NAPANOCH – Wednesday morning, 7:30 a.m., and there's a crowd on the small hill across from the corn fields that flank Napanoch below the Shawangunk range. Walmart is opening and there's a crowd already, both inside and outside the massive new superstore that local residents have debating, and awaiting, for seven years now.

"Lord, thank you for our management; Lord, thank you for our cashiers," the Rev. Michael Sparrow of St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Napanoch intones as the official ribbon cutting ceremonies begin. "Bless all those using this building as buyers and sellers, that they will grow us in goodness and prosper us in peace... Wow, you are so good!"

A number of the 200 or so employees on hand are in tears. Outside, crowds are expectant... and at the local elementary and middle schools, we've heard that "everyone's going there for the first night; they've been dancing in our classroom about it," according to a fourth grader who wished to remain anonymous.

On the night before the store opened, Walmart threw a party for their new associates and staff, as well as a hundred or so local people. $7,500 in checks was donated to various local groups, such as Family of Ellenville and the Napanoch Fire Department. Town board member Dan Johnson speechified that, "This is a great day for our town."

Store manager John Peters was beaming on both days.

"We took this empty land and we made this beautiful store," he said. "We are thrilled to be opening this new store to serve Napanoch and the surrounding communities, helping them to save money and live better."

After which he led the Napanoch Walmart Associates in a rousing rendition of the Walmart Cheer!

Ellenville mayor Kaplan put things in deeper context.

"Seven years ago I heard from Joe Tso that he had been approached by Walmart, who wanted to buy this property," he said. "It wasn't long after that that I realized it was going to take a little bit of work to make it happen... And now, at long last, our senior citizens in this area do not have to drive all the way to Kingston or Middletown to shop for necessities."

What a strange trip it had been, as well, from just a few days earlier when, on Friday, October 17, the parking lot filled suddenly with various cars, RVs, ad hoc sleeping vans and old-style hippy busses... and most of the store associates on hand stood outside Walmart's front turning people away from requests to use the facilities and wondered what was up. Out on Route 209, more vehicles streamed south towards the already crowded tarmac.

It turns out that the caravan of several hundred had been set out that morning from the old Kutshers Resort and Hotel outside Monticello, where they'd arrived for a weekend-long "Damn Sam's Harvest Festival and Freedom Fair," an annual event started in Beacon 17 years ago that mixes music and pot legalization rhetoric. The sold out event was going to feature members of the old Wu Tang Clan, the Wailers, and even former sixties radical John Sinclair amongst the entertainment...

That all shifted Friday morning when a 21 year old Hartwick College student originally from Connecticut fell, drunk, from a fifth floor window and authorities came in and condemned the property... pushing Damn Sam's tribe of paying customers off to a new festival site. By the time they'd gathered in the Walmart parking lot in Napanoch, it was mid-afternoon and they'd all been asked to leave the Hudson Valley Resort in nearby Kerhonkson.

Then the police started arriving... adding up to nine state trooper and Ulster County sheriff's vehicles. Everyone dispersed and those stragglers still arriving were told to leave as well.

Asked where everyone was off to next, a car load of young men and women in a Subaru with Massachusetts plates said they'd just been texted that someone down in Bethel had offered a place to camp out. A farm, they said.

We asked whether the name "Yasgur" was involved, and they said yes.

That's where the Aquarian Festival that started moving from (and eventually keeping the name of) Woodstock ended up back in 1969.

Several folks from today's Woodstock Village Green scene came and went as the latest plans were mulled and broadcast.

Later, Damn Sam's Facebook page was hacked with an image of a scruffy-looking longhaired bearded man with a bong and the words "Convicted felon: Predator of young women" on it. Within a day that was gone, too, and people were saying the caravan ended up moving on through the weekend, some as far as to Oneonta, while others headed south and west into Pennsylvania.

"We will be filing a law suit against the town," read the official unhacked website. "We feel we have been unfairly targeted by the town and we intend to prove it. We will issue refunds as soon as we can but right now our family needs to mourn the loss of our dear friend and establish whether Harvest Fest will be able to happen at a later date."

What a long strange trip this Walmart's taken.