Year 10 Day 3

In August 1969 some young kids with too much money put together a plan to have a music festival. They got some musicians to agree and found a good spot. The venue was later moved to the tiny farming town of Bethel, NY off highway 17. Driving in you will see rolling hills and cattle; barns and small white farm houses dot the land. In 1969 450,000 young people made the trek from all over the US to this tiny town. The roads soon became blocked and cars were left where they were and they flocked to the ranch for the festival we know as Woodstock. Its a beautiful place now with rolling hills of grass and white tents set up for parties and events, but the vibe is still floating around in the air. It was a weekend of peace and love and music. It rained; rained like crazy and turned the ground into a mud pit. Musicians played non stop. Janis Joplin, CCR, Jimi Hendrix, and so many more. They played in the dark when the lights weren't working. They played while it poured rain and the sky threw lightning down. Volunteers brought in food and medical supplies. They expected 100,000; 450,000 came.
The museum told the story of the times and gave a real life experience of being at Woodstock. We walked down to where the stage once stood and looked out at the hills that would have held all those "hippies". A butterfly floated above our head while we looked down at the peace sign cut into the grass hill. We heard "old hippies" and "the security people" also visiting telling stories of what they saw when they were there. What a beautiful experience. Becca was at home here.

They wouldnt let us sleep on the lawn, so we headed south toward Philadelphia, which was our next stop for the day. The roads took us through the Delaware state forest in Pennsylvania (not sure why its called that) that was lined with hardwood trees just starting to turn a variety of yellows and reds. Green grass right up to the sides of the road and grey skies made us feel fall in the air.

Ill be honest, we planned to be in Philadelphia much earlier in the day. We were going to do the 3 mile walk around downtown and see all the history stuff like Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. We probably spent too much time at Woodstock, but the freeway into Philadelphia also had other plans for us. Slow, slow, slow. Plugging along at 5 miles an hour my GPS piped up and suggested an alternate route to save 5 minutes. Well..we decided why not. GPS's aren't always smart. We had to fight our way out into traffic at a stop sign and through a light before the road opened up. We thought we were so smart; we outsmarted all those people! That is until we came to a gate across our route. Completely blocked by a giant yellow gate. So we are about to turn around and go back into the bees nest we just left when we see a car go up on the sidewalk and around the gate. Mom says, "it says to us the path if the gate is shut." I didn't skip a beat. Drove to the sidewalk, jumped the lip and drove between the trees and grass around the gate. Everyone was laughing so hard! As we looked back about 8 or more cars were following me. HAHAHAH.

Finally made it to the city and took a walk into downtown. We saw a lot of the historical buildings, all now closed of course but we read the plaques and looked around. Not what we planned, but still neat to see them from outside. We ate dinner in a Mexican restaurant that was so loud we had to yell at one another across the table. Our room overlooks the Benjamin Franklin bridge that lights up really pretty at night. We will call this another successful day!