Weekend in Woodstock

Signs you are dire need of a weekend in the country when you work in New York City: you start devising schemes like writing to Mayor Bloomberg to act at once to impose $1,000 fines to people who are walking and texting on their Blackberry (annoyingly slowing the pace of foot traffic); your blood boils when people don't walk up the left side of the escalator at the bus terminal or Penn Station; and you start thinking about your weekend plans on Monday morning.

Check all three for me. Luckily, Woodstock, NY, is an easy two hour drive from where I live in northern New Jersey. One of the main attractions is the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. Tours are offered Saturdays and Sundays from April through October from 11-4 for $7/person (free for members).

Here are some of the friendly faces I encountered. Nothing about these sweet souls says 'dinner.'






Albie, who has found refuge here after escaping death at a Brooklyn slaughterhouse, was featured in The New York Times.

Who doesn't love the guilty pleasure of an afternoon nap on a lazy Sunday?

These goats are as enthusiastic about their food as I am!

Woodstock, or is it New Orleans? Tuba Skinny entertained the crowd at the Woodstock fleamarket Sunday afternoon.

In warmer months, catch the Woodstock Drum Circle for peace in the town's center (right in front of vegan Garden Cafe).

Anyone can pick up a drum and join in. Or, just people-watch.

I stayed at the Cobblestone Motel in the sleepy hamlet of Phoencia. A very clean, comfortable room for just $76 a night. This was just steps away from the motel...

The Phoenicia Belle is also in town, and looks quite charming.

On the drive home, I passed a sign advertising a $599 leather sofa, as well as one for a Father's Day pig roast, and two large milk trucks roared by, and I thought what a long road we have to go.

Definitely worth checking out on the way home is the Museum at Bethel Woods, the story of Woodstock and the sixties. Where is that activist spirit now?

"It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come" - Sam Cooke