Its Tuesday and its a travel day. Jojo left in the morning and flew back to San Diego. So now its down to the 3 of us (me, Ernest and Julius) for the rest of the trip. Our next baseball city is Washington DC, but we decided to make the drive upstate to Cooperstown, NY and visit the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The drive to Cooperstown is in the opposite direction to DC, as Cheryl commented, but the theme of this trip sort of demands it. Also, we're all Tony Gwynn fans, and with his induction to the hall of fame this year, we wanted to get some Gwynn-related induction merchandise.

We pick up our rental car in Manhattan and Julius drove us about 200 miles north to Cooperstown. I used Google maps for directions and it sent us on some country roads and we drove through some little towns. The path seemed questionable at times but we got there without a hitch. The roadside and surrounding mountains were so green and full of trees, which made it a pretty drive.

Hall of Fame

Cooperstown is a tiny little town that obviously thrives on baseball and the hall of fame museum. We only went to the museum and were there for about 3 hours. The museum is a worthwhile experience, housing items from the beginning of organized baseball and all the way through this season. They even had the holy grail of baseball cards on display - a T206 Honus Wagner card, where one has sold recently for $2.35M. The Hall of Fame Gallery is really cool - full of plaques of the game's great players, managers, umpires and executives.

T206 Honus Wagner card

First Class - Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson

There's also a placeholder for Gwynn and Ripken's plaques, for when they get inducted next month. The real treat for us, however, was the museum store. They had a lot of baseball merchandise and a lot of Tony Gwynn induction materials that we were hoping to find. We bought a bunch of stuff and were really excited about our purchases when we left the museum.

When we stepped out, it was almost 5pm and the weather had changed drastically. When we first arrived, it was a bright, warm and sunny day. But now, dark clouds were forming and wind was picking up. We weren't in the car for more than 15 minutes, heading down to Washington DC, when the rain started pouring. We got caught in off and on heavy thunderstorms for the next 150 miles. It was a tough drive for Ernest, but he did well and when it started getting unbearable, we decided to pull over for dinner. And of course when he did that, the wind calmed down and the rain stopped pouring.

After dinner, I took the helm and drove the rest of the way to DC. We arrived in DC at almost 11pm. But when we got to the hotel, there was an error in the bed arrangements, so they put us in another hotel and paid for the cost to make up for it. Not bad. We didn't get settled down until almost 1am. It was another long day, but at least the pace has slowed down after Boston and New York. I expect that to continue through the rest of the trip.

Wednesday's plan - See some of the historic sites in D.C. and watch the Washington Nationals host the Detroit Tigers in RFK Stadium.