Day 12, New York

Today we visited Catskill State Park and the site of the Woodstock concert (40th anniversary today) in central NY and Letchworth State Park in western NY. We also made a stop in Binghampton, NY to visit two old college friends I hadn't seen in over twenty years.

Our first stop was Kaaterskill Falls, where we saw the tallest waterfall in NY. It wasn't a long hike (about a mile round trip) to the falls but it was so humid outside, we were sweating 5 minutes into the hike (except for Jessie). We stayed long enough to get a couple of pictures (the morning sun didn't help with the lighting) and left the park before it became too hot and humid.

Our next stop was Woodstock. Here we visited the monument and walked around the field where 500,000 hippies attended the 3-day concert. Since it was the 40th anniversary, we expected to a see concert or something taking place across the enormous field, but there was nothing. Just an empty field, and suprisingly very few people. The monument was rather unique. It had an image of a hand strumming a guitar as well as some words engraved on it. The heat was really beginning to get to us (and being in an area with absolutely no shade didn't help either) so we headed back to the car and blasted the air conditioning.

We then drove to Binghampton to visit old friends. We couldn't stay long as we had to drive half way across the state to our last stop of the day.

Letchworth State Park is mainly known for its three magnificient waterfalls. The upper, middle, and lower falls are the largest we've seen since our visit to Niagara Falls a few years back. We had just enough time to see all the falls, a deer, and a couple snakes before leaving for our last hotel stay of our vacation.

One short stop to Alleghany State Park in the morning and then a long drive home.