Getaway to Cooperstown

We just returned from a short family getaway to Cooperstown, New York, which is about 200 miles from here. We left on Monday morning and returned before dinner on Wednesday (today). We had a fantastic time and it was just a whole lot of fun.
The purpose of our trip was to visit the baseball museum, but after driving there on our first day, all we had time for was . . . beer! Seriously, the Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown makes Belgian-style beer (they're owned by the same company that makes Duvel beer) so we took a short tour and those of us over the age of 21 got to taste some (five!) beers afterwards. Since Mary's driver's license doesn't allow her to drive this many people at the same time, we are thankful for our 19-year old designated driver, John.
On Tuesday morning, we arrived as soon as the doors opened at our destination, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. We visited here many times when we lived in Ithaca and the boys were little, so it's been over 17 years since we were there. We stayed all day . . . until we were one of the last ones out the door at closing time. While we were tired after such a long day at a museum, it was a happy kind of tired. No stop at the museum would be complete without paying homage to our hometown team.
While John's team has always been the Cubs, everyone's hometown is still Milwaukee, so we all felt a little homesick whenever we passed by an exhibit featuring the Brewers.
The museum does not have a cafeteria of any sort, so we took a break and walked down the street for lunch. The museum sits in downtown Cooperstown, which as you can hopefully tell from the photo is a picturesque small downtown - it oozes cuteness - but on the day we were there the cuteness was all frozen. Brrrr, it was cold! We definitely got our share of Upstate New York weather, with temps hovering around 10 degrees and breezy. The difference in climate between (frigidly cold) Cooperstown and (relatively balmy) Woodbury was remarkable.
Did I say it was a great trip? We loved the museum, we loved our time together, and we laughed a LOT. On the drive there and on the way home we saw some beautiful countryside. Upstate New York is so pretty, and even in the stark, white, and freezing winter it was still pretty. It felt really good to be back, and we are all anxious to return to Cooperstown, as well as to Ithaca. But more important than where we were was that we were all there together, and that's what made it such a great trip.