If it’s Monday it must be New England!

Wandering North America

by wrensrambles@gmail.com

It snowed last week.

Whilst the locals are well over their long cold winter,

for those of us visiting from Australia, this was exciting.

We don’t ever wake to snow on the ground in Melbourne!

There was not a humongous amount of snow,

no huge deluge that would stop us from getting places,

but a pretty amount, a light frosting

that made everything in New England look beautiful.

A chilly start to the day

We are in the States visiting my daughter on exchange at NYU and were driving to my Uncle and Aunt’s house in Litchfield, North Western Connecticut.
The town is a two and a half drive from New York City.
The drive was an experience for me at the wheel!

We wanted to show our son life out of New York city
We loved the quaint main streets and village greens
of the small towns along the way,
with the American Flags fluttering.
In each town we drove through we said
“wow – that’s pretty!”

We said that a lot!

The houses got bigger and bigger, as we drove through the scenic hills

and valleys there were more and more pretty churches and houses.

… and a few power lines!

We visited ‘The Lure of the Litchfield Hills,’

a newly opened exhibit at the Litchfield museum on Colonial Revival.

Litchfield is often described as the quintessential New England town,

and it was fascinating to learn more about the town

and the immaculate homes with white paint and black shutters.

These are not a product of the colonial era, but a late 19th and early 20th-century movement known as colonial revival.

We also went to the Tapping Reeve House and Law School

America’s first law school.

Hats off to the Litchfield Historical Society for both these wonderful museums.

The next day with the snow had gone, we called in at Woodstock,

the sleepy arty town close to where we were staying.

Famous for in the 1969’s refusing a permit for the Woodstock festival

Which is why the festival ended up at Bethel Woods…

Two of our children have ended up at Woodstock boarding school

in the foothills of the Himalayas, India

and so I was gathering material for a future Woodstock blog

Do you do this on holiday,

Plan your days out around potential blog posts?!

Woodstock, NY famous for lending its name to the Woodstock festival

We then drove nearly 60 miles
to the site of the actual Woodstock festival at Bethel Woods
for The Story of the 60’s museum.

A chance conversation over lunch with a couple of employees
and a remark that this was the most expensive tourist attraction
we’d been to, so it better be good,
led to a personal guided tour by Glenn
that will be one of the highlights of our entire trip!

The multimedia permanent exhibit includes 20 films, 5 interactive productions, text panels, and artifacts

Glenn was at the original festival as a food vendor,
although his job finished early after they ran out of food after a day and a half,
We loved hearing Glenn’s stories!
He brought the original festival to light
and explained to us about the upcoming season of concerts.

Thanks, Glenn – our visit turned out to be great value!

Downstairs we found an exhibit America Meets The Beatles!
A celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ arrival in the U.S. in 1964.

I liked the above photos of the Beatles going by train to Washington, as we were just rushing to catch the train to Washington ourselves!

Unfortunately, no one told us that getting back to New York was going to be a nightmare trip, DH missed the train!

New York in the distance – from the car park waiting to get through the Lincoln tunnel

So that was New England, next stop Washington DC!
I hope you have enjoyed joining me on my if it’s Monday it must be New England, a whistle-stop tour of America
I hope you can join me again soon to find out what Washington was like!

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