Ginny and I took a short vacation this year, a brief jaunt to the near upstate that we have never visited. First stop was at Saratoga, the Revolutionary War battlefield where the British didn’t know they lost the war, but they did. A splendid victory by Horatio Gates, Daniel Morgan, Isaac Poor, the not-as-yet disgraced Benedict Arnold, a savvy Pole named Thaddeus Kosciuszko, and a bunch of other rebels over the charming, entertaining Johnny Burgoyne and his army of British grenadiers and German Hessians. Underbuilt and undesigned, at least by the standards of most Civil War sites, the battlefield could use investment. Saratoga was a complex battle fought in several actions over several days, principally October 7, 1777, and the park just doesn’t do justice to the complexity, or to the significance of the outcome. Still, we got some nice pictures. Above left, that’s me, in my family’s traditional pose with cannon, this time a British piece. 
Left, a marker to Kosciuszko; the Boot monument, which salutes Arnold but does not mention his name; Ginny rocks a grenadiers helmet.
After the battlefield, we headed to Saratoga Springs. With its Victorian mansions, charming race track, grand public spa and elegant park, Saratoga Springs is as beautiful a little town as one can imagine. We 
happened to arrive at the start of Travers Week, the biggest week in the track’s year, and presumably in the town’s as well. Everybody wa buzzy with the news that American Pharaoh would be running in the signature race. If we had any notions of staying for the contest, they were doused by the news that the event was already sold out, and that even spots at viewing parties in bars were getting scarce. We settled for a great dinner at Maestro’s, on the veranda of an grand old bank building on Broadway (above left), followed the next morning by a relaxing mineral bath at the vast Roosevelt Spa (top, right. Ginny at spa, center right; sign marking the home of Solomon Northrup, author and hero of Twelve Years A Slave.)
We then drove to Cooperstown, also a lovely town, though rather smaller, and far more parochial in its interests, than the artsy-horsesy-spasy Saratoga. We went for late afternoon cruise on the beautiful Otsego Lake, which is better known as Glimmerglass, the name 
James Fennimore Cooper gave it. After another very good meal at Mel’s 22, where I had a terrific burger with brie and avacado, we had an uncomfortable night in our small hotel room. The maitress d’ at the restaurant praised the town, but said it was “dead” in the winter. With a population of 3000 and the nearest movie theater 20 miles away, I completely believe her. On Wednesday we toured the Baseball Hall of Fame. I was underwhelmed. The place really needs to be modernized; there is far too much clothing and too little video. Then it was home. 
