Bethel Woods Adventure – Oct 2025

The Woodstock Festival happened in 1969 – it was originally supposed to be held in Woodstock, NY – hence the name. But, when the town realized how HUGE it was going to be, they told the organizers that they either had to cancel or find another location. Local farmer Max Yasgur of nearby Bethel, NY stepped up at nearly the last minute and offered his farm….and the rest is history!!! Despite being a budding hippy, at age 13 I was too young to make the pilgrimage to Bethel for the festival…. 😦 I often thought over the years that I missed out on something truly special! So….for my 69th birthday, I finally made it to the 1969 festival site!

My friend, Cathy, and I drove down on Wednesday, spent the day at exploring the site on Thursday, and drove back on Friday (which was my actual birthday). It was a short trip, but we got to do all the basics and had a GREAT time! I originally thought it’d be a type of place that once I’ve done it, I likely wouldn’t return….but, I honestly do think I’ll go back someday. Mainly because we went in late October, so it was pretty cold, and the grounds close as of October 1st, so we missed out on going out onto the festival grounds, which would have been really cool. I picked October to go for two reasons – first I specifically wanted to go for my 69th birthday AND because it was autumn – a great time to go to the Catskills! But, the timing had it’s downfalls….So…..yep – I think I just might try to go back again in warmer weather and experience even more of it all.

The adventure began on Wednesday with the drive down…..I wanted to go via routes 5/20 to take the scenic route – my GPS had a different route in mind. So, we tricked it into going my way — after we got far enough away from the route it wanted me to take, it got the message and we were easily on our way.

Our first stop was breakfast in Canandaigua – about an hour and a half into the drive. We ate at Patty’s Place and had a very nice breakfast.

The county courthouse in Canandaigua has a golden statue on the top of their dome…..it was cool….wish I had gotten a better photo of it.

We drove through lots of quaint little towns and enjoyed the scenery……then, when we took a short detour to drive through Chittenango, my GPS stopped talking to me…..and kept trying to get us to go backwards! What we figured must have happened was that, since it stopped talking to me, we missed a turn just before Cazenovia and it kept “recalculating” and we didn’t notice! But — it all worked out — we had a small map I printed off the internet of an alternate route and we figured it out and got there…..a little later than planned, but we had quite the adventure getting there! (more on my GPS woes at the end of the post)

We checked into the hotel we booked — Best Western in Monticello, NY, which is about 10 miles from Bethel. It was very nice — price was good and the room was comfortable and clean! They put us on the ground floor just around the corner from the lobby and breakfast area. Nice and convenient.

After check-in, we went a couple buildings away to Tilly’s Diner for dinner. It was a 50’s style diner and the food was good — but WAY too much of it! The chicken sandwich and fries Cathy got could have served a small country! I had a breakfast sandwich and home fries – a much smaller portion, but still way more than I could eat. It didn’t take long to fall asleep when we got back to the room!

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we headed out to begin our Woodstock adventure!

The Bethel Woods Center of the Arts is a non-profit organization that maintains the museum and grounds. They still hold concerts there and have many concerts and other events throughout the year. I knew the museum had several exhibits commemorating both the Woodstock Festival AND other events throughout the sixties, but I was under the impression it was a small – medium sized venue – I was very pleasantly surprised at the size of it! We spent a little over two and a half hours going through the exhibits, watching videos, and listening to amazing music. It was FABULOUS!!! So emotional to walk through that particular period of history…we both had tears during a large portion of the time spent there!

Our first impression was the long drive off Rt 17b to the center. It was a beautiful wooded lane…..and a sign directing drivers to “Please drive peacefully”!!! That was definitely the theme of the rest of the day — Peace and Love!

The Woodstock logo was a guitar with a dove. All over the area were these doves that were hand painted by local artists. we saw several of them, but I only photographed this one on the center property.

The photo on the right is one of six sculptures around the property – a special exhibit using nature and technology to create timeless representations of the human form. They were created by a local artist named Wayner Holbert and are made from Catskill Bluestone – a material that can only be found in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New York and is the bedrock that Bethel Woods is built on.

We loved this window decal message – “Meet Me At Woodstock” with the logo. We hoped to find something with that message on it in the gift store, but they didn’t have anything!!! 😦

The lobby has a ticket counter, a nice cafe, and entrance to the museum and the gift shop.

So many wonderful quotes from the era….this one and the next one were particularly striking to us!

These photos were just a small representation of all the amazing exhibits, videos, and sound bites throughout the museum…..it really was an incredible experience and we probably missed reading or seeing something!!!

After we left the museum we went to the gift shop — I planned to get a refrigerator magnate and “maybe” a t-shirt or sweatshirt…..I left with $113 spent on a hat, t-shirt, and three refrigerator magnates!!! All worth every penny….I only wish I hadn’t talked myself out of looking for a piece of wall art to go with my Beatles wall in my den!!!

Our next goal was to find the “Hippy Muffler Man” – I often will look at the Roadside America website to find quirky things to look for on trips that I have flexibility to get out and explore — you know, the “world’s largest ball of yarn” type things. Well, when I looked for stuff in the Bethel area, the Hippy Muffler Man came up! Muffler Men are found all over the country in various forms and people hunt for them to see how many they can find. Well…..I didn’t know anything about them before this, so this one is the only one I have ever seen. Hahaha The website only said that it was on 17b west of Bethel on the north side before the Island Glen Country Club….it said it is on private property – the Yasgur’s Farm, so access is prohibited without owner’s permission, but is visible from the road. We caught sight of it as we drove past it just past a bunch of trees, so we turned around and went back and were able to get a fairly decent photo.

