Road Trip, Day 1: New York

Jen arrived around 7:30am to pick me up. She's a trooper, by the way, because she had to work a 12-hour nursing shift before picking me up. Talk about dedication. We threw my stuff into the car, took a photo, and headed out for our big adventure right before 8am. This was the plan, so we could hit the road early and avoid traffic.

I drove this leg of the trip so Jen could rest. She helps people, you know, so she deserved a good solid nap. The morning was a bit cloudy, but about halfway into our first drive, the skies cleared and the sun was shining. It was beautiful weather for hitting the open roads. We cruised through northeastern PA, northern New Jersey, and into New York in good time. In reality, we crossed the George Washington Bridge into Queens - this was my first time driving in any part of NYC and I must say, it wasn't that bad. I wouldn't want to do that every day however.

(By the way, tolls to cross bridges in NYC are ludicrous.)

Our first stop was CitiField or the "New Mets Stadium" for a Mets game versus the Marlins. Being that Jen and I are true Phillies fans, we headed out for this adventure wearing Phillies shirts. If you follow baseball you know the Phillies and Mets are NL East Rivals and Mets fans HATE Phillies fans. I was well prepared to have a beer dumped on me, but thankfully that didn't happen.

CitiField is an extremely nice ballpark. I think we were both most impressed by the food offerings. Pulled pork sandwiches and spare ribs, brick-oven pizza, tacos, nachos, Nathans hot dogs (of course), among others... whatever the food, it was kicked up a notch and quite well cooked. Lots of fancy condiment options as well. Jen enjoyed a pulled pork sandwich and I sampled some french fries from Box Frites with chipotle sauce. Very delicious. (It's not Chickey's and Pete's crab fries, but not bad at all for ballpark food.)

We were also impressed with Jackie Robinson rotunda, which is a main entrance to the stadium and a tribute to his legacy of breaking the color barrier in baseball and basically being a phenomenal addition to the sport. We ruffled some Mets fans' feathers, though, when we hopped in front of the blue 42 to get a picture taken. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do for the tourist photo memories.

We didn't have the greatest seats for the game. We sat in the upper deck along 3rd base. Apparently, the Mets fans who sit in this section are required to have an IQ below 60. Honestly, these people were quite ridiculous. Many of them didn't actually have seats where they were seated and would then get upset when the rightful seat holder would ask them to move. It ain't rocket science, you know? Seats have numbers for this very reason.

We had the pleasure of sitting by a family of four - man, woman, boy age 5, girl age 3 - who thought it was appropriate to purchase only two seats and then plop themselves into a total of 4 seats. While the girl was cute in her little Mets cheerleader uniform, the boy whined obnoxiously. Sometimes I like children at the ballpark; this was not one of those times.

We also had the pleasure to sit three seats away from a Mets fan who reminded us that the Phillies weren't actually playing the Mets. Funny that he thought we wouldn't have known this when we purchased tickets that read "Marlins vs Mets." I didn't know I could ONLY wear a Phillies shirt when I was, in fact, AT a Phillies game.

We did see three other Phillies fans. They were nice. Like us, they too could be considered slightly insane for wearing Phillies gear in this hostile environment, but we all seemed to survive the random comments of "Phillies suck" or "Utley sucks" or "You know the Phillies aren't playing today?" Strange. Who won the 2008 World Series? Right.

A fun factor to the game was that my friend Scott happened to also be in attendance. He's a Mets fan, but I try not to hold that against him. We had the pleasure of hanging out with him for a few innings and explore some of the ballpark which was also quite fun.

The best part of the game was that the Mets lost to the Marlins! It's fun to watch the Mets lose!

After the game, we hopped back into the car and hit the road to our second stop - Cooperstown, NY. I also drove this leg of the trip while Jen dropped in and out of consciousness. Cooperstown is quite a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, one could get lost here and fall off the face of the earth. It's a cute place, though, from what we've seen so far. A very small, quaint town dotted with Bed & Breakfasts and baseball memoriabilia. We had a nice dinner before we settled in for the night.

Tomorrow, as you can guess, we'll be acquiring new baseball knowledge as we explore Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame. I am sure day two will be just as fun as today!