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A great review and more pictures from the festival : http://www.musicfestivaljunkies.com/the-scene-hardly-strictly-bluegrass-review/ short and sweet. :)
FINALLY! THE WAIT IS OVER!
The night before the festy I did a few hours of busking (playing my guitar on a street corner) with the help of Savvy singing and holding a sign for us, helping in walking up to cars that stopped to give us money. In a matter of an hour, together we raised $40! And we couldn't be more excited. The crew had decided to take the risk and raise some money at the festival: Selling beer for $2 a pop. We raised $70 together (Nani, Bowden, Jordan and Livia, and Steffen aboard the van and Savvy and I in her car : ) and bought that much beer. about 3 cases of 36 packs.
To my surprise, San Fran was adorably cute in appearance as we entered the day of the festival after picking up Dakota the day before with Savvy from Sacramento! Parking was a b**** but we did quite well we quickly found out, not a far walk at all to an enterance to the festy.
I. Was. Stoked!
We hauled our beer and our animals into the festival. Man it was wierd to walk past the police with huge boxes of beer, as there was drinking and smoking allowed at this free festival. Although reselling of beer is something we can get caught doing, the first day of sales and enjoyment was easy on Friday. As it was just the start of a croweded weekend, only 3 of the 6 stages were open.
The festival was held in a small part of the huge Golden Gate Park! It, was simply, gorgeous and a perfect location! I couldn't be more excited for Saturday, for we looked forward to 2 of the shows in particular.
As the festy came to close as the sun is setting, Nani and Bowden took off into the food stands to get food. Thinking I would stay behind, not looking forward to more trash scores (which are great btw since there are "landfill" cans for food only, easy to walk past and grab fresh and still warm left overs, often people handing out food after seeing you grab into the trash :) But still, they can go.
But to my surprise... They came back with BOXES of food! Chicken strips and hot dogs, too many garlic fries and potato & spinach kineshes (sp?)! Enough for all of our group (17 remember?) and passing dirty kids too! We were all happily full and very impressed with B and Nani, and the food stands for giving away their extras so freely, happy to feed those less forunate through out the day. What are they to do with thier extras? I never though about it, but I'm glad for the hospitality, really. (We did this all weekend, every night looking forward to a grand dinner :)
That night goes on and I challenged my barefeet by walking (with Miss Kitty...) the whole length of the park to Haight St., a good 40 long block walk, and then some... To a hang out spot on a street corner with a bunch of dirty kid traveling family. The corner we occupied had a great rainbow mural on one wall of a store and there must have been an easy 30-40 of us on the corner!
After a successful and awesome first day at the festival, we spent some money on 40s and decided on celebration in the city. The town overrun by the new population for the festival, the cops for the most part, let us be. Only catching a few open containers from other new friends and having them emptied. Oh darn, $2.25 down the drain.
It ended up being quite a night for everyone. As it came time to leave there was seperation. Drunkenly, Bowden and I honestly faught hard, mostly me being broken and lonely and confused for some drunken reason. But finally, we came to a calm and my feet couldn't take it. He held me and we settled on a bench, only for me to come to and realize that we were sitting at a bus station and had beer change on hand! We we gladly took the bus to the van's parked street. YAY! Bed time. Finally.
(This gnarly fight by the way, ended up resolving a lot of deep issues between us that were arising. Thankful he didn't leave me stranded, and him just thankful to have me along on this journey in the end, it helped our relationship to get all the hard things out of our system, able to move past them. We haven't argued in the slightest since, being inseperable and strong as ever.)
We found my favorite spot to sleep yet on my journey too! A little nook, very near the sidewalk behind a huge tree (which the next day realized an owl lived in :) there was a low bush/tree, which provided an awesome little nook to lay under. Safe from sight and not inside the park or street with an ivy floor for comfortable sleeping, we slept hard and strong.
In the morning when we all gathered for a very hung over breakfast in the street, we found that most members also had a very long and hard night. Liv and Jordan both lost their bags and each other, waking up alone somehow. Jesse and Ashley fought bad too. Blah blah. We all, apparently, had lessons to learn.
The day goes on. We managed to spend a little cash the night before but put together $150 worth of pitch for beer the next day to sell. Allowing us to get more 36 packs, along with some better quality beer to sell for $4 a pop. We also got ice bags to keep in our backpacks this time. Glad for no cooler, as people were getting busted the day before for having obvious selling stations for beer. We faired VERY well this day in all. Raising $300 for beer... But this wasn't the highlight of our day. OH NO!
At 2pm there was the much awaited Les Claypool show at the Star Stage. Bowden and I left the group to attempt to get as close as possible to the front, which we did fairly well at jumping over blankets and squeezing through the crowd to the standing front, dirty-kid status I might add. :) IT WAS AWESOME! He and his compaion did great and we danced and recognized a bunch of songs.
Next I followed Nani and Savvy to the Head and the Heart show down the way, ignorning my pained feet and hang over completely. I recognized this band a lot and sang along in the back of the HUGE crowd. One of the more popular and well known bands. Songs such as "Lost In My Mind" and "Chasing a Ghost" and "Down in the