Hart Family Vacation 2024 (Day 3 - Woodstock, Providence)

Another long day of driving ahead of us - we got an early start and drove almost 2 hours to our first stop in Bethel, NY.

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is the current home of the Woodstock Festival. 

The Messenger Tree was still standing strong. This tree was used as a communication tool during the Woodstock Festival. Attendees would leave notes for meet ups, exchanging contact information with someone they had met, searching for car rides, etc. 

We walked around the field where the festival was held - trying to imagine what the area looked like back in August 1969. During our drive from Apalachin to Bethel, I pulled up a history of the festival that included some interesting stories and great pictures. 

This metal electric box has been coated with stickers - we enjoyed looking through this collection!

After spending a bit of time walking around the festival field, we drove to the adjoining Bindy Bazaar Woods. In this wooded area, trees and rocks were cleared to build a vendor "venue" (see picture of one of the booths, found and borrowed from Google). 

Over the last few years, archeologists have dug and restored the foundations of these booths. You can see some of the foundations in these pictures.

A handful of trees have also been yard-bombed. 

We left Bethel and headed 4 hours to Providence, RI...making a stop for lunch along the way. We planned to make a quick stop in Hartford, CT to see the Capitol Building. Unfortunately, traffic was really bad (atrocious) and we ended up scratching Hartford and heading straight to Providence. Our plans for Providence were to see the Capitol Building as well as walk along the Providence River, possibly do a boat ride.

While driving to Providence, I had looked up the Gondola boat rides to see what times were available to reserve our ride. There were plenty of times available later in the afternoon / early evening. I didn't want to pay for the boat ride if we got stuck in more traffic and missed the time slot...or added extra stress to our drive. Once we arrived in Providence, we headed straight to the capitol building. 

We left the capitol area and headed to find a parking spot along the river. We found a spot and then walked to the river to the boat stand. Unfortunately, I hadn't purchased tickets and we found out that they didn't have any openings until later that evening. I had my reasons for not purchasing the tickets while we were traveling, but in the end the oversight was completely my fault. At this point in time, Matt & I separated (I was upset with him and he was angry with me). I walked along the river with Maddie & Kaitee while Matt and Will found a bench to sit at for a while. 

We left the downtown area...still not happy with each other...and headed to Hasbro in Pawtucket. We found Mr & Mrs Potato Head and took some pictures with them. 

I grabbed a light up handball from the car and we had a family toss around - 100+ tosses with the ball not touching the ground! Not too shabby!

We grabbed some pizza for dinner and headed to our hotel for the night. As we got closer to our hotel, we quickly realized that there had been a parade (Flag Day celebration) on the same street as our hotel. The police and city crews were just opening the roads and there were LOTS of people on the road and sidewalks. It was a bit crazy. We heard that there were going to be fireworks too, so the kids headed back out after we got checked in. They were able to sit right outside the hotel and watch the fireworks display. 

While they were outside, Matt & I were inside, still mad. Matt had made the decision to change the remainder of the vacation to eliminate some of the long days of driving and to try to see more things instead of long days of sitting in the van. 

We went to bed that night - still hurt and mad - but with an action plan for the next day. Family vacations aren't for the faint of heart! In the end (as you will see on Day 4), todays argument/fight changed the whole vacation for good.

Favorites - Day 3

Matt - Woodstock

Becki - Woodstock

Kaitee - Playing Catch & Watching Fireworks

Will - Playing Catch & Watching Fireworks
Maddie - Playing Catch & Watching Fireworks