Opus 40. Peace, Love & Woodstock
As much as I love traveling to other states and countries, I also enjoy taking day trips in my own backyard. With a dog, work, and family commitments, sometimes it’s good to find places nearby in order to clear your head or escape from the daily grind until you have the chance to jump on an airplane.
A few weeks ago we decided to drive about an hour to Saugerties to check out the museum and sculpture park at Opus 40. The site was originally a stone quarry which the owner, Harvey Fite, had planned on using for its stone and as a place to use to his display his sculptures. He ended up changing his mind and created a sculpture out of the quarry site itself once the idea for his “Opus” really came together. His sculptures meanwhile, were moved to other areas of the park for display creating a taste of what the main attraction would be. Surrounded by trees and with a view of the mountains, Fite’s Opus is a 6 acre monument of terraced, blue stone, capped off with a monolith at its highest point. Walking into the property you have no idea how impressive it is actually going to be. With sections below ground level and others 3 stories up, the size is deceiving at first glance. Once you walk in and explore the narrow channels surrounded by stone walls or pick your way across tabletops of laid stone, you really get an understanding of the size and of the work which went into the site.
It was pretty fun to walk around and wander through the Maze of man-made slate and stone work. For a $10 entrance fee you could tour the grounds, watch a short movie and visit the Quarrymans museum that contained many of the original historical tools used to construct the sculptures. I recommend wearing comfortable shoes and leaving the strollers at home as the ground and stone paths are quite uneven.
After leaving Opus 40 we decided to take a short drive into Woodstock for dinner which was about 15 minutes away. The village is pretty small but very nice. We wandered around for a little bit and then asked some locals for recommendations on where to eat. We were pointed in the direction of restaurant named Oriole 9. The food was here was very good. We each had a bowl of soup (French onion and Chili) and we both ordered taco salads for our entree which were HUGE! We probably could have shared one taco salad, but we took the leftovers home. After dinner we walked through the village a little bit more before heading home. It was an easy day trip on a nice fall Saturday afternoon.
*If you want to see more pictures of Opus 40 be sure to check out the photo page & Instagram!