In which we go to Woodstock, NY!

Today was the day!

One quick pic before we leave....













We had absolutely perfect weather today and almost perfect road conditions. The drive up went quicker than expected, even if we did end up having to navigate that notorious traffic roundabout that Maddy got lost on trying to get to Delhi last year. However, since she actually had her GPS hooked up this time, we got through it no problem.

Although a friend of Maddy's had warned us, somewhat snarkily, that we'd never find a place to park, we found a municipal lot almost right away. We even had this dude out in the field nearby to watch the Rogue for us.

As you can see, we had perfect weather to just walk around and look.

This is right across the street from the muni lot.
















Me in the town square. I don't think Maddy's little Nikon does sunlight very well. That pic in the muni lot got pretty overexposed, too.












The square, again. I think I could live in this town. I think Maddy could, too. She's something between an eighties punk, a goth and a hippiechick. She'd fit right in.

 Tannery Brook....

You have to hit at least one totally touristy place when you go somewhere new - provided there is one, that is. This place was a blast. We found a larger version of that "Hippies Use Side Door" sign that Maddy has as a magnet among other things.

"Take another little piece of my heart..."

We both love Janis.

Love the phone box. Too bad it wasn't a TARDIS...

Just in case there was any doubt about where we were....

In case you're wondering, the famous three days of peace, love and music actually took place at nearby White Lake. The shop above had a milk bottle box from Yasgur's Farm,, but they didn't allow pictures in the shop.

Nevertheless, I think we were both thinking of stopping in here and asking about available properties. It's hard to explain, but the atmosphere here is so cool and laid-back, plus it's just gorgeous up here. I can see why John Ashton fell in love with it and left England for the Catskills.

The town square again. The next few shots are some random pics from around the town square.

There were a bunch of these around the town....



















We're not sure, but Maddy thinks this might have been the place John Ashton was talking about in Beautiful Chaos. Apparently he, along with Richard and Tim Butler headed out for a night on the town while they were recording Forever Now back in the eighties. (They were in nearby Bearsville, working with Todd Rundgren.) As John tells it, he woke up the next morning with no idea how he'd gotten back. Turned out it had started snowing big-time while they were at the bar, and they all got pretty hammered and well, John decided he was going to drive them back....luckily, someone they knew took over and drove instead, or they would have probably ended up in a snowdrift somewhere on Mink Hollow Road. (Maddy said that, for the record, she can think of several occasions when she had to drive home in a snowstorm and has no idea how she got back. Unlike John, she was sober at the time and actually remembers it, but still has no idea how she did it....)

*Maddy's note: it's not the sort of thing you forget - at least not without several years of therapy.*


Told you it was gorgeous...

Yes, we got a picture. No. I didn't get a Harley, darn it. But someday....













The drive back wasn't bad, as you can see - this is somewhere on the NYS Thruway (I-87.) At least, not until we had to go through Newburgh. Maddy said it's always a mess going through there, and today was no exception, with the left lane of the Newburgh-Beacon bridge closed. But all in all, it was a blast. (I'd say it was a great trip, but well - not that way... :)






Okay, I like this travel doll stuff.....

p.s. - Obviously, no, we didn't meet John Ashton. Oh well.....and no, we didn't find the bead shop, either. It's not there anymore. Still, a really cool trip. :)

In which tomorrow is the day!

Just a quick entry - Robin has a new dress, the camera is charged and, barring any unforeseen developments, Woodstock is a go for tomorrow!

Me: "So, are you psyched?"

Maddy: "Yeah, totally. Bead shopping...."

Me: "Maybe we'll meet John Ashton."

Maddy: "Will you stop?"

(I should note she picked out a majorly cute outfit for tomorrow, just in case...)

In which I learn about vinyl, Cheap Trick and science-fan-fiction epics....

"Hey, this song is awesome!" I looked around at Maddy. "Did you just download this?"

"Yeah. I have the CD - or I should - but I can't find it anywhere." Maddy looked around.

"Did it just come out?" The last CD she bought was a month or so ago, and that was Big Country's latest. (Which rocks, BTW. Check it out.)

"Oh Gawds, no. And that 1998 is for the CD. The album was recorded in 1978, I think. It was one of the first albums I ever bought."


"Was it the first?"

"No, that was the soundtrack to Grease. Which I still love. Did I ever show you what vinyl records look like?"

"No."

