After being on the New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts coast, it was time to head back to the mountains.  And I mean that in the plural sense.  We are headed to the Berkshires, the Catskills, and the Adirondacks.  

A comment is needed here to say that we did not have the scenic overlooks (and therefore, not the photos) along the routes through these mountains that we had in previous blogs.  We seemed to be in the valley vs on the crests that we had in the Smokeys and the Blue Ridge Pkwy.  That is not to say the drive was not beautiful.  There were lots of streams, rivers and lakes as well that made the drives enjoyable.

From the Cape on the east end of Massachusetts, we set our sights on the west end of the state near the town of Stockbridge in the Berkshires.  We had one place in mind to visit there but found so much more. 

We had decided in the beginning of the trip that we wanted to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.  Some prior history, if you remember, we visited Janet Speers in Banner Elk back in July.  She is the director of the Lees-McRae Summer Theater and two years ago, she wrote a musical about the life of Norman Rockwell.  We visited her that summer specifically to see the production and became enthralled with the idea of visiting his museum during our RV trip.  

So, we had a long day driving the 170 miles across the state to reach the mountains around Stockbridge and a small campground called Fernwood Forest in Hinsdale.  It was nestled in the woods as the name implies and we got settled in. Everything in the area seemed to have Berkshires in its name (except our RV park).  We hadn’t realized that the museum was in the Berkshires so we were happy to add seeing the area to our trip.  It is truly a beautiful region and a getaway from the city.

We had tickets to see the museum the next day and arrived easily.  The art and history in the museum traced Rockwell’s talents and skills, and his recognition as America’s most famous illustrator.  The museum included all 331of his famous covers of the Saturday Evening Post magazine starting in 1916.  It went on to cover his contributions to WW II war bond fund raising and his conflict with the Post over his ideas of freedom of speech. They have several examples of his drawing process from concept, to charcoal sketch, to full size painting, to magazine covers or interior spreads.  I could go on about the overall presentation, but you get the idea.  What we did find fascinating is how pertinent his work still is today.  He moved to Stockbridge later and spent the last 25 years of his life working there. 

After the Rockwell Museum, we made a quick stop at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens.  We were able to use our membership to the Garvin Gardens in Hot Springs, AR to get in on their reciprocal program.  Gail had found a new plant at our campground and was happy to see it also in the garden.  It is a Spider Flower, now one of her favorites!

The town is also famous in another more subtle way as the location of the deconsecrated church where Alice Brock had her Thanksgiving dinner party, and that Arlo Guthrie helped cleanup afterward.  As the story goes, he couldn’t get into the city dump because of the holiday and decided to place his trash with others outside the dump which led to his troubles with the law, and eventually the draft board, …!  We all know the story of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”.  The church is not there anymore, and the restaurant is closed but the story lives on.

We left Stockbridge the next day heading north for 180 miles to another mountain area called the Catskills and the famous town of Bethel, New York.  Our campground was called Happy Days and there were only 2 other campers there.  It was very quiet.   Even deer coming near the RV.  But there was an ulterior motive for the location.

Some of you may not know that Bethel is where the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was held in 1969.  It was called Woodstock by the organizers since several lived in Woodstock, NY and that is where many popular musicians lived at the time.  And it gave the event an outdoorsy name and added charm!  But it was never planned to be in Woodstock.  It was originally planned to be in Wallkill, NY closer to the City until the local people objected.  We know that Max Yasgur stepped in to offer his farm in Bethel (or actually in White Lake, NY) for the event with little time to spare and get ready.

Again, we all know of the concert, but the museum tells the history, and the grounds are still “sacred” today.   It was originally called “an Aquarian Art and Music Festival”.  Did you know there was also an art show there?  We took a guided tour (with only 2 other people) of the new, modern concert facilities including going on stage and seeing the backstage rooms and operations. 

Then we went on to the Woodstock field which is maintained today as a sloping ground down the road where the original stage was set up.  Amazing to think that “there were half a million strong” (as the Joni Mitchell (and later CSN&Y) song states) and the conditions that they endured to see the concert were highlighted by the press.  Some of the acts had to play in the dark and the rain, and by the time Jimmy Hendricks got on stage, it was actually Monday morning and many of the attendees had already headed home. We spent 7 hours going through the museum and grounds!  It’s well worth a trip.

And as an extra treat, we saw a small bear, a couple of deer and some wild turkeys on the drive back from the museum!

 The town of Bethel and the surrounding towns are still full of the Peace, Love, and Music theme of the Woodstock era.  To commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the concert in 2019, the county placed 60 dove sculptures around the area with each one painted with artistic scenes of the event.  We drove around the Bethel area and found about 6 of the 60, including the one at Happy Days. 

And for our last mountain venue, we drove another 180 miles through the Catskills up to the Adirondacks and the town of Lake George located on Lake George.  This was going to be mainly a stopover on the way to Vermont and we got campground reservation for free using our Thousand Trails membership.  It was a busy place and very big.  But also located in the woods along Schroon River just on the outskirts of the lake area.  We got laundry done and a good night’s sleep after the long drive.

It was highly recommended that we do not leave Lake George until we had gone to the top of Prospect Mountain to see the view of the lake and surrounding mountains.  And as promised, the view was very good even with some hazy clouds.  But back in town, it was a very busy tourist location with lots of traffic, hotels, shops, and activities.  We had a great NY style pizza at a small shop and walked around a bit to actually see the lake before going back to the park.

Tomorrow, we head to Vermont.