Dog Days of Summer

We have actually been working for the last few weeks. Lots of play days mixed in of course. A few weeks ago we had a load to Colorado that just happened to deliver on the same weekend as the Colorado Brewers Festival in Fort Collins. So my son and I did the festival while the girls got mani/pedis. Had an awesome time, found some great new beers and ran into Ron Golnick, and old friend and great guy.

With CJ and Ron

We did something we have talked about for five years. When Ken Griffey Jr retired from baseball I said I wanted to be in Cooperstown NY to watch his Hall of Fame induction. You are not eligible to be voted in until you have been retired for five years. Knowing he would be a first ballot inductee made it a little easier to plan. Kind of funny, with the new truck and bad rates this year, I kept trying to back out of this trip but Anne would not let me. She kept saying “you have talked about this for years, we are going” We booked a really good load to Rhode Island and then grabbed a load from there to Buffalo NY to meet up with my Mom, sister and her boys. There is no truck parking in Buffalo but we found a hotel near Niagara Falls with truck parking. Let’s just say we were NOT staying at the Ritz. We grabbed a rental car and headed to the Falls, I expected to be a bit jaded by Niagara Falls but it was actually pretty awesome.

The Falls

Anne is NOT happy with the wind

Tim Hortons….liquid crack

So Mom and Leigh got into town about 5PM and Leigh’s boys wanted dinner at the Hard Rock. Not my kinda place, so we picked Mom up and went to dinner at a cool little GastroPub and then met Leigh and the boys back at their hotel. They were staying right next to the Falls. So we went walking around and Pokeman hunting with the boys. Mom lost her seat so she ended up making some new friends ….lol

Mom and her new Poke-buddies

The next morning (Friday) we headed to Cooperstown. Checked into the hotel and my brother and his three boys got in so it was time for a pool party. Saturday was lots of swimming then heading into town for the Parade of Legends. Cooperstown is pretty freaking amazing. Sunday was the actual induction and it was HOT. Parking is a mess with 50,000 people crowding into a little town with 10,000 residents. They have a trolly that brings you into town for outside parking lots and then you get on another bus to take you to the big field where they hold the ceremony. It really was a once in a lifetime experience to be there. Watching Ken Griffey Jr’s career from day one was such a privilege and to be there for his HOF induction was pretty special. My wife rocks for holding firm on this. Then there was the absolute nightmare of 50,000 people trying to leave the field all at once. Instead of waiting for a bus, we decided to walk into town to the trolley. A very hot walk and we got into line for the trolley with about 80 people in front of us in line. Then the buses started arriving and the line behind us just got stupid. It took us an hour and forty five minutes to get on a trolley, I have no idea what time the people behind us got out of there. We stopped at a very cool brewery for dinner that was wonderful. Just a perfect week and then weekend.