There are times when you need to recharge your soul…this past weekend I experienced enlightenment, my journey guided by the incredible Mumford and Sons, Gentleman of the Road Tour. I am still glowing.
Of course every adventure has some hiccups.
Hearing that St. Augustine might burst from epic proportions of hipsters, Papa Bear and I decided to ride in on bicycles, approximately 4 miles each way. The bike ride was lovely until I found myself crossing the Bridge of Lions in the car lane. To most this detail might seem insignificant, however those lanes are usually humming with traffic and the bridge is about as narrow a shallow mind shaded in darkness. Eerily enough it was the lack of traffic that I felt St Augustine should high five themselves for – Bikes ruled the roads and it was so nice! This detail was also complimented by the many temporary bike racks available- Again… details, folks, details… St. Augustine really did a remarkable job planning this event!
Hijacked from perry knotts photography
So we made it to the field – almost. As we neared the entry line I opened my bag to retrieve our passports and wristbands- they were still in the original mailing envelope, as I wanted to be sure I didn’t loose anything important. I kept my bag opened because the first barrier to pass would be the searching for my weapons and secret liquor stash…I jest. Clean, I made my way to the ever-important guy operating the scanner when I realized my wristband was missing- the most imperative item needed that for entire weekend-Gone- Poof! I had literally just taken it out approximately 15-20 feet before that moment. Frantically I asked the guy what should I do- his mundane response “return to the box office.” DARN! We were so close and I was dying of thirst!!
After retracing my steps and scanning the ground I knew that I was not going to find the sad, lonely wristband crying and waiting for me like an estranged child looking for his mother. I asked an official vested individual where the location of the box office was and marched on, the road less traveled of course.
At least I would be traveling in my fancy socks:)
The box office was a 20 x 10 tent manned with 4-5 folks on computers helping people solve their ticket complications. As I explained what happened, the very nice person told me that I would have to phone in to another department and have my original wristband flagged. The request sounded simple enough except that apparently my phone gets a little shy when surrounded by thousands of people and was having performance issues…so what should have been a fairly easy conversation turned into a diarrhea of “I can’t hear you, what did you say??” The last thing I believe I heard was- Ms. Cline I don’t know if you can hear this but I am going to go ahead and flag you.” At least that’s what the voices inside my head heard- so that’s what I regurgitated when returning to the box office.
As I stood there with my fingers crossed few moments passed, some questions about my real name came up, a couple of pauses, more questions about who actually purchased the tickets, another moment, a question of whether I had a bigger name, some identity verifications, a couple more my computer is running slowly pauses and then…”oh why yes, you are in the system- here is your new wristband- enjoy the show.” Ahhhhhh!!! Thank You!! …. Which I promptly fastened around my wrist and then broke the seal to my coveted bottle of water, which I had resisted opening for over an hour in the 90 degree heat (remember we rode bikes) because I am too cheap to buy water inside… trying to save all my money for overpriced beer, of course.
people as far as the eyes could see…
the view- all dependent on where you chose to sit…
group of folks with Mustaches–we were surrounded by great people:)
The events that followed for the next 24 hours were a thrill ride in people watching, invasion of personal space, festival dancing and the richest waves of musical energy surging through 20,000 human bodies strong. Totally amazing! My top hat off to all the wonderful musicians especially, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, The Vaccines, the hero who saved the day John Fogerty, and the Fabulous Mumford and Sons– you guys are first rate screaming megalomaniacs, I’m so glad we came!
Cheers to great times!!
we wanted to take a profile picture of ourselves…this is what we came up with 🙂
Here’s a cool video composite of surfing and killer music-
