aid fell off stained side up - and it wasn't mine! It had been in between the "clean" sheets and I had slept on it! I jumped out of bed using full-on non-Christian words I haven't said since I got out of the Navy. I felt repulsed and gross so I grabbed my bottle of germ-killing antiseptic hand cleaner, drenched it all over my back, and got dressed. I declined to take a shower because I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Forget the pathetic attempt at breakfast they had, not even any coffee - just get me outta here!

Checking out, there was a nice lady on the desk who spoke English well enough for me to easily understand her. I handed her a $25 gift certificate given to me by Best Western trying to lure me into being a repeat customer. She didn’t know how to apply a Best Western gift certificate to a Best Western bill. For 10 minutes, I stood there while she kept trying different things. Finally, she called somebody, probably the guy from last night, but he didn’t know how to do it either, so I stood there for another 10 minutes while she talked on the phone and tried different ways. After 20 long minutes, I told her never mind, I’ll just pay the damn bill and if she ever figures out how to give me the $25 credit, please email me a new receipt. To her credit, I did receive an email late that afternoon confirming it had been applied. So together, I had waited for almost an hour to check in and check out. Do yourself a favor and stay away from the Best Western in Monticello, New York.

We had breakfast at a busy diner a few doors down from the hotel. The coffee was very good and the food wasn't bad. There was a loud, annoying man in the booth behind us who evidently thought everyone in the place was keenly interested in his cell phone conversation. It was clear his momma didn't teach him about inside voice. The hard looks and stares from all the other patrons didn't bother him. When he finished his phone call, he went to the back register to pay and started flirting with the cashier. She didn't respond in the affirmative to any of his shouted pickup lines. He finally left to go paint the barn he was supposed to complete that day. Everyone smiled and almost broke out in applause when he walked out that door. We finished the last of our meal in blissful peace.

The Woodstock Museum

Just a few miles down the road, we turned into the entrance of the Museum at Bethel Woods, better known as “The Woodstock Museum.” Located close to the meadow where about 400,000 people celebrated 3 days of music and peace in the rain and the mud, we found it to be one of the better and more interesting museums we’ve visited on our numerous road trips. Going through the museum, around every corner was something that brought back memories of that time – posters, songs, pictures of people and bands, clothing, psychedelic-painted VW buses and "Bugs," and even the original very large hand-made speakers that had been mounted on the scaffolds. There were short film clips and informational movies to watch and plenty of older docents standing around ready to answer your questions and engage you in conversations about where they were during that time, what life was like back then, and just normal, friendly conversations. It was great and we had a wonderful time.

We stopped at the gift shop and when I entered, was politely told I needed to wear a mask. I told the young lady, "Well, I guess I'll just have to walk on through since I didn't bring one with me." "No problem," she answered, "I'll get you one." She returned with a really nice, adjustable, colored mask with a peace sign and the Woodstock logo on it. I asked her how much and she said, "No charge. It's free." I do like cool free stuff! I purchased several more t-shirts for myself, my wife, and my daughter, plus a postcard and a fridge magnet. More stuff for the back of the SUV!

After leaving the museum, we ventured down to the Woodstock site itself. Other than a few signs, there’s not much to proclaim this to be a historic site. However, it is awe-inspiring to stand there looking down into that open field and letting your mind visualize so many people and everything that happened there. The Woodstock movie kept playing in my mind. I had finally made it to Woodstock. 52 years late, but happy to see it and get one more item checked off of my bucket list!

With Joe Cocker’s “With A Little Help From My Friends” playing in my mind, we put Woodstock behind us and headed north on NY 17B until we connected with NY 97 and then a bunch of twists and turns for a total of 115 miles until we made it to Cooperstown and the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame. Arriving just several hours before they closed, we decided to go on in to see what we could and come back the next day if needed.

A couple of years ago (just before Covid-19 locked everything down), Chip and I took another road trip and visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame so naturally, we had to add this to our itinerary. At the Football HoF, we spent 5 hours going through all the displays, watching the videos, viewing the many, many artifacts, and had a good time trying on some of the really big guy’s helmets, matching our hands against the cast hands of various players and gazing longingly at all the Super Bowl rings and trophies. I’m glad we visited the Baseball HoF, but I have to admit, I went there all excited, but a bit less excited when we left.

