We were back on the road again this past weekend, but alas, it was not where we were supposed to be! Originally when we got our tournament schedule (or at least the second iteration of it), we were supposed to be in Binghamton this weekend. I, of course, was excited about that as it meant I could likely have some time with Heather and my godson Mason. Well...then Jacob got hurt, which put everything in jeopardy, but then he seemed to recover pretty quickly. But then, because this team is a complete mess, we found out mid-week that someone didn't make the payment on the Binghamton tournament so we would not be going there. They managed to get us into a tournament in Cortland, which is about 45 minutes north of Binghamton. So, of course I started working through multiple scenarios on how to get to Binghamton around our game schedule. But unfortunately, once we got the schedule it became clear our options were limited, in part because the tournament wasn't actually in Cortland but about 15 minutes away in Dryden, which is about halfway between Cortland and Ithaca. And when we went to look at hotels, Cortland was very limited and it turned out Ithaca had one that worked better for us, so in the end the logistics of getting together felt really challenging. I didn't want to make them drive a long way, but even some of the midpoints were going to be too time-consuming round-trip for what our schedule could allow. It was all a little frustrating given how last-minute the tournament itself was, on top of trying to get some extra benefit out of the trip.
But before I get to the trip, guess what? Jacob is done with school!
He finished up on Friday and is now home for the summer! I'll miss my quiet days at home with just Craig and me, but at least he mostly keeps himself occupied. Hard to believe 8th grade is just a few months away!
We left relatively early on Saturday so we could arrive at the tournament site on time. Of course, Jacob is notoriously difficult to get moving on weekend mornings, and this day was no exception. He spends forever in the bathroom (even if only 5-10 minutes is in the shower) and on this morning it was challenging because there were still some last-minute things that needed to be done or grabbed from there, so once again our trip did not start out on a good note, with us about 15 minutes behind schedule. But things got better. We picked up some time, only had to stop once for the bathroom, and it was pleasant weather and a pretty simple trip almost entirely on highways until the end. The tournament site was a community college with very nice facilities, and we got there right on time.
Jacob did really well in the first game, which they won by three. He scored 13 points, which was pretty close to his all-time high. We were very happy with his effort, and despite some frustrations with the rest of the team, it was nice to see them win. That game finished up around 1:30, and we headed out to grab some lunch in Ithaca and then go check into our hotel. On our way out of the parking lot, we saw this bit of randomness:
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| There were four wooden cutouts holding lanterns |
Turns out it was a memorial to four Civil War nurses from the area for whom the college has named a nursing scholarship. I was hoping for a few more fun photo ops on this trip, but sadly this was the only one. I have a plan, though...so stay tuned for later in the summer.
We decided to hit up Firehouse Subs, which Jacob discovered he liked when he played in Erie a while back, and we all very much enjoyed our subs. We can't wait to get one here in Rochester soon! Then it was off to our hotel. I booked it as a Hot Deal on Hotwire (my last-minute site of choice), and even managed to get a promo code that knocked a few more bucks off. I'm getting good at figuring out the Hot Deal hotels before I book--they don't tell you the hotel but give you hints--so it's always a little bit of a gamble, but my guess was correct. This one looked decent and was $15 cheaper than the other one I was eyeing up. It turned out that the hotel was a little weird--a series of four one-story buildings, with our building being extra tiny with maybe 12 rooms. On the outside it looked like a traditional old-school motel that should have had individual outside doors, but it had corridors like a hotel. It had an outdoor pool, but the hours were short so we never got to use it. Our room was unlike any we've ever seen. It had a high cathedral ceiling with windows up top!
It also had the narrowest garbage can I've ever seen (my 32 oz cup did not fit!), but it did have a nice half-wall in the bathroom hiding the toilet, so I'll give it points for that. The main reason I booked it was because I was able to get two beds and a pull-out couch for the same price as two beds, and after the debacle that was our last hotel experience, that sounded perfect. Craig and I could have a bed, Jacob could have a bed, and Carter could have the pull-out. The hotel definitely wasn't the best--cleanliness wasn't really where I like it to be, and I'm pretty understanding with that--but overall it was fine and the third bed was a huge score. So after stopping in there and relaxing for a bit, we headed back out.
