Two old hippies finally find their way to Woodstock

Woodstock: Where were you in August, 1969?
Frank: Raising two kids in Sterling, VA.
Cheryl: Just had third child in Ft. Wayne, IN.

Frank: On Thursday, July 21st, 2011, we finally made it to Woodstock, a whole community living off the memory of a three-day high in a big field 42 years ago. An interesting little town whose only problem is no one sells any cheap, Chinese made, tourist junk. All they have is really expensive, exotic,fancy, American made tourist junk. We were looking for a “been there” pin and all we could find were hand-crafted, beautiful, sophisticated, yuppie-puppy, bohemian, flower-children, hippy-dippy, arty stuff. I finally found a little Woodstock coin in an art shop (a hand-crafted Woodstock coin of course) which I have put on our "been there" board in the trailer. Cheryl’s been collecting pictures of beautiful churches of which there are lots everywhere. We tried to get some photos, but the lighting was all wrong. We’ll see if they’re worth publishing.

Cheryl: We stopped in Woodstock at what we thought was a small curio shop that had great parking right outside the door. It turned out to be a lovely art shop selling amazingly beautiful things. (Frank: Expensive.) I indulged myself and bought a pair of expensive earrings made by an artist who lives in Woodstock. They’re made from Liberty dimes, and I really like them. (Frank: They’re not really Liberty dimes.)

We were really on our way to Phoenicia to see the world’s largest kaleidoscope when we discovered Woodstock. This kaleidoscope is housed in a very tall silo and to view the kaleidoscope show you pay $5 (Frank: Out-freaking-rageous) and either lean up against these weird things with headrests or lie on the floor to make looking up easier. We opted to lie on the floor (Frank: In the soil from ten-thousand other tourist’s shoes) to see the show since we had the little round room all to ourselves. We both decided that the kaleidoscope show consisted of projections rather than actual functioning, revolving kaleidoscope action. Oh well, it was an interesting exercise lying on the floor of the tiny round room in the dark with my husband’s head on my tummy while chuckling over the various colorful configurations displayed above us. (Frank: The music was good, though.) Quite a picture of the old folks, heh? At least we had a nice rest before resuming our explorations of the little shop attached to the silo where the proprietors were selling very expensive kaleidoscopes of all shapes, sizes and configurations.

Back at the rally site, we ate dinner in the resort’s dining room where we watched (Frank: Other) bikers accept their awards from the bike show (Frank: Of which I didn’t win any.) That said, you never know who you might run into at a gathering of 400 bikers. We sat across from an interesting lady who lives in Manhattan in a loft apartment close to the spot where the movie Ghost was filmed. She moved to New York years ago with her artist husband and was glad to move into the loft rather than one of the tiny apartments occupied by most people who live in the city. This was her first motorcycle rally ever, and she was there with a friend who owns a Norton. She said she’s retired from the corporate world, so I asked her if she planned to stay in New York and surprisingly she said she would really like to move to New Mexico in a couple of years. She had visited her grandmother there and fell in love with the Southwest. Well, who wouldn’t!

When we leave here on Saturday we’ll head for cooler climes if we can find any in Maine where we want to snag a “been there” pin and then drop down to visit a friend in New Hampshire and maybe take a run through Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts while we’re at it. If we do that we can say we’ve been in every state of the US except Alaska. I know we’re nuts, but we’re happy that way.

Peace and Love,
John, Yoko, Ringo, and Paulette