The Catskill Chill

After getting the tire fixed last Monday, I headed north towards the Catskill Mountains to find a place to spend the week. On the way up there I passed a big building with the words Tibet Center on it, and after I had gotten a few miles down the road curiosity got the best of me and I turned around to check it out. The downstairs was a thrift store with lots of clothes and LOTS of books. I spent almost an hour going through all the books, and picked out over a dozen books and held them on the counter while I went upstairs to check it out. The upstairs had lots of pictures of the Tibetan kids and information on their plight and how to help. It made me really want to go spend a year helping out. More than any other group in need of help, the Tibetans are who I would go spend a year volunteering to help. When I go to climb Everest I will hopefully spend some time helping the refugees in India. After spending some time talking to the owner upstairs I headed back down to buy the books, and spent $5 on all those books. I got some Grisham, some Crichton, some Paul Christopher, and some other books. I then continued on to the Catskills and found a nice campsite to set up in and went to sleep after getting a nice fire going. Tuesday morning I woke up and hung around the campsite all day finishing Crichton's The Terminal Man and Andromeda Strain. There was a creek running right by my site and I laid on a log across the stream reading for much of the day. I also got in and rinsed off and got clean in the cold mountain water. I kept the fire going all day so that I wouldn't have to start a new one at night, and I sat around the fire reading well into the night before I went to sleep. The next morning I woke up and hung around camp for a while and met a new friend named Cory and we talked about Mountain Biking a lot and his father and him gave me some suggestions on where to go ride. After we talked a while I got ready to go on a hike. I decided to hike up to the spot called Giant Ledge to check it out, and the hike was almost entirely uphill. Along the way I saw many beautiful sights and at one point I followed a small stream and found some wild onions I gathered. I was looking for berries to pick, but all the raspberries and blueberries weren't quite ripe this high in the mountains. I found a spring coming out of a rock and drank from it, and the cool fresh mountain water was amazingly crisp and refreshing. Once I made it to the overlook I stopped to enjoy the view. The trees were hundreds of feet below me. I sat up there and made a few calls and read John Grisham's A Time To Kill. While up there I saw 6 different snakes, one of which almost slithered over my leg and gave me a start. While I was up there it started to rain a little bit, and since I was so exposed on the rocks, I decided to head back down the mountain where I could find a tree for cover if necessary. Once I had gotten a little ways down the mountain the rain stopped, and I had hardly gotten wet, it was just a little shower. I walked back down to my camp, stopping along the way to admire the scenery, and got back to camp a little after 5 and built the fire back up from the embers. I again read until I fell asleep. Next morning I woke up and began breaking down camp and talked with Cory for a while before heading out to head to Woodstock.
I spent most all day Thursday walking around exploring the town of Woodstock, NY. There were hippie shops all over the place and lots of sidewalk cafes. My favorite was a shop called Not Fade Away where I bought a poster. I found a nice little sidewalk cafe to stop and people watch at. I ordered an everything bagel with cream cheese and a beer and sat on the sidewalk for a long time just watching. Once it was time to leave I got directions to Bethel, the town where Woodstock Music Fest actually happened, and where Furthur starts their tour.
I got to Bethel after stopping at a walmart for food and drove through the venue to check it out before trying to find a place to stay. The local State Park didn't have camping, so I stopped at an old Head bar called Hector's and talked with them for a while. They wanted $20 a night to camp, and wouldn't let me bring my own beer, so I said I'd find somewhere else. I met some people there looking for a spot to camp too, and we became friends. They had picked up a black kid named JukeBox a few days earlier in NYC who wanted to get out of the lifestyle he was living and get away from the city. They had picked him up and offered to take him on tour, even though he had never heard of the Dead before. I talked with a local and he hopped in my car and took me to the Yasgur farm where the owner of the Woodstock land lived back in the day. We talked with to current owner, who was super nice and wanted to let us stay, but they got in trouble for letting people stay just a few weeks ago for Phish. The town was passing ordinances and such preventing people from camping. The town just wants that evil green money. Since they couldn't let us stay, they gave us directions to a guy who owns a junk yard and flea market where we might could stay. I led my new group of friends there and we set up camp on the top of the hill and met the owners and his whole family. They were super nice people and got us a campfire going and everything. We stayed up talking and drinking beer until it was gone, and then went to sleep. The next day I spent pretty much all day in my camper reading, and in the afternoon we went to see if we could check out the museum at the venue, but tickets were $15, or free with a show ticket the day of show, so we didn't go in. We went back to camp and chilled there all night.