Then, we went to get a late lunch. A friend who goes down every year told me to be sure to have either breakfast or lunch at the Bethel Market Café. It was just down the road, so we gave it a try. It’s a cute little market that is owned by a mother/daughter team – Tara and Courtney. They sell family made crafts and other local and novelty items in addition to their café — breakfast items, soups, salads, and sandwiches….and baked goods they make fresh daily! Very sweet little place! I had a delicious bowl of split pea soup and a grilled chicken wrap with a coke in an old fashioned bottle — very good!!! We both got some baked goods to take back to the hotel — the pumpkin cranberry bread I bought ended up not getting eaten until I got home on Friday evening and it was still moist and soooooo good!!!

When we were paying for our lunch and baked goods, I noticed a man sitting at a table and thought it might be someone my other friend – Peggy – who goes often told me about. He was talking to someone, so I apologized for interrupting and asked if he was “Duke”. He was, so I told him about Peggy telling me to look for him — he perked up said how special he thinks Peggy is! I asked for a photo and he very happily said yes — we had a nice little chat. It would have been nice to sit down and talk with him. He’s a local legend — Duke Devlin – he came to Bethel from Texas in 1969 as a young hippy to attend the festival and never left…..he said, why leave, it’s not over, yet!!! hahaha Now, he is an ambassador for Woodstock and the center and does motivational talks and tours and stuff like that. He was so sweet!!! I hope I get to see him again if I go back!!!

After lunch we took a drive through downtown Monticello — nice little town! If I go back, I might spend some time exploring the shops and stuff there! Then, we went back to the hotel to put our feet up and relax before dinner and our evening activity.

When we were driving on 17b between Monticello and Bethel, we noticed a little restaurant called “The Woodstock Way Groovy Eatery”! It looked and sounded cute, so while we were relaxing at the hotel, we Googled it and decided to try it for dinner. We weren’t that hungry after lunch, so we opted for a light dinner — Cathy just got a bowl of beef barley soup and I got the same soup with a soft pretzel. A nice dinner. They were setting up for karaoke and it looked like fun, but we had tickets to an event back at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, so we couldn’t stay. There was only one other couple there for dinner, but when we drove by later, it looked like they had a nice size crowd for karaoke!!! The inside was cute, but out back there was a beautiful view of the woods and a stream…..they have outdoor seating and I can imagine that it would be so nice to eat out there in warmer weather to enjoy the view!

We had tickets to the evening event at the Bethel Center for the Arts — “Peace, Love, and Pumpkins”! It is about a 30-45 minute paved walk through the gardens on the property that is all decorated for Halloween and is open certain evenings each week during October. It was very nice — lots of work went into it, for sure!!! It was a cold night, but walking helped make it not feel as cold and it didn’t rain despite the forecast predicting it would! So it was a nice walk – happy to have a few places to sit and catch our breath and give our legs a rest, though…..it was a long walk. We really enjoyed it, though…..cool creations all along the path!

This bus was full of skeleton passengers…..I took the photo with my iPhone and if I had used a fancy camera and tried to get a “foggy” effect, I couldn’t have gotten a better result!!! 🙂

This is about 400 carved and lit pumpkins placed around the stadium seats facing the concert stage – the pumpkins were carved by the center staff. It’s not a good photo, but it was really quite pretty in person!!!

At the end of the path was a cute skeleton band performing for the crowd!!! So fun!

Our Bethel adventure came to an end……we got up Friday morning, had breakfast in the hotel and took our time getting on the road. We didn’t want to take the route the GPS wanted us to, so we “tricked” it again to go the way we wanted and it was a very nice ride with pretty scenery through the countryside of the southern tier. We stopped for a late lunch at the Oak Leaf Café in Penn Yan —- it was an Amish market with a café that served sandwiches, soups, and salads…..Cathy got a panini and I got the special butternut squash soup and 1/2 a BLT —- WOW – that soup was the best thing I ate the entire trip…..and the best I’ve had in a LONG time!!! sooooo good!!!

So – that’s that! We got home safe and sound and totally exhausted! It was an awesome three days exploring and checking stuff off my bucket list and spending time with a dear friend…..so nice to share experiences like this with her. Even the times we got “off track” were fun and took us places we’d never been before and saw things we wouldn’t have seen if we had stayed on the planned route! Who could argue with that???

So — about my GPS woes……I was frustrated that it stopped talking to me — what’s the point if you have to constantly look at the screen to follow the directions??? I tried a few things to get it working again – logged off and back on…..shut down my phone and turned it back on…..checked all the settings – everything was set the way it should be……checked other functions that talk and they were working perfectly fine!!! Could not figure out what was wrong and why it worked and then didn’t work and never came back!!! So, Saturday morning, I Googled “why my maps app stopped talking” and it told me to do all the things I already did — so, I did them again and they still didn’t solve the problem! Then, just as I was about to give up and drive to Rochester to the AT&T store to see if they could figure it out, I noticed a small speaker icon on the side and clicked on it and it was turned off!!! UGH!!! I turned it back on and it is now working perfectly!!! I must have accidentally hit it at some point when I was adding a stop to the route just before it stopped talking! I can’t believe it was that simple and that we used it for most of the trip without the audio directions!!! LOL But — we made it work and all was fine…..just a little frustrating.

I’m so glad we planned this birthday adventure and that Cathy went with me…..I will cherish the memories of this trip for a very long time! I’ve kicked off my 69th run around the sun in a wonderful way!!!