I heart New York!

(disclaimer: I am not in many of the pictures)

New York. I've decided that if I had to move to another state, New York is on the list. In fact, it's #2 right below Colorado. And yes, I was there in the winter, granted it wasn't as cold as it will get, but it was chilly none the less. I had a great time in the 2 full days that I was there. My traveling buddies were Rylen, Jim, and Rylen's family Dale, Marta, and Rachel. We were going for Rylen and Jim's New York wedding reception.

Thursday:
So the trip started with having to be up at 3am to catch a 5am flight out of Modesto.

After a couple stops we landed in Syracuse, NY at about 4:30 in the afternoon. We got our luggage, picked out our rental cars and took off to Binghamton about 1 1/2 hours south. I think it was south, for someone who is very good with directions I didn't know which was was up, I was totally turned around. We got to the hotel, freshened up and headed to meeting Jim's mom and her boyfriend for dinner at this great Italian restaurant. We headed back to the hotel and I went to bed at about 11pm. Ok, so it was 11pm Eastern time, so really only like 8pm in California, but that was a long day of traveling and I knew we had to be up early the next day.
Friday:
Another early wake up call, 6am. But really it was 3am in CA. What is with these early mornings?!? We got up and got moving and headed to Cooperstown (home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, our purpose for going). Along the way we picked up Jim's dad, Dan, and saw his lovely home along the Sisquhana River. Away we went to Cooperstown. We had breakfast at a yummy little cafe, the Doubleday Cafe.

We walked around their downtown area and went through the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the homeland for all hardcore baseball fans.

It was snowing when we came out of the hall of fame, which brought the cold factor a little lower. So we (quickly) walked back to the car, but made sure to walk by the Doubleday Field first.

Per our waitress' recommendation, we drove a few miles out of the way to a cider mill in Fly Creek. Very cool place, I highly recommend it. We sampled apple wines, enough said. We had somewhere to be for dinner, so we started heading back to Binghamton. I don't remember much of the ride back, I slept. A quick freshening up at the hotel while we waited for Jim to get back from some dairy tours with his boss (from Hilmar) and his brother. Dinner that night was at Jim's mom's house. Jim is not so good with directions, even in an area where he grew up, so we were late. This happens a couple more times during the weekend. We had Russian dishes for dinner. I could tell you what they were, but am not even going to attempt to spell them. Dinner was yummy. Company was great. But it was time to head back to Binghamton, downtown Binghamton this time. Marta went back to the hotel, but Jim's brothers met up with us. We talked a lot, drank a lot, tried new stuff (Tuaca Bomb), and stayed up too late. Fun times!


Saturday:
Yea, finally some sleeping in! Today we were going to drive up to Ithaca, NY where Cornell University is located. We had breakfast at Cracker Barrell at 9am. Jim, Rylen, and I lead the way to Ithaca. This he knew how to get to with no problem. We walked around Cornell some. Jim told us stories, some true some not. Cornell is a HUGE campus. But it's also a very beautiful campus.

There is even a suspension bridge on campus. Rylen and Jim thought it would be funny to jump and rock it. Not so funny. Although, I thought it would be funny to wear my Cal Poly Alumni sweatshirt, being as Cal Poly and Cornell are slight rivals in the ag area.

But we had a party to get back and ready for. So once again, back to the hotel we went. So, skip forward, we're ready to go. We have directions on how to get to the reception site which is only 15 minutes away. Well, guess what, we got lost and it took us more like an hour to get there. But the reception was great fun.

Linda, Jim's mom, did a great job. Jim's AGR frat brothers even sang a little ditty to Rylen.

We danced until the DJ called it quits, and then headed, yep, back to downtown Binghamton. Keep in mind, I'm in a dress that's really not fit for the snow, heels, and a jacket. Luckily I brought slippers with me, so I went back and forth between the heels and slippers while we were out. Many of Jim's friends were not fit to drive, so we had a few extra bodies in our vehicle. Tonight was just as fun as the night before.

Drinking, dancing, and NY style pizza. We definitely stayed out too late again, being as we had to be up at 5am. So we, we being not only those of us with a hotel room but many that didn't, headed back to the hotel at about 2:30am. Rachel had headed in much earlier, so she was already asleep when myself and 3 guys came in. Yep, I'm pretty mack, I had 3 guys sleeping in my hotel room. Luckily before they came in I had a chance to get my pj's on and take my eyes out. They all were much past tipsy and stripped down while fighting about who was sleeping where. Let's do the math, 2 queen beds = 2 girls / 3 guys. Rachel was out like a light and never heard us come in, Jason pretty much collapsed on her bed and immediately started snoring like a bear. Steve landed on the floor between the beds, and Zach ended up in bed with me. Zach, Steve and I talked for awhile. It was more repeating questions to one another until Steve fell asleep. Then Zach and I talked for while. I kept telling him it was time to go to bed, I had to be up in just a couple hours, but he wouldn't have any of it. So one thing lead to another... and I got about 45 minutes of intermittent sleep due to bear snore going on and other things going on...

Sunday:
I was up and out of bed at 5am, really 2am in CA! There were 4 sleeping bodies sprawled out everywhere. Luckily I had packed a majority of my stuff the day before. And that was the last time I saw Zach and those guys. I left them a note though, so let's see how long it takes for them to come out and party California style. We made our way back to Syracuse, caught our 9am flight and were on our way home. I slept a majority of the way back, which is amazing since I normally can't sleep on planes. At 5:30pm we landed back in Modesto.

And that was my trip, pretty detailed actually.