Catskills, NY







On our first day into the Catskills (everything around here is call something-kills), we thought that we might drive to Woodstock, NY to see the site of the famous Woodstock music festival.  After a few minutes of Ipad research, I quickly learned that the event did not take place anywhere near Woodstock, but rather Bethel, NY which is an hour away.  We pointed the RV in that direction and off we went.  We also learned that the music festival took place exactly 42 years to the day...August 15.  Up until 2000, the site remained a dairy farm operated by the son of the owner that hosted the original Woodstock festival, and visitors to the famous site were not much welcomed.  Thousands of people had been turned away each year until someone finally had the brilliant idea to buy up all the land and create a museum, visitors center and concert venue.  The original 600 acre farm is now a 1400 acre concert amphitheater with a broad spectrum summer line up (Elton John on my birthday weekend was already sold out).  The museum was very well put together and well worth the trek.  We both really enjoyed it as it explained the political complications of the time, history of the evolution of music and gave you a very thorough feel of what that 4 day experience was like for many attending. 

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers!

As we left the Woodstock site, we cruised around the back side and saw a fenced in complex of run down and trashy looking bungalows just behind the property and thought it to be vary odd and curious.  It looked like housing for a logging company town turned into project housing.  As we passed through the small towns making our way north, we saw more and more of these complexes, all very  dirty, cluttered and run down.  Eventually we made our weekly Wal-Mart stop and found ourselves teleported into Tel Aviv.  The Wal-Mart was literally 90+ percent orthodox Jews, and come to find out that all the bungalow complexes were Jewish "resorts," and that particular region of the Catskills was famous for its summer get-aways for the New York City orthodox jewish community.  It was culture shock to the extreme.  Hardly anyone speaking in English and people crowding the aisles without much regard for normal Western courtesies commonly experienced in Eastern regions of the world.  We left the Catskills and entered into the Hudson River Valley region where we stayed at a nondescript RV park and endured yet a 3rd full day of non-stop rain.