Me & Chip at the Baseball HoF

There were a lot of recordings of historical games played, numerous uniforms on display, old shoes, old gloves, and a lot of pictures of players. I really enjoyed their display featuring Babe Ruth, who was one of my childhood heroes. They had the bat he used when he set the record for 60 home runs in one season. They had several of his uniforms and gloves and good writeups about his life and death. I spent most of my time here. They also had a large, interesting section on Jackie Robinson, the first black Major League Player and Hall of Famer. After a while though, the displays all seemed to run together, same-same. There was a large display with a uniform from every team. Nothing was said about them, they were just hanging there. I thought it would have been much more interesting if they had told some little-known information about each one – like how and why the St. Louis team chose a Cardinal for its mascot. How about Chicago choosing “Cubs” for theirs? Something besides a bunch of jerseys just hanging there in display cases.

We only took 2 hours to go through the museum. Even the gift shop was a let-down. I bought a fridge magnet, but nothing else really caught my fancy and everything was awfully expensive. I had really wanted a baseball jersey with a Baseball Hall of Fame patch on it, but they didn't have anything like that. Most of the shirts were touting individual teams.

To be the site of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown is a very small town, more like a village actually. We were shocked at how small it is. Just outside of town, Otsego Lake begins. It is the most eastern of the 11 lakes that resemble fingers laying a handprint across Central New York. They were created over two million years ago during the last ice age when the glaciers receded, carving deep lakes from stream valleys. Eight miles long with a depth up to 167 feet, Otsego Lake is in most places no more than several hundred yards wide. Right on the lake, about 7 miles outside Cooperstown is the charming motel Lake 'N Pines and that's where we laid our heads for the night.

View from our balcony at
Lake 'N Pines

From Cooperstown, we drove beside the lake on Hwy 80 until we saw the sign for the motel. It is an older, mom-&-pop establishment, the kind where each room’s parking space is right there about 3 feet from the door. However, it is very well maintained and super clean. We were certainly surprised when we walked into our room to find everything almost new, very comfortable queen beds, fridge, coffee station, fancy soap and shampoo in the bathroom, big, fluffy, soft towels, and a private balcony with large sliding doors and a beautiful view of the lake. The price was only $70 so getting such wonderful accommodations for that price was a very nice surprise. It wasn’t fancy, but Chip and I agreed, it was one of the best places we stayed in the whole trip. Having a fresh cup of good coffee while sitting on the patio early the next morning watching the birds, the lake and the day come awake was supremely relaxing. Such a wonderful way to start the day! Highly recommend Lake 'N Pines if you are ever in the area.

Later, we went back into town and found a place to eat, “Mel’s at 22.” As usual, we didn’t know anything about it, but there were a lot of people eating inside and it looked like there was a bar too, so we ventured in. A very nice girl asked us if we had reservations. “Um, no, we didn’t know we needed one.” Well, we’re full tonight, unless you would like to sit at the bar. There are 2 seats available at the end.” “Sure, we’ll take ‘em.” 

The bartender was very fast and flamboyant, flipping bottles around, pouring from bottles held a foot above the glass, and holding a conversation with the patrons the whole time. He soon took our order and got our drinks - tea for me (my turn to drive) and some kind of fancy alcohol drink for my buddy. It took an inordinate amount of time for our food to be served, but we enjoyed watching the bartender so the time passed pretty quick. 

The bar at Mel's

When we got our food, it became apparent why you needed reservations. Food covered the whole large platters and oh my, the taste was fantastic! I can’t remember what Chip had, some fancy dish no doubt, while I got the California Dreaming Burger - hand-packed 8-ounce Angus patty, bacon, brie, chipotle aioli, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and red onion served on a brioche roll. Oh my gosh, this thing ranks right up there in the top 3 burgers I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve eaten enough burgers to consider myself a burger connoisseur! Even the fries were perfect – hot, fat, and crispy. On this whole road trip, as far as I'm concerned, the best full-on meal I had was at Paula Deen’s in Nashville and this was by far the best burger meal. We waddled back to the car, drove to our motel room, and like contented, fat little puppy dogs, fell asleep early that night.