Year One - Day One - Travel Day

The first day we left home at about 10:00 am heading to Philadelphia. We knew it would be a long drive so we had the Minivan packed and stocked with plenty of snacks for all and movies to entertain the boys. We decide to head up I-77 into Virginia and then take I-81 up through the Shenandoah Valley. What a beautiful drive.  Of course that area is rich in historical sites that I am just itching to see but my traveling companions would be bored out of their minds, besides we have to get to Philly and get a room in order to get to the game the next day. So I keep the hammer down.
Now here is where I need to interject a very important piece of information. As I mentioned in the previous post, my wife Tammy is a planner. She likes to have itineraries prepared well in advance before we ever leave town. But for this trip, she has only a baseball schedule and list of driving times from place to place in hand. This was a little disconcerting for me. "You mean we don't have reservations at hotels?  No baseball game tickets pre-purchased?" I was comforted with the reply of "we'll be fine".
Well, I wasn't so sure about that. After all we both had smartphones. We had all the information we needed right in the palm of our hands. It turns out those phones are extremely handy.
On the way up to Philadelphia I thought it would be neat to stop over in Hershey so the boys could see where some of their favorite candies were made. We got there and did the little ride on tour of the factory which disembarked right there in the candy store. And of course we had to get some Hershey's candy made right there in Hershey PA. Check!  The boys thought it was awesome.

That's one big Hershey Bar!

Next, it was on to Philly to find accommodations. We, or I, had decided to use Hotels.com to find a room. It was a very useful website that allowed us to pick a room based on what we were looking for. We had found a couple of options in the neighborhood called King of Prussia located just west of the city. Instead of booking online we decided to drive by the places first before committing.  We looked at some mid range hotels I guess like Best Western and Holiday Inn but on the way in we spotted a Motel 6. It looked pretty nice and seemed to be in a safe location. We only needed it for one night and we would be on our way. Oh boy!  Sorry Tom Bodett but you can leave the light OFF for us from now on. Kind of weird when a hotel room has laminate flooring throughout. Tammy was concerned about bed bugs. It was late and we were tired so we decided to stay and make the best of it.  We survived the night with an important lesson learned. I don't mean to sound uppity or anything, but discount rate hotels are discounted for a reason.

Not a big deal because the next day we would begin an epic quest that will lead to many awesome experiences!

A quick diversion on the way to Philly.

Can We Really Do This?

In deciding what our 2014 summer plans would be, we knew that we would make our annual Holden Beach trip with extended family, which we did and was great, but that was taken care of in mid June. What about the rest of the summer?
Well...how about a trip to a baseball game?  Sounds cool. After all, the boys have really gotten into the game. We are huge Braves fans and try not to miss a game on TV.  But where to?  We had already been to Turner Field on Memorial Day to see the Braves and Red Sox. So then my wife and I (really my wife - Tammy gets all the credit for this one) decided to make a trip up north. Since it was announced that some of our beloved Atlanta Braves would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, it had kind of been a pipe dream of mine to go to Cooperstown in July to see the induction ceremony. But that is a long way and is it worth going that far just for the Hall of Fame?  Well yeah! Was my first thought but then the practical side of me reared its head so I did not think much of it. Then my lovely and thoughtful wife started thinking. 'What if we make it a trip to see several games? I think the boys would love it".  "Yes we will!" I thought.
Now Tammy is not known to do things halfway. If she is going to do something, she is going to do it right with lots of pre-planning and forethought put in ahead of time. She found out when the induction ceremony would be in Cooperstown and got the MLB baseball schedule out and got right to work. And what she came up with would seem impossible. She suggested that we go to Philadelphia for a Phillies/SF Giants game, head up to NYC for a Yankees/Blue Jays game, and then over to Cooperstown for a couple of days for the Hall of Fame ceremonies. Leave there and go to Boston for a Red Sox/Blue Jays game, go back to New York for a Mets/Phillies game. Head down to Washington and Baltimore to see the Nats and Orioles. Wow!  Can we really do this?  If there is anything that gets my wife motivated, it's the idea of a challenge. Well,  here we go.  We left our own friendly confines of our Rutherford College, NC home on Wednesday July 23rd. "Man, this is going to be awesome!" But can we pull it off?

For numerical purposes, we are going to count Atlanta's Turner Field as Ballpark #1 as the boys have been there several times.