I haven't been to the museum in years, but I did remember checking it out one day…read more The exhibits were amazing! The many artifacts were priceless!

Before my grandma sold her house in the Berkshires my family and I would visit here every year. I…read morehad been coming to visit since I was around five or six. I loved visiting the fish down in the aquarium and I remember when they had a touch tank before the pandemic hit. The snakes were also really cute too which might be an unpopular opinion. I also loved seeing the Christmas trees in the winter, there is a science center for kids and there are some beautiful paintings on display as well. I have always had the best memories here and before my grandpa passed away he would always love taking me here with my parents and my sister. My family members weren't huge fans of the aquarium like I was but I dragged them down there. I have so much to thank this museum for including, how much I learned, the memories I made, and how it was something fun that my grandpa and I could do together.

This is an excellent spot to bring the kids with a kids discovery garden, kids veggie garden, and a…read moretopiary garden with and elephant you can 'ride'. Among other things like the pond and ampitheater. The garden is on both sides of the road. They have a crosswalk w/signal to cross safely. Areas within the park are a mix of sun and shade with several shady benches scattered throughout. The gift shop has plenty of items including cold drinks. Parking lot is gravel. Public restrooms are available

We have not been to the Berkshire Botanical Garden in probably 15 years and it has certainly grown…read moreand improved. Lovely gardens mostly identified with the type of plant which is always helpful. We used passes from our local library so we did not have to pay admission. The gift shop is difficult to leave empty handed. A great way to spend two hours outdoors.

So much fun! The lanes are really nice, and the staff are super friendly. The music was good and…read morethey have a cute little bar for snacks and drinks. Will definitely be back!

13 bucks to get in wasn't too bad. Should've bought the tickets before getting there would've…read moregotten faster. No cell phone service in that location at least for me. That was the only downside. Overall a fun time kind of a small fair would probably go back next year, the cidar making was pretty exciting.

The fair was a fun time. My partner and I don't care much for the rides or the game prizes. We…read moremainly like to see the animals and try some food. The animals appeared healthy and had food and water. There was definitely lots to see and taste. Fair had a lot of people but everything appeared to be going smoothly. Thank you State Police, Columbia County Sheriffs Office, and Chatham Police for being there.

New home of the UAlbany Great Danes football team since it opened right before the 2013 season…read more It's definitely on par with D1 stadiums regarding facilities, maybe minus seating capacity. Other sports teams play games here as well such as soccer & lacrosse.

I was researching things to do in the Berkshires while my classmates and I were vacationing. This…read morepeaked our interest as we're all tech-fascinated people, and my husband was an animation major. It's a free museum visit, but because it's privately run, you have to call them and make special arrangements for them to come and open the museum. The pros: you get a private tour, and hours aren't limited to your usual 9-5. The cons: since it's only run by 2 people, you're really at their mercy when you show up and they may or may not be on there way there still. Admittedly it's nothing fancy, but if you're legitimately into animation, it's a really fun casual tour. They go very old school on some animation techniques. They have a gift shop with some animation trinkets you can buy. For extra money if you have time, you can also create your own animation with them. We opted out of that one. If you're in the area anyway, it's a great place to stop by. Otherwise, I wouldn't go out of your way to travel to the area just for this.

