Elan, Saratoga seemed close to Cooperstown when my wife and I drove through the former to the latter back in the 70's. An old man's memories playing tricks, I guess. We went to Cooperstown as part of one of the most delightful vacations we have ever taken. We were young and poor. We lived in Detroit (really in Detroit, not the suburbs). I was teaching at the University of Detroit (what was a nice Jewish boy like me doing teaching at a Jesuit college?) and I had just received my doctorate, so we decided to take a 2-week vacation to celebrate.

Started by driving to Toronto, then on to your town, Montreal, and finally to Quebec City. Aside from the beauty and historical interest of Montreal and Quebec, the thing I most remember is the unwillingness of anyone in the latter place to help with anything that needed a translation from French to English. It took us 2 hours to find a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine that we had bought. I'm sure almost everyone knew what I was asking for, but all I got was that annoying Gallic shrug. It was the wonderful radical 70's and the Parti Quebecois was just starting its thing and that included being as nasty as possible to tourists. On the other hand, pretty much everyone in Montreal was terrific.

From Canada it was on to upstate New York, including Cooperstown, then on to Niagara Falls and finally back to Detroit. I've done a large amount of traveling since then, but that was one of the more special trips.