Woodstock, Day 2

Saturday was a full, full day in and around Woodstock.
How full was it?
Overflowing!  And WONDERFUL!

We started with a casual breakfast at the Inn.  Good natural foods, gourmet coffee, and a promise of perfect weather.  Then we walked around the corner to Mower's Saturday Flea Market - a marketplace that's been around for over 30-years!
As I always like to buy a "local" souvenir (hand crafted by folks from the area I'm visiting), I was SO happy when I found Davin Butterfield of Butterfield Pottery.  I would have liked to buy a full set of dishes from him, but I settled on this little creamer. (It was perfect for maple syrup on our french toast this past Monday morning).

We returned to the Inn to drop off our goodies, then back into town we went to explore "downtown" Woodstock.  In and out of shops & galleries we went, people-watching all the while.  And if you can believe it... the whole town smelled of incense (would you expect anything else?).  It was amazing!

Okay... here is when my story of my adventure in Woodstock takes an unexpected turn...
Instead of chilling out in the land of the hippies, I got "high" with Elizabeth.
No.  Not that way.
We got high in the altitude way.

I'll explain.
As you know, I'm a geocacher.  I use million-dollar satellites to find ammo-cans in the woods.  Since I can't go anywhere without looking for a cache, I brought a long list of possible finds with me.
The most interesting looking cache (as well as the most challenging) was one called the Overlook Mountain House Cache.  To get to the cache location, one must hike 2.4 miles up Overlook Mountain.  (and then to get back, you need to hike down.)  I didn't know if either Elizabeth or I were up for such a hike.  BUT... after seeing the photos posted by previous cachers I was SO excited to try it.  But was E?
YES!
Fortunately, she shares in my love of cool old "creepy" structures, so she was willing to make the hike to visit the ruins of the Overlook Mountain House (and maybe find a cache).

So UP we went.
The hike itself was nothing spectacular.  (For a nice pictorial of the trail, visit The Bridge & Tunnel Club site.)
However... it was a tough, tough climb.  The phrase of the day was "it just keeps going up" - just when we'd get to a flat spot, it was only a few hundred feet before the steep climb started again.
But, BOY, was it worth it.
Here's what we found when we arrived at the top of Overlook.  (Click on the photos to see a larger version.)

The Overlook Hotel:

 

The 1928 Building:

 

From here, we went up a little bit more to the lookout point.  OMG.  What an incredible view.

 

 

 We certainly weren't the first ones here...

... and I'm SURE we won't be the last.

So... all-in-all we climbed almost 1600' in about 90 minutes.  I think we calculated about 800 calories burned over the 4 hours we were hiking around, which was perfect, because we REALLY enjoyed ourselves at dinner that night.  

So ends day two of the adventures in Woodstock.  Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of the trip in my next blog entry!