Matthew Monday: Our Trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Part 1

For a year I had promised Matthew I would take him to the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer.  A week ago we went for the weekend. 

The Baseball Hall of Fame resides in Cooperstown, NY, which is roughly in the middle of upstate New York.  So where to stay was a question.  Cooperstown is not a very big city and when we priced the hotels they were very pricy for in the middle of nowhere.  So we priced around and decided the best value was to stay in Albany, New York.  From Albany it would be an hour and a half drive to Cooperstown. 

Albany is a three hour drive from home.  We got up early on a Friday morning and drove up, relaxed for a bit, and then spent the afternoon sightseeing Albany.  This Part 1 of our trip is going to cover the Albany pictures.

Albany happens to be the Capital of New York State, and it happens to be on the Hudson River, a very navigable river that leads into the New York City harbor.  

Henry Hudson sailed up the river trying to find a Northwest Passage.  He didn’t find one.  Here are a few pictures from a landing and park we found.  First looking up river.

 

The Hudson is 315 miles long, not exactly the Mississippi but still impressive.  Then down river with a special little boy in the picture.

The New York State Capital has impressive architecture.  It’s fairly wide some trees obstruct part of the view.  This is the best I could do.

 

The statue in front of the Capital is of General Phillip Sheridan, a civil war general born in Albany and was one of General Ulysses S. Grant’s key generals. 

 

I had no idea about this next one.  It’s The Egg in Albany.  Matthew seemed to know about it.  I didn’t.  I thought it was just a horrid architectural curio but it actually houses two theaters.  It’s their performing arts center.  

 

Does it surprise you it was built in 1978?  Not me.  Compare this architecture with the beautiful New York State Capital I posted above.  Modern art and architecture is junk.

Speaking of beautiful architecture, we did find the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.  This is Albany’s main Catholic Church.  

 

Unfortunately it was closed, but you can take a virtual tour here.  It looks gorgeous inside.  A few more of my pictures.

 

 

Now that is beauty.

Finally Matthew wanted me to take a little video clip of him swimming in the hotel pool. 

 

We had fun, and we didn’t even get to Cooperstown yet!  Now stay tune for Part 2 at the Baseball Hall of Fame.