Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Every month a group of seven bloggers share their workspaces, homes, towns, and more!

This month’s theme is VACATION!!!

Make sure you visit everyone to see where the magic happens!

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After 

Apparently these two live in an alternate space-time-continuum, so you may need to scroll back a post or two to find their Where Bloggers Live: Vacation episode, but please do, as it’s well worth the time travel:

Em at Dust and Doghair
Julia at When the Girls Rule

Let’s get away, shall we??

I’m not much of a vacationer. Don’t get me wrong, no one loves vacation more than me (or as I like to say, DON’T EFF WITH MY VACATION). But vacation $$$ has not really been a thing in my life since the time I was married. But at the end of 2019 (sigh, remember 2019? How good it was to us??) I realized I would able to do some little weekend trips in the coming year. Locations I could drive to so I wouldn’t have to buy airline tickets, and where I could find inexpensive places to stay, whether a hotel or airbnb. For just me, I don’t need anything fancy. Air conditioning, clean sheets, good water. So I had started scoping out some places to stay in the city and upstate NY.

AND THEN. 2020 whooped me upside the head and thoughts of anything besides not dying or losing my job took a distant spot in my mind and were all but forgotten. Until my girlfriend mentioned a little overnight she was planning to take to Woodstock, NY. And I WANTED to go, but didn’t want to invite myself, thinking she might just want the time alone. But after a couple days of listening to her plans she finally said, “would you want t…” YES! Yes, I said. Yes. Ha. So we planned our little trip for a few weekends out.

It’s not a long drive, only about 2½ hours from Long Island. But we had planned a couple stops along the way. We had breakfast outdoors in a charming town, Millbrook, at Babette’s, that had The Best Bacon EVER.

After breakfast, we headed to Innisfree Garden, which is a lovely large “natural landscape,” also in Millbrook. It was A Very Hot Day…and disappointingly, after driving several hours in the car in masks, we were asked to continue wearing masks in the garden, even when there were no other people near. This is a LARGE property. 185 acres. They were only letting a certain number of people in at a time. It was very easy to avoid people. So the mask-wearing was annoying there, under the circumstances. I do it cuz you’re supposed to to…but when there’s no one else even in-sight and you’re in a large, open, outdoor area…grrr. This put a damper on my time at the garden. Plus there was a time limit so we weren’t able to meander in a leisurely manner and we didn’t get to cover the whole property. But it was lovely. And I recommend it if you’re ever in the area.

After sweating through our clothing and our masks, we headed back to the car to continue our drive to Woodstock. It was still too early to check into the hotel, so spent most of the afternoon in town. Walked through a flea market with the expected hippie-type sellers and items, walked up and down the main street. I took advantage of just about every bench I saw to rest and people watch.

We had dinner at The Garden Cafe, which had the loveliest outdoor dining area…in the shade, thank goodness!

After dinner we finally headed to the hotel. She had found a charming hotel, The Woodstock Inn on the Millstream, that seemed to be taking social distancing and sanitizing Very Seriously, and we had booked two individual rooms. It was a very cute old school resort cabin style rowhouse with a long covered front porch and one chair to each room to sit outside and enjoy the evening. And yes, there was a millstream. The air conditioning was blasting, the bedding was lovely. We took a walk down to the millstream around dusk. Once seeing it, my plan was to get up early the next morning, before it got so hot, and shoot the green Osie-Duro dress while wading in the stream. Sadly/happily, the sheets and pillows on the bed were so luxurious that I could not make myself get out of bed early…and by the time I finally got up it was just too hot to shoot. I missed a really great opportunity…but man, did that bed feel good!

In too short a time it was time to leave. We took a couple detours on the way home to see the astro-sculptures and have breakfast at a well-known diner in Phoenecia. We tried to see the world’s 3rd largest gnome but…life. Next time. We did see an elephant in a face mask…and other roadside sites.

And then we were home! While we’d only been gone 36 hours, it felt like we’d done and seen a lot, and sometimes you just need that, you know??

We were appropriately cautious the whole way, masking everywhere, washing up, sanitizing, keeping our distance from people, etc. The hotel had contactless check in and out (ie, the key’s under the mat). It’s been more than two weeks since we were there, so…we didn’t pick anything up while out of town.

When I got home I had the plumbing issues…and had yet to get my air conditioner in…and then the big storm and no power…so it has seemed a little crazy since I’ve been back…which always sort of makes the vacation vibe disappear faster, you know?

But…managing a short trip during the pandemic is do-able…and I hope to be able to get away again for a short trip in the next few months.

Have you traveled at all during COVID?

Make sure to visit my friends’ blogs and see what their vacation adventures look like!