New Jersey!

We made it to New Jersey unscathed! It's kinda depressingly industrial here, but we've seen it before so no big whoop. I started the day driving, but because I couldn't sleep (again) and ended up taking a Benadryl around 1:00 AM, I was too groggy to be behind the wheel, so John took over and drove us all the way, yay for Schmoopie!! I'm getting a bit better at navigating, and I can't believe I didn't get us lost on the turnpike because the directions to the hotel were pretty funky. But we're here now at the Courtyard Marriott right next to the airport, decidedly the best hotel we've had yet, a bit more fancy but not bourgeois fancy. We decided that since it's rainy and gloomy here, we'll probably skip out on doing late night New York City fireworks tonight. As cool as it sounds to watch fireworks over Lady Liberty, to be dealing with all the people and rain and traffic to get back here sounds like pure aggravation (for me especially), we figured we may as well get a good nights rest, head off early in the morning for a full day and save $50 in the process.

Yesterday we finally made it to Cooperstown, toured the Baseball Hall of Fame and saw Doubleday Park, which is the agreed upon "spiritual birthplace of baseball", if not the actual birthplace. The HOF was really cool, a bit smaller than I envisioned it, and a lot more crowded with idiots than I'd hoped, but still very groovy. TONS of pictures taken there. None of the trinkets they had were neat enough to warrant opening of the wallet, so we passed on those. Neither of us are shoppers, anyway. We stopped off and ate burgers at a little joint along the touristy streets of the town. We got lucky and found a little cottage-style motel room that was very homey and they had a little flock of ducklings that they took care of!! I got pictures of the ducks having their daily bath in the kiddie pool :) Happy ducks!!

Since most of our trip has been driving, it's been harder to blog this time around. Overall, we've not done too much. There have been cute little things on the road we've seen, like wild turkeys, sheep, horses, cows, loads of hawks. The tolls are so frequent now that I've stopped keeping track. We've spent a good deal of money on them, let's just say that. The roadkill tally is always ticking, but mostly now all we see are muskrats. I'll post the mileage later since I've neglected once again to remember to bring the book up to the room. I've taken a crapload of 15 second video of trees and scenery with our small camera, so I don't know how much fun those will be to watch until I splice them together to make arty stuff. Other than that, we're just happy to be on a journey away. I miss the kitties terribly, so I guess I won't be too upset to get home in a few days to see them, but for now I'm loving being footloose and fancy free, as they say. I wish it were easier to travel with cats, but I don't think Boo would stand for that. Vesta's too unpredictable to say for certain. They will be such loves upon our return, though :)

Anyway, I've rambled long enough. We hope all is well at home. Have a great 4th of July everyone!!
Love,
R&J