Well it just so happens we live within driving distance of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and it just so happens that to get there we pass by Hyde Park, home (and Presidential Library) of Franklin D. Roosevelt. So we went!
[L: Roosevelt house, R: Baseball Hall of Fame]
Make no mistake, this was not just MY idea of a fun trip: Meg was also very excited by the idea of our learning-enrichment vacation celebration. See? Look how excited she is to be hanging out with the first class of Hall-of-Fame inductees in Cooperstown:
Meanwhile, Hyde Park was a lovely little town along the Hudson River, containing numerous estates for the 20th-century rich and famous. For instance, right down the street from FDR's house was a mansion belonging to the Vanderbilt family:
[The Vanderbilt dining room]
Hyde Park contains not only mansions but entire estates. For instance, here we are at FDR's estate, currently occupying 16 acres of landscaped fields. Below we are standing on FDR's quarter-mile-long driveway. Interesting fact: Roosevelt's legs were essentially non-functional due to his bout with polio, but he nevertheless, with the help of metal leg braces, managed to "walk" down this driveway (one time only). And here it is today, virtually unchanged nearly a century later:
