Woodstock: The Town, Not the Concert

I have a thing for white Victorian Era farm houses with wrap around porches. I especially like them when they are in wet, green climates, usually with a pond and an old barn near by. Now you might think, sure, those houses are nice. Well no, I have a THING for them. Ask Elijah. Every time I point at a house and say "I would live there." It's a white Victorian Era farm house with a wrap around porch. So when I was fantasizing about finding a new place to live a couple years back, I started hunting for real estate around the country on a whim, to see what was out there. One of the places that caught my eye in a big way was the area between the Hudson River and the Catskills, right where the town of Woodstock, NY is located. So since we were heading back from Vermont Elijah and I decided to spend a couple of days near Woodstock and check it out. What we discovered is that all the things we like about Woodstock seem equally true of Oregon. Just as the Hudson River reminded us of the Columbia River, Woodstock was kind of like Ashland, OR without the theater. It's good to be confirmed in our choice of next destinations. To it's credit, Woodstock and the surrounding area is charming. The woods are beautiful.

The campground where we stayed was a classic Catskill campground.

The town itself is very cute and boasts a lot of very good restaurants. The first night out we went to a place called Joshua's for dinner. The next day we ate lunch at Oriole9 and dinner at a lovely little restaurant closer to Saugerties called The Red Onion.

Eli led the way in being frustrated with me.

He modeled behavior that the other two quickly picked up.

I had a great time wandering around the little main street with the kids waiting for Elijah to get through his meetings and meet us for lunch. We walked into stores, bought chocolate and scoped out the best place for lunch. The kids were not as interested in the town as they were in the toy store. Mostly they were mad at me for making them wander around the whole town before going to the little toy store they had spied when we first drove in to town called Tinker Toys Too.

There were all sorts of tourist kinds of things that played up the false connection to the Woodstock concert.

Izzy was excited to see the references to Bob Dylan.

We stopped and laid down in the grass in front of the local library.

They finally got to buy some toys just as Dad was ready to meet us for lunch.

The restaurant was really comfortable and homey.

One of the fun things we bought at the toy store.

I would have liked to go for a hike in the Catskill mountains, sadly that was not to be, but all in all I enjoyed the area.

The playground at the campground was right near our camp site. The boys played there most of the afternoon after we got back from town. Elijah did meetings and I worked on our blog.

I would definitely come back sometime, especially if someone were to invite me to stay at their white Victorian Era farm house with wrap around porch and fully functioning art studio right next to the pond, just sayin'.