Thursday, May 6, 2010

Beyond Reality Event: Cooperstown, NY

On January 8th, we headed out to Cooperstown New York for..

Since I am not too far away from New York, Ashleigh and I decided to drive. We took my ratty old 2000 Taurus and prayed we'd make it (I've since gotten a new car, thank God). We first drove to Rhode Island to pick up the t-shirts and sweatshirts and had to cram as many boxes as we could into my already stuffed car. Once finished, I could see absolutely nothing outside my rearview mirror. We also managed to rig up a speaker system (fit for a white trash pickup with a gunrack) by purchasing two wal-mart plastic ipod speakers and supergluing them to my dashboard. Unfortunately, AFTER supergluing them, we realized that one of the speakers didn't even work. I actually have pictures of this, but apparently forgot where I saved them on my computer so you'll have to use your imagination for now. We then crossed our fingers and headed back up to New York.

Lucky for us, our little voyage happened to fall at the exact same time as a major snowstorm. Now this picture doesn't even begin to explain the terrifying mountain that loomed ahead of us. When we first caught sight of this hill, I legit thought it was a ski slope up ahead. It wasn't. Nor was it the only hill of it's size on our way to the hotel.

Once we got past all the hills, my GPS decided to take us on a lovely tour of Amish country via a narrow dirt road on the side of a cliff. I'm not sure why I end up on roads on the sides of cliffs every event, but it seems to be par for the course. We also ran into a cute little old man, blind as a bat, driving straight for us on this narrow dirt road. It seems Mr. Magoo was in the mood for a little game of "chicken" and he definitely won. Actually, I'm pretty sure he had no idea there was even another car on the road.

We did finally make it to the hotel and once there, we found that we weren't the only ones that had trouble getting there. I can't remember who's mother or mother-in-law it was (I want to say it was Grant's), but this poor woman was trying to find the hotel during the thick of the snowstorm and was having a really hard time. She spotted the clock tower from where she was and decided to just head straight for it. After a few minutes of driving, she came to a man standing in the middle of the road. Confused, she pulled up to him and asked "Hey! Why are you standing in the middle of the road?!" He answered, "Hey! Why are you driving in the middle of the lake?!". Whoops....

The hotel was gorgeous and was much creepier when we pulled up then this picture, which I pulled from their website. Our room was massive, although I can't find any pictures of our actual room. One thing I did take a picture of was that we had a sweet chandelier that I decided was a little naked and needed a rockstar makeover.

Per usual, I headed out for an airport run that night so I missed Mike Brody's comedy set (I guess it's not like I haven't seen it a million times at this point), but here's a picture I stole from someone else...

It sort of looks like Brody is conjuring an orb in that picture.

Meanwhile, back in the rental van... I was absolutely terrified to be driving the same route I had just come, only in reverse. Especially when it came to heading back down those huge hills, as the snow continued to pile up around me. This was the part of our show where Haley called her boyfriend and bawled her eyes out. True story.

But then the snow cleared up and I made it safely to the airport where I found Rob and Raven, who made me laugh hysterically for the entire ride back. They were exactly what I needed, despite us coming extremely close to making deer sauce all over the road.

This is the only picture I have of Raven, and that is definitely NOT Rob, it's Scotty but it'll have to do. How creepy is Jay in this picture though? Weirdo.

So needless to say, by the time we got back to the Otesaga Hotel, I was ready for a drink.

As was everyone else.

This is Britt's wife Holly (right) and Robyn (left). You'll be seeing a LOT of Robyn in my next post: Beyond Reality Event: Mt. Washington Hotel 2010. Robyn and I found we had a common interest. Booze.

So it turns out the Otesaga Hotel is actually closed in the winter (or was that winter) and had only opened for our event. In saying that, I would have to point out that this ash tray was completely empty when we arrived and only used by attendees of the event. I'm going to make a further assumption that it was mostly only used by Chip, Scotty, and myself. This was after night #1:

Yummm...

Somebody get me a fork.

I'll spare you most of the pictures that would only be exciting to those that attended, but will point out that all the usuals were there...

Here are a couple of pictures of Ashleigh and I goofing off in the merch room.

Finger mustaches = always funny.

I know there were some interesting things that happened on some of the investigations including an intense flashlight session with Amy and Chip, some surprises from "Andy's Box", a few EVP's, and a squirrel puppet discovered by Brody that had an actual sewn in "butt-hole". Wish I was making that part up.

There must have been something going on because my stomach reacted in its usual way when there's activity around... it regurgitated my lunch. Yummy. Bet you could've lived without that detail.

The next day I was feeling a lot better so Ashleigh and I headed out to see the local hot spots, which were pretty minimal.

Here's the Baseball Hall of Fame...

...And that's as close as we got to it.

We decided to go to a cute little diner instead, where Ashleigh ordered the biggest burger I've ever seen in my life and this picture does not even BEGIN to do it justice.

I am not exaggerating when I say this burger was at least four inches thick. I think they may have used an entire cow to make it. After eating, Ashleigh made me laugh so hard I literally peed a little so I had to run into the bathroom (located through the kitchen). And that's where I found this little gem...

Before heading back to the hotel, we decided to go into some of the local shops to get some souvenirs to bring back. Unfortunately, everything they had involved baseball, which we knew nothing about. We ended up leaving with a couple of shot glasses, a red sox toothbrush, and a couple of flattened pennies with the Cooperstown logo imprinted on them (which Ashleigh loudly announced she wanted her money back on for ruining a perfectly good penny).

And that pretty much wraps up our weekend in Cooperstown, NY. On the way home, my GPS took us a different way and landed us in the sketchiest little town in upstate New York I've ever witnessed. We almost ran out of gas and while looking for a place that was open at 3 in the morning, we ended up on a street that I swear had tumbleweeds darting across it. Every little shop along this cobblestone street was boarded up and there was an actual white night gown hanging from a doornob? Our encounter at the gas station was terrifying and I won't even go into it because I'd have to relive it, but I actually thought there was a good chance we would be raped and killed. I saved the receipt to remember to NEVER go back to that town again. Without an oozie. No cancel that, ever.