Trip to the Catskills (New York)

Last weekend we traveled to New York state for the wedding of our friends Jen and Des. Unfortunately my camera's batteries died just before the actual ceremony started, so we didn't get many pictures of the wedding itself.

We flew into Albany the day before the wedding, and stayed that night in Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooperstown is in the middle of nowhere, in a beautiful part of New York. It's on the shores of Lake Otsego, one of the Finger Lakes (so called because they're long and narrow).


Of course we had to visit the Hall of Fame itself, Eric's second time there and Daniela's first.

It's a must-see for any baseball fan. Here I am with one of my baseball heroes, Frank Robinson, current manager of my Washington Nationals and one of baseball's greatest hitters.

We also visited the Ommegang Brewery, a must-see for any Belgian beer fan. Ommegang brews wonderful Belgian style beers and was recently bought out by Duvel, an actual Belgian brewery. The founders of Ommegang made a lot of money as Belgian beer importers for many years, so when they started their own brewery, they did it right, with a gorgeous building modelled on Belgian farmhouses and top of the line custom-made equipment. The beer is available just about everywhere now... I recommend trying the one called simply Ommegang. It's an amber colored Belgian abbey ale, and it's great with just about any kind of food.

Then we drove to Big Indian, where the wedding was. It was a lovely drive, through lots of cute little towns, on a remarkably picturesque day.

And the wedding was, as Ingrid has said, beautiful. Beautiful weather, beautiful ceremony (performed by our friend Shodo, a Buddhist priest), beautiful location (right next to the stream pictured below), Jen and Des both looked great (though you'll have to read Ingrid's blog to see a picture of them), and we had a good time meeting some new people.

Here's Shodo talking to Daniela just before the ceremony. We especially liked the big mossy log you can see here, which was just behind the happy couple during the ceremony.