Back to Woodstock, with Wi-Fi: Women return after 55 years to relive the famous festival while glamping

BETHEL, N.Y. (AP) — Beverly “Cookie” Grant hitchhiked to the 1969 Woodstock music festival without a ticket and slept on straw. Ellen Shelburne arrived in a VW van and set up a small tent.

55 years later, the two long-time friends finally returned to the garden, but this time in great style.

The women, now 76, were recently treated to a two-bedroom glamping tent on the upstate New York site, complete with comfortable beds, a shower, coffeemaker and Wi-Fi. This time, there was no mud from torrential rains. They sat in gazebos and watched shows by Woodstock veterans John Fogerty and Roger Daltrey.

“We’re like hippie queens!” Grant joked over breakfast during the trip earlier this month.

The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, the nonprofit organization that operates the site, rolled out the batik carpet for Grant and Shelburne to promote the new glamping facilities and dig deeper into Shelburne’s treasure trove of photos from the generation-defining festival took place from 15 to 18 August 1969.

The once-trampled hill next to the main stage is now a manicured green space near a Woodstock- and ’60s-themed museum and the concert pavilion. But the revisit still brought back a flood of memories. Shelburne could retrace her steps as a 21-year-old college student in the photos taken by her then-boyfriend and later husband, David Shelburne.

“I look at this person in the photo, who is me, but a person who is just starting out in life at this age. And now I’m looking back at sort of the bookends of my life,” said Ellen Shelburne. “After all these decades, I’m back in Woodstock and it brings everything back in such a positive way.”

Grant and Shelburne did not know each other in August 1969 and attended the concert separately.

Shelburne came with David Shelburne, his best friend, and another woman from Columbus, Ohio. They bought tickets, arrived early, and bought ponchos at a local store after rain was forecast. She slept in a small tent.

“I was never cold, wet, hungry, muddy, dirty, uncomfortable or miserable,” she said. “In fact, it was the exact opposite.”

Grant went to Woodstock on a whim.

A long-haired surfer she knew named Ray approached her and a friend on a beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and said, “There’s this music festival going on in New York. Want to hitch a ride there with me?” Grant’s friend dropped out en route, but she and the surfer made it to the town of Bethel. The last driver dropped them off at the edge of the huge traffic jam outside the festival and gave them a blanket.

Grant walked the last few miles to Woodstock barefoot.

Both women were enthusiastic about Jimi Hendrix, The Who and other music groups, but also about the good mood of the more than 400,000 people who had gathered at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm about 130 kilometers northwest of New York City.

“When we needed food, someone gave us food. Someone gave us water. We didn’t need anything,” Grant said.

The two women met months later in Columbus, where they were running businesses near Ohio State University with the men they went to Woodstock with. And they both married their concert companions, although Grant divorced several years later.

David and Ellen Shelburne ran a film and video production company together until his death four years ago. Grant moved to Florida and eventually became a chef on mega yachts before starting her own company providing crews for these large boats.

Each of the women retained a spark of the Woodstock spirit. Shelburne said she was “caught up in the ’60s and proud of it.” They were back at the festival site last year after Provision of oral traditions in Columbus to the curators of the museum in Bethel Woods.

Just like in 1969, the women were provided with everything they needed for their last long weekend of peace, love and nostalgia – this time, however, a “two-bedroom luxury safari tent” with a front patio and shower in the bathroom. And when it rained this time, they were able to stay dry in the museum.

On a sunny Saturday, Bethel Woods’ senior curator, Neal Hitch, drove the women around in a golf cart to explore the locations where David Shelburne shot his festival photos. Unlike others who pointed their cameras at the stage, he documented festival-goers camping, swimming, selling, relaxing and having fun. Hitch noted that David Shelburne’s images are also valuable because they are arranged in a sequence and thus tell a story.

At one stop, Shelburne stood by a line of trees, holding a photograph of a field full of campers. She stood in the spot where her late husband had taken the photo, looking at the same field 55 years later, only without the campers. Visibly moved, she said “oh” a few times, exhaled deeply, and then exclaimed “Wow!”

It broke her heart that her husband was not in the photos, but she felt his presence that weekend.

The women roamed the festival grounds for several days, from the stage area to the forest where the vendors had set up their stalls. Despite the changes – the luxury tents, the fences, the museum – the women said they recognized the same relaxed, friendly atmosphere they had experienced as 21-year-olds.

And they were excited to immerse themselves in it again decades later.

“It’s wonderful to see that it’s forever anchored in history,” Grant said, “and we’re a part of it.”