We knew game two would be a tough one, and it was. The other team was full of big kids (it was a 13U bracket and those kids looked like they were pushing it--they were all at least 5'5" or taller, and had that older look), while Jacob's team has mostly 6th graders, most of whom have not hit their growth spurt yet. Most of his teammates are decent players at a glance, but they're overly emotional and can be selfish and inconsistent. One player is simply terrible but he's the coach's son and gets a ton of playing time. I estimated (and I think it held true) that he loses the ball 4 out of 5 times that he handles it--or at least that the next person he passes to loses it because he chose someone that was heavily covered. Add in coaches that tend to use negative methods of motivation (yelling and taking kids out of the game), and it's a pretty bad mix. They manage when they win, but it comes out clearly when they lose. Jacob only ended up with one three-pointer in that game because his team could barely handle the ball. Most passes were intercepted and a lot of shots got blocked. He didn't get the ball much as a result and was double covered when he did. But we knew that team would beat the team we beat, so we were pretty sure our path for the rest of the weekend was clear at that point. Back to the hotel we went to figure out dinner and how to manage Jacob's suddenly sore feet. For some reason his heels were really hurting him in his shoes, almost like the padding had given up the ghost, and we needed to figure something so he'd be comfortable enough to play the next day. We decided to head out to the Dick's in town and figure out if there were any shoes he could get there. That's about where things started to get crazy and then a bit weird.
We got to Dick's around 7:30, but the visit was short-lived as they didn't have what Jacob wanted and the clerk said, "I haven't received a shipment in over a year." We weren't sure what to make of that. Any shipment? An Adidas shipment? Do you never sell shoes then? Where did these all come from? It was so odd. Also, no one could suggest anywhere else in town to find basketball sneakers. I guess we're not in the big city anymore, eh? Well, back to the drawing board. We frantically worked through other scenarios. The only Foot Locker in Ithaca had closed permanently, and any other local long-shot options (not many) would likely be closing in 15 minutes. The next closest Foot Locker was a way's away and would probably be closed at 8pm, too. We briefly decided to drive up to Syracuse (an hour) to go to the giant Dick's there, but realized per the GPS we'd never make it in time for the 9pm closing--and keep in mind we hadn't had dinner yet, either. Also, timing would not work for a morning attempt. I was getting a little impatient with the desperation at this point--driving two hours round trip, not having eaten, and not even knowing what we could get just seemed like too much--and I basically said we should just go home because Jacob was insisting he could not play. Not our best moment, for sure. Plan C was to stop at Wegmans (thankfully around the corner) and get shoe inserts, which we did rather easily, and thankfully they seemed to get us through on Sunday.
Back in the van, we decided that Craig and Jacob wanted Chipotle (in the same plaza as Firehouse) and Carter and I wanted Taco Bell, which was conveniently across the street. I ordered Chipotle online as we drove, and ordered Taco Bell through the app during the five minute wait at Chipotle. We immediately went across the street to the Taco Bell drive-thru line. This was about 8:30. We pulled in to a long-ish line. A guy on a motorbike was right ahead of us, and while we waited, we noticed his interesting attire. He had a dark yellow jacket with matching shorts, and we could tell there was some sort of odd printed shirt under his jacket. Craig said it looked like he was wearing pajamas, and the print looked a bit...phallic. After a while we figured out they were colorful mushrooms. So, I guess we know what he does in his free time. As he got up to the ordering screen, at one point I saw “Order Canceled” pop up, but despite being on a motorbike, he stayed in line. Maybe he thought he couldn't get around the cars, or maybe he had more to discuss at the window. Regardless, the line took forever, and we spent most of it inventing stories about Mr. Mushroom Shirt and pondering how he might carry an order once he got it. When he got to the window, he showed the cashier something on his phone, and eventually drove away empty handed. Okay then.
