420 Festival

420 FESTIVAL

My next writing challenge is to write about anything I want. So, I'm going to describe the festival my brother and I went to a couple of weeks ago.

My brother and I went to a 420/music festival and it was freakin' awesome. We paid ten dollars each to get in, then got the best parking spot in the place, right by the entrance. I thought ten dollars was high, but I would find out soon that it was a bargain instead. 

It had rained hard that morning and the road was muddy. I was wearing my baby doll shoes and they didn't stand a chance. The first things we saw were lots of food vendors, mostly barbeque, on either side, and on the right was an incredible bonfire pit, waiting to be lit. That sucker was huge and I could imagine what kind of party that was going to be after dark.

We wandered by the food stands and I was disappointed that there weren't any vedors with items to sell. I was hoping for lots of hippie stuff. We continued on our way and saw a lot of interesting things. See, I thought this was going to be a park but it wasn't. It was one guy and his wife's property. We (my brother, Thomas, his puppy, Oswald, and I) saw shoes hanging in the trees, old, dilapidated school buses and trailers, complete with graffiti and art. There were small tents pitched here and there where people were camping out. 

We came to a widening in the road. We passed two more food stands, then saw the music tent to our left, and behind it, a field where people had parked their cars in a large circle and were playing frisbee inside the circle. There were more tents pitched all around. There were Peacocks all over the place. To our right was a structure that turned out to be the owner's home and art studio. It was a quonset hut sprayed with polyurethane foam, so it was bumpy. There was a winding staircase leading up to a deck and the front door.

Thomas got to talking to an old guy who was drinking a beer and it turned out that he was the owner and wanted to give us a tour of his studio. The guy really liked to talk and to show off his place and he was a great story teller.  He had painted the floors of his studio, which was the whole downstairs of the house, and painted the other side of the outside. One wall was made of different colored beer bottles. He showed us a lot of his art. There was a forklift that served as an elevator that lead upstairs. I was dying to see the upstairs but did not get to. 

When we were finished with our tour, we wandered down to the music tent. There was a great band playing. It was kind of bluegrass/country with very comical lyrics. The frontman was pretty funny. I was impressed that this was the five o'clock band. They really were good. Next up was a three piece band called The Punknics. There was a washtub bass, a tattoo-covered singer/guitar player, and a bad-ass girl on a snare drum and vocals. They were rock/punk/country and they were really good too. 

After standing in the music tent for a couple of hours, my back began to hurt, so we decided to make our way back to the car. We stopped on the way out so that Thomas could order a Philly cheese sandwich from one of the vendors next to the music tent. I wasn't hungry but it sure looked good. Across the way, there was a fry bread stand and I vowed to get a fry bread next year. 

I plan to make the festival a yearly tradition. In fact, next year, I plan to go early and camp out the whole weekend, really get my money's worth. I'll pitch a tent near the music tent and walk around all weekend, getting to know people. My sister's even talking about coming here from Arizona next year to check it out. There was a very nice vibe and I think that next year I could even perhaps have a magical weekend. We shall see.