Rhinebeck Rhecap, Part 1:

Maaike and I drove down to Woodstock in the afternoon of the Thursday before the festival.  We left early because Maaike was registered for a class on Friday on spinning exotic fibers.  That meant one thing- I had a day to myself to roam free in Woodstock!

Our inn was right in the heart of the Woodstock village, and it was amazing.  To a tourist, at least, it feels like an artist’s community right in the middle of a forest, complete with bubbling stream and rushing waterfall.  I LOVED it.

To save money we took a room with a shared hall bath.  Our room was lovely, quaint and welcoming.  My favorite part of the room was the top drawer of the dresser which held journals that had been filled in by previous occupants of the room.  It was so sweet to look through the memories that other people had made in that same spot.

After meeting a few other guests at our inn who were also there for Rhinebeck, I went out for my walk.  Unfortunately it was clear that almost nothing would be open for another hour or two so I took advantage of the time to grab some breakfast at the Oriole9, a restaurant that had free wifi.  (Our inn did offer a continental breakfast, but my tastebuds have been majorly screwed up since the tonsillectomy, and I can’t really eat much.  Sweets, dairy and the like taste the worst, and the continental breakfast was muffins, fruit and yogurt…so that was out).

I’m not posting all the photos here, but there was so much to see and photograph in Woodstock.

Everywhere you’d look you’d find tie dye, peace signs and other “typical Woodstock” trappings.  You’d think it would get overdone or theatrical after a while- but it never did.  It just seemed to make sense.

Across the street from our inn was one especially colorful shop:

The black figures in the center of the photo are 2 life-sized Blues Brothers sculptures, posed reclining in patio chairs.

After setting out for my walk I passed two stores then the street meandered over a bridge.  I looked down to see a beautiful rushing stream, and then a few more stores later I followed an alleyway to suddenly come across this waterfal feeding the stream.  It was just perfect.

I forgot I can’t rotate photos in WordPress…so let’s just all hold our heads to the right, m’kay?  🙂  In the heart of the main street was a little community center that had some colorful sculptures around.  This blue park bench had hearts on either side with this peace symbol and hand in the center.  It was just the thing to hold my Rhinebeck Travelling WIP (which was finished 2 days after we got back- more on it later).

As if it weren’t enough to randomly come across streams and sculptures, there was also “found art” everywhere, like a peace sign drawn into the sidewalk concrete, or another peace sign made out of broken bits of motherboards and little round stones found on a garden ledge.  Along the way I also found this guitar carved into someone’s fence.

When I left Oriole9 I went over to the Tea Shop hoping to find some of the same tea I’d had with my breakfast.  They didn’t have it, but I did buy sample sizes of 6 other flavors; the Cream Earl Gray has since become my new favorite.

I didn’t buy much else during my walk- just a polished gemstone to add to my collection, and these two VW vans for the boys:

That evening Maaike and I met up after her class and headed down for an amazing dinner at The Red Onion.  (It must have been good if I enjoyed it even with my silly tastebuds).  It was a beautiful steakhouse with low candle light and black & white photographs of nude women on the walls.  (Those two things don’t seem to go together, but it was very tasteful…no pun intended!)

We finished our night back at the inn, knitting in the lounge with the other Rhinebeck women there.

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Getting back to the present, it’s been more of the same around here.  Every night I’ve been working on getting my pattern ready for publication.  It’s getting close…I have hopes to maybe mail it off on Monday.

I spent the day home with Henri who seems to be fighting a gastro.  I don’t like when my kids are sick, but I’m not sorry about getting an extra day to stay home cuddling with him.  I do feel really bad for the poor kid, though- he threw up again tonight right as I was about to put him to bed, and I had to put him in his crib (his pjs were still clean) so I could clean up the floor.  I had the lights on, and kept going in and out of the room to get more paper towels and floor cleaner, etc, and then I looked over and my little fireball of energy- the kid who never sits still or stays put- had laid himself down on his stomach and closed his eyes.  It was heartbreaking.

I can’t work on anything important while Henri’s awake because I keep my focus on him, especially today when I was always on the lookout for signs he was about to throw up (so I could protect our couch, etc).  So while we were watching a new Diego DVD I’d picked up, I started the first Ravenna Mitt.  I think it will be cute, but will have to try on the completed mitt to see if it is right to give all the teachers at the daycare.

And now the kids are both asleep and I’ve had what little I can stomach as supper (toast.  all I eat is toast.  all I can taste is salt.  this kinda is annoying) and am going to do more math, more calculations and more tweaking to get the pattern to look and sound just right.