When we pulled up, they said, “You ordered five waters?” Ummm, no. We reiterated our online order, waited, almost gagged at the repeated sight of the cashier's very hairy plumber's crack (horrible, just horrible), got our drink (which they had to sub due to an odd nationwide Mountain Dew Baja Blast shortage currently), waited some more, and then we were randomly handed a box that had been sitting on the counter since we pulled up, which definitely seemed sketchy. Sure enough, we pulled up about a foot before I looked in the box and realized there were multiple burritos and tacos, and our order should have had three tacos, cinnamon twists, and nachos. So we backed up, handed the box back, and watched some very confused workers once again look at the screen and figure things out. We waited again for much longer than it should take to make three tacos from scratch. We saw other orders come out to the counter, watched the cashier check his phone, and generally felt terrible for the people behind us. No updates or explanations, and barely any apologies. After being in line for a solid half hour, our food finally came out. And yes, it was the right order, though we ended up with an extra taco somehow. I don't even want to know. Oh, and if that wasn't weird enough, the motorbike guy was still sitting out in front of the restaurant when we left.
When we were in line (you know, when it was still light out—did I mention it was now after 9pm?), I had set our GPS to take us back through the Cornell University campus, since we realized on the way to Dick's that our hotel was really close to a different section of the campus. I figured that the detour would at least be more interesting. It seemed more ill-advised once we had rapidly cooling food in the car and it was getting dark, but we took that route anyway. It was actually fascinating, as we saw Greek houses (and gave Jacob a rundown of the pitfalls of Greek life), glimpsed a wonderful view over the gorge as the sun set, saw a waterfall, and drove through the heart of campus. It was much bigger than we expected, with such a wide variety of buildings—old and new. It definitely wasn't what I expected from an Ivy League school--not a lot of brick or ivy that we could see, but lots of modern buildings and public art. We eventually found the athletics corridor, with the basketball arena, hockey rink, and an entire building dedicated to wrestling, of all things. It was a really interesting drive, though I wish it would have been a bit lighter out. I'd love to walk it some day, because it looked like there was some funky art and some really cool buildings. Oh, and we also caught a glimpse of the “fun” district of the city along the way. But boy, were we happy to get back to the hotel and eat our very late dinner, which transitioned right into bedtime. And I'm happy to report that the three beds worked like a charm and we all slept significantly better than our previous trip.
On Sunday, if Jacob's team won game 1, they'd have another game at 3pm. After much debating, we finally worked out that win or lose we'd meet Heather and her crew at a famous local ice cream place at 1pm. Well, we had heard the prior day that the game was going to be at Ithaca High School, but then found out that morning that the game was actually a half hour away at Cortland High School. So we rushed from a quick morning stop for a bagel and medical tape to get there just on time. That complicated lunch slightly, but we figured we could make it work. The first game of the day was against the same team we beat the prior day, and it was another hard-fought game. Despite being without one of our bigs (he was the brother of another kid and played the first game the prior day, but had another tournament with his real team), we did just as well, in part because Jacob had FIVE three-pointers! He ended up with 17 points, a career high. It was so exciting to see him make all of those shots, and the aunt of one of his teammates was getting a huge kick out of his success, too! It is super fun to watch when he gets on a roll! His team won, which meant one more game later in the day. But first, ice cream and friends!
Jacob's coach specifically gave them the instruction "No sugar" during their postgame meeting, so it seemed like ice cream might not work. We were running 10 minutes behind, so I decided that Craig should drop off Carter and me, and we'd get ice cream, and he and Jacob would go get "real" lunch--which ended up once again being at Firehouse Subs! We met up with Heather, Peter, and Mason, and it was great to see them. My once tiny godson is getting SO big!! He's got chubby thighs and a big smile! I peeped a couple teeth, too! He was such a good boy while we sat and licked our ice cream endlessly to stop it from melting in the 90 degree heat! We didn't have a lot of time to catch up, but what time we had was really nice. Peter took this picture of the three of us...
And I attempted a few as well. I picked this one to share because you can see his pretty blue eyes and his sweet smile!
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| His poor cheeks have had a heck of a time with eczema, but are hopefully on the road to recovery. Having baby soft skin is hard! But he is still such a smiley, happy boy! |
After saying our farewells (and promising to get together over the summer), we headed back to the tournament's original venue for our last game. We knew it would be a rough one, against the same team that beat us the previous day, but it was even worse because one of our better players had aggravated an injury and sat out. That left us with a depleted lineup since we were already missing a couple kids that didn't make the trip, and the end result was a 30-point loss. Jacob had two three-pointers, but that was about all he could muster. The coaches were frustrating, one kid's dad yelled to the coaches to take him out because he was dogging it, and between mini-tantrums and injuries among the other players, it was a mess. But at least it was over.
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