We survived.
We did indeed survive.
We proved things to ourselves (and clearly everyone who looked at us with tilted dog heads and said…”camping???? in a tent???”
The music was fabulous. We saw some amazing acts. Grace Potter. Mumford & Sons. Ryan Bingham were my favorites…
There were thousands of people. It was upper 90 degree heat all day every day. There was no escaping the weather and the weather…was brutal.
We did set up our campsite at 1am and kicked some serious ass…until we realized we had the shade canopy inside out. RIGHT??? who can say that?
I’m exhausted. The heat took us out at the knee…we did have riverside camping so we spent our days at the river until it filled up with “Weekend People”
The Weekend People make douchebags look like sweet girl scouts selling cookies. Gross gross people. The other dumbass people wore me right out. Drugged out kids with their hula-hoops and their swinging ball things. The stupid tu-tu wearing kids, the dumbass redneck stoners…the people that cared nothing about anything other than having a place to do as many drugs as possible…those people made it unpleasant.
I’m not saying everyone needed to go FOR THE MUSIC…but dude.
Maybe I’m too old for it. I don’t know. I don’t like drugged out slacker kids here in OKC so I don’t think I’m being specifically bitchy. Our running joke was…”Your mother is so dissapointed in you. Get the hell up. Sober up. Get a job. Take a shower.”
We laughed. A lot. We set out for an adventure and ohmylanta did we get one! We got great stories. We almost gave ourselves a heatstroke on the first day. We met some great gooniegoogoo friends from St Louis. We found salvation at the river. We rode a ferris wheel. We walked through Little Bangcock every night. We put Vitamin Water and Krispy Kremes in the hands of our stoned out neighbor kids which gave us great karma the last day. We did minimal drinking. I brought home 3 of the 4 cases and the mojito stuff. Too hot for anything but water. We overbought food like crazy people. It was too hot to eat. I tried to cook twice…it was just too hot. We had the best campsite ever. It rocked. We learned what we would do differently…but are pretty sure we’re not heading anywhere like that for awhile. When we stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel this morning, Gabe turned to me and said, “it’s nice to be in some place…normal.” and I said, “yeah like with climate control and a roof?”
yeah.
The lineup would have to be pretty freakin awesome. . . Like…Elvis and John Lennon and Gabe’s dirty secret boyfriend, Jim Morrison…we’d maybe go camping inside the sun again for those guys.
maybe.
Misti Ridiculous 
I remember being really annoyed with the kids in the audience when I went to see the Bravery. They all just stood around looking bored and texting. Mean while, the old chic (me) was standing at the front of the stage hopping around like a nut job.
I can’t wait to hear more stories. I love that you hydrated and fed the stoned kids. And FYI, we always pack too much food for camping trips.
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If it was a situation where we were camping near the venue (we were three miles south and really happy about it) or the weather was such that we could see music all day long then be back at night, we’d have cooked. But damn. The humidity was a million percent and it was 98 and 99 every day…just..yikes.
We were so happy to have found Kristy and Sarah from St. Louis. They were in their 30’s and were having the same feelings…like…holy shit. we hate everyone and want to go home. we’re too old for this nonsense…so we laughed and laughed about finding solace in each other.
When I get some more brain space I will go into detail about setting up our tent at one in the morning with eleventymillion other people. THAT, may have been the best time ever.
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I so thought that sentence was going to be, “We learned what we would do differently…like never going camping again.”
You, unsurprisingly, rocked the camping! And now you can sit at home in the AC and drink mojitos out of a bag. I so wish I was bring the Frosted Flakes to that party.
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