"Here's one." She found it and took it out. "This was how music used to come. Sounded good, but not very portable. Plus, records had a nasty tendency to 
get scratched and/or skip - sometimes right out of the sleeve. One album I had - Panorama, by the Cars - I had no idea it was skipping one whole line of the title track near the beginning of the song until years later when I got the CD. I think out of all the labels, Chrysalis was the worst. Any album I bought on that label was guaranteed to skip right out of the sleeve somewhere."

"They did have awesome covers, though. At least some of them did."

I looked. "Are those Harleys?"

"I have no idea." She gave me an odd look.

 "This was how you made your music portable back in the vinyl days. Tapes."

"This is one of the original Sony Walkmans, I used to sneak mine to school all the time along with a bunch of mix tapes. I had to carry a ginormous bag to keep it hidden, though. I wasn't supposed to have it with me. Nobody ever caught on, though."

"Then along came the CD...."

"And the MP3 player. I think I have almost six hundred songs on that and I still have room for more. I could never have done that with mix tapes. And now I can just download a song I like right away instead of waiting until I can get to the record store to find the album - if they even had it, that is. I can even Google an awesome song on a commercial and download it before the commercial's over. Very cool."






"How did you first hear these guys?" The album wasn't bad.

"On an old TV show called Pink Lady and Jeff. They had some really good bands on, That was where I first heard Blondie and Alice Cooper, too." She made a wry face. "Back then - I guess I was about eleven or so - I was pretty much convinced I was going to marry Robin Zander. Me and about a bazillion other girls..." She rolled her eyes at herself. "At the time I was also writing a very convoluted fanfic story about the band. Some kind of overwrought science fiction epic. At one point I think it had a plot somewhere, but I think I totally lost it about a chapter and a half in."

"What was the plot?"

"It was supposed to be something about the band getting magically transported to the year 4001 and finding out everything had been destroyed in a nuclear war and then traveling back through time to figure out what happened so they could stop it, but meeting me and some of my friends and we started traveling with them and then well - bye-bye plot. I think Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless made an appearance somewhere along the way and there were a bunch of talking winged cats and Robin becoming the High Priest of Rhythmic Noise....I think I was on a lot of Benedryl when I wrote most of it."

I somehow don't think it could have been that bad. It sound kind of weirdly cool. Surrealist fan fiction.....

In which - a quick update on the upcoming Tornado Relief auction....

Maddy here - the link is on the side as well, but I wanted to show everyone some of the items in the upcoming Hittygirls auction for Moore, OK.:

Moore, OK Tornado Relief Auction - Preview

Erin has put together some really awesome charity auctions in the past.

If you've been dreaming of a Hitty of your own, this is for a great cause.

In which we make plans for Woodstock!

Guess what! Maddy said she's planning on making the drive up to Woodstock next week! I am soooo psyched! (For the record, no, I don't expect to actually meet John Ashton up there, but I really want to see the place for real.)



I even have a new dress for the trip (no pun intended!) Maddy made it from the sundress pattern on Julie Old Crow's site, but made a tiered skirt instead of a one-piece. She said she used to have one a lot like it.
















While she was at it, she made Robin a new dress, too. I like the fabric, even if only the flowers are pink. I might ask for a dress out of it.

"You're really going up there?!" Emmaline sounded shocked.

"Yeah, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday," Maddy said. "Depends on how Monday goes." She has an appointment with a staffing agency Monday - they called her Friday and said that although the job she applied for was already filled, they still wanted to bring her onboard. She's happy. She knew the job was a bit of a stretch (she's worked in a lot of very different places, but not in a medical office, which
 

this job was) but she actually wanted to get her resume in front of someone at this particular agency.

"I didn't want to just drop it on them out of the blue," she explained. "But I've been waiting for an opportunity to get on their radar, so to speak. They're a really good agency."

"But isn't that dangerous, going up there like that? What are you going to do?" Emmaline said.

"I don't really know. Look around, take some pictures, check out a bead shop that's up there, just hang out, you know?" Maddy shrugged. She looked at me. "Sort of a mini-vacation, I guess. I don't know. I don't think I've ever taken one like that."

"Mini, you mean?" I said.

"No, a vacation. I mean, we went on "vacation" for two weeks every summer when I was a kid - same two weeks, same drive down the same roads, stopping at the same motels on the way to visit the same relatives in the same order for the same number of days each year. No stops along the way except for one year - my father wanted to see the rose gardens in Hershey, PA, so we stopped there for exactly one hour. That's all we saw - the rose gardens. Nothing else."

"Where were all your relatives?" I said.

"Arkansas. Jonesboro and Fisher. Not exactly the vacation capitals of the world. Although I do vividly remember spending some memorable nights in my grandmother's storm cellar thanks to the tornado sirens." She smiled wryly. "I also remember it being really, really flat. Like pancake flat. That was weird for me, coming from the foothills of the Taconics. Of course, one year, we got to watch news coverage of that big blackout in New York City with all the looting and everything. I think our power was out for awhile, too, because when we got back all the food in the freezer had defrosted and the few things left in the fridge were spoiled. That did not smell good..."

I admit that going the same place the same way every year doesn't sound like much of a vacation to me. "I don't know, Emmie, that doesn't sound like - where is she?"

I hoped it wasn't something I'd said....

~*~



"Shel, did Emmie come by here?"

"She was headed for the bedrooms," he said. "She looked kind of freaked out. Hey, nice outfit. Very sixties."

"Thanks." I glanced at the book. "What are you reading?"









I don't know. As much as Maddy loves him, I don't think she's going to go for the idea of converting her computer room/fabric storage room/walk-in closet/bead storage room into an iguana habitat.











~*~

"Why does it scare you so much?" I heard John-John saying.

"It's just that - well, we never did anything like that. I was always told that wanting to, you know, do things was too dangerous. It wasn't what good dolls did. So - I didn't." Emmaline sounded confused. "And now I'm finding out that I'm supposed to be adventurous and wanting to do things and all and - I don't know."

"But do you want to?" he said.

She thought about it. "I don't want to be like my parents were, afraid to do anything for fear of getting hurt."

"So start now," I said. "Come with us to Woodstock."

"I can't..."

"Who says?"

"Why not?" Maddy said. "You never go anywhere. It'll be fun."

She considered it. "I - okay..."

"Yaay! We're going to have so much fun!"

"Uh, Caroline - put me down...."

"Sorry...."


This trip is gonna rock!!!!

In which we talk music and camp....

*FLASH!*

Okay, that totally did not work. I guess selfies are out of the question when your arms are shorter than the camera.










We got what was left of that derecho this morning. Luckily, all that was left was a lot or rain. Unluckily, it decided to happen when Maddy decided to go out in it.












It would be really nice if we could send this to Colorado to put out all those wildfires.












~*~

Later....

"What's this?"

"Ash Grove Academy," Maddy said. "They have a series of classes for Hittys."

"Classes? Like boarding school?" I hoped she wasn't thinking of sending me away to school. I mean, I love to go new places and all, but not without my person....

"I was hoping they'd have something for Emmaline. Something to build poise and confidence. Like ballet or charm school - do they even still have charm schools?" She looked at me.

"I don't know." I think that was something like Isabella attended in our ancestor Hitty's autobiography,


"Do you think she'd be interested in learning to play a musical instrument?" Maddy said.

"I don't know." I looked around. "I'd like to learn to play guitar. Pinky offered to teach me."

"Cool. We'll get a guitar for you, then. I played for years but never did get really good at it. You'd think I'd have some musical talent other than making mix CDs," Maddy said.

I don't know. I think she has a pretty good voice, but that's just me.

Speaking of our ancestor Hitty, I think she'd be slightly jealous of the Woodlees' ability to bust a move.













"GANGNAM STYLE!"

"I don't think that's quite how it goes...."












Seriously, rock and roll fantasy camp sounds fun. Too bad they don't have one for Hittys....

In which it's a quiet evening....

"Okay, two problems. One, why is the Dali clock no longer working? It's still ticking..." Maddy was looking around. "And two, more importantly, what the heck did I do with those CDs I had in the car last..."

"These?" Aimee was looking under the towel Maddy was drying some recently washed makeup brushes on.

"Oh duh. Yes. Thank you..."

Meanwhile...

Shel: "What the heck?"

John-John: "I could think up some uses for that."

Shel: "You're too cute..."

*smooch*

Maddy: "Hey guys, don't tangle it up - hey, does this even have an end anywhere?"

John-John: "Infinite Rope."

Maddy: "Sounds like something Anthony Sullivan would be pitching on TV."

Me: "Okay, what the heck kind of color is this?"

Maddy: "Green."

I don't know sometimes.....










By the way, I think the rope is to cover wire with. And as for what John-John was thinking, well - I'm not going there....