Bonnaroo 2009, Day 1

This year at Bonnaroo, College Girl and I were joined by a few more of the fam. Joining the fun was Home Brew and Crafty (College Girl's parents), Soccer Boy (her brother and my nephew), The Manager (my sister), Blazer (a dear friend from WAY back!), and an assortment of about 8-10 dads and daughters that are friends of Home Brew and/or College Girl.Someone (not me!) had the brilliant idea to leave at about 7am Thursday morning. Going this early, I knew from experience that our campsite was going to be in the farthest reaches of the Bonnaroo site.
We honestly could not have been any farther away! All the campsites have fun names like Camp Jeff Spicoli or Camp Dr. Holly Goodhead. Our camp was located so far away that they just named it Camp M. We started calling it Camp My God Could It BE Any Farther Away!

But it actually did turn out to be a fantastic location. We were hugged up against the woods on the the far eastern edge of the Bonnaroo property. And this meant shade up until about 10am. Every other campsite we've had has been much, much closer (like last year we were in Camp Darth Vader!! Look next to the camp in red.) but there is no shade and you are being baked alive in your tent by 7am!

I decided that I would take advantage of the taxi service that runs between the pods (which are groupings of campsites) and Centeroo (which is where the music is!) The first day, Blazer and I walked to Centeroo. After 40 minutes of walking, we decided that the $5 for a taxi would be well worth it.

Once we got routed to our campsite, we got busy setting up the tents. We could see the skies toward the west getting darker and darker. We could see the wall of rain moving in. As it hit the far western edges of the Bonnaroo site, we heard a roar from the crowd. As the wall of rain advanced, so did the roars from the campers! Within minutes of getting the tents up and staked, the skies opened up!Once the rain passed, we got busy setting up the remainder of things for camp and then headed in for some music. It rained off and on all day. Thank God for ponchos!! But still the music played on.

As the evening wore on, we could see a storm brewing. Lightning like crazy! Everyone but me decided that they would rather brave the storm from camp. But I really wanted to hear some more music so I stayed. My Dad called at about 11pm and told me that he really thought I would be safer in my car when the storm hit. I didn't tell him that I wasn't anywhere near my car. I called Vol Fan to get his take on the storm that was brewing. When he told me that it looked BAD, I headed back to camp.

Blazer had a spare pair of earplugs which she gave to me. We popped those bad boys in and went straight to sleep. We slept until around 9am. Upon waking, we both wondered if it had rained or if the storm had turned.

The storm had not turned. It had rained several inches - with lot of lightning and thunder and wind! We hadn't heard a thing. Earplugs are a wonderful thing.