Remember carnival sideshows and the relentless shilling that happens out in front of the midway…read moretent? This is what it feels like to visit AniMagic. The handbill reads, "50% off Make Your Own Animation in our Hands-On Studio," and "$20 workshop includes 2-hr training, materials, and your creation on take-home video (reg. $40). Good for dates! Absolutely not. What we received for $40 instead of a 2-hour, make-your-own-animation workshop was: - a 10-minute tour of all the overpriced optical illusion toys in the dusty gift shop - a 10 minute "free" tour of their "museum," a small room full of sight gags and posters, and an expanding sphere that drops out of nowhere, just barely missing your head. We weren't allowed to linger over the really interesting things - a family tree of all the animators and animation studios in the Berkshires, the actual crab puppets from a food commercial, a technical Oscar - and were instead hustled (pun intended) from one thing to another, with a long, incomprehensible spiel accompanying our visits with long-outdated computer equipment, trompe l'oeil toys, and a mechanical Donald Duck on a high wire. I feared for my eyes during the entire visit. - a bait-and-switch video (really! on VHS!) of claymation (plasticine stop-motion animation), claimed to have been created by the guy's workshop students (we'll get to that in a minute). - 20 minutes of doing exactly what this guy impatiently told us to do, followed by being hustled (again, pun intended) out the front door. In that twenty minute (not two hour!) workshop, we were treated to a machine-gun-fire rapidity of commands by a person who had absolutely no intention of allowing us to make our own animation. We were told to sit at a table in a back workshop and were nonconsensually videotaped as he told us exactly what to do with the plasticine. When the camera was off, he was barking orders at us to make simple stick figures, which were NOTHING like the melting snowmen, dancing flowers, and amazing animals of the teaser video. I felt like I was promised a visit with a unicorn, but when I pulled back the oilcloth tent flap, I was treated to a brief glimpse of a dog with a tree branch secured precariously to its forehead with a necktie. As dreams of a romantic afternoon evaporated in the exact way that my forehead sweat didn't, I noticed his sign, printed in ALL CAPS, which read "THIS IS NOT BURGER KING. YOU DO IT *MY* WAY." No joke, if you have to make a sign to explain to people that they will adhere directly to your totalitarian clay regime, you probably shouldn't be in the business of working with small humans. Any humans. We've both made movies before, and - in the case of my beloved, who's taught classes in animation - brought some measure of competent experience to the table. I had hoped to learn something further about new technology's role in stop-motion animation, and have time to build my character, the backbone of any subject-based creative endeavor. Instead, I was given two minutes to cut legs out of a tube and shove a head onto a trunk with exacting precision, what this guy called "surgery." He had his spiel down pat. When I tried to ask if I could make something else, he said "NO." When I asked if I could make my figure an animal, he said "NO!" He sighed, and growled, and grimaced, and flat-out took our pieces away several times and just built them his damn self. It was as if we weren't there, because every time he noticed we had any selfhood, he seemed supremely annoyed at our very existence. Show's over, folks, keep on moving. The best part of this celluloid turd was when we went back into the main room and were told how to press computer buttons on a 1998 iMac running iMovie 2.0, which apparently required a complex call-and-response system to actuate still photos from a twenty-year-old, 0.5 megapixel webcam in the shape of a giant eye. I prayed that this eye would bear witness to our ordeal. Instead, we were told that we were making different movies (not one, as we at least expected to do), and were told what the movies would be about. We were not allowed to touch the figures more than twice apiece, because we were Doin' It Wrong, so he positioned the figures and told us when to take the pictures and basically used us to fulfill a role he had long before decided needed to be filled with deformed, ugly clay monstrosities. I imagined that a clay horse would run through the set and rescue my poor puppet, or, at the very least, trample it into the earth so it could avoid suffering further. He wouldn't let us do any post-production, forcing us instead to watch as he looped "our" terrible movies, added copyright-infringing music, and tasteless audio effects. We didn't even get a copy - we had to hunt on YouTube for it! When we were led out with a Bye Now after 40 minutes, we knew we'd been had. It's so unfortunate, too, because these people are so very talented (Irena is WAY more talented than he is). Run!!

Been coming here for forever- since my kids were little in the 90s. Great memories of children's…read moretheater and other entertainment, popcorn, cider & donuts. NOW I'm getting to know it again as a venue for adults. What a treasure this renovated firehouse has been for Albany. Thank.You, Ric Chesser!!!

My first visit. I was advised to wear glasses/ sunglasses so dust won't get into your eyes because…read moreof the dirt track. Noise canceling headphones might also be a good idea, too, since it gets really loud especially during the main event. I remembered to wear the sunglasses. Hundreds turned out on a nice, sunny Saturday. The gates open at 5pm and the racing --mostly qualifiers-- start at 6pm. There were a number of different types of cars competing for top prizes around an oval track. The main even was at about 8pm and it was all over by about 9pm. There were even some fireworks. I had to try the "award-winning" shoestring fries even thought I knew my waistline would regret it later. I don't know what award the fries won but they keep promoting it that way over the public address system. They were quite brown with skins on. The long ones were soggy but the short fries were crispy. The boiled hot dogs were tasty. The prices were inexpensive. The concession area could use an upgrade but the food seemed popular. Of course, plenty of fried dough, kielbasa and meatball sandwiches were also being sold but they were just too rich for me to handle. The price of general admission is about $15. I won two free admission tickets in a benefit raffle off premises. It was fun. By the time I left, I was covered in dirt and dust but it comes with the territory. So I went home to wash up.

Really great dirt racetrack with solid affordable food choices. They have a good selection of dirt…read moretrack racing that travels thru, and a yearly monster truck rally jam. Highly recommended to go to West Lebanon. The forest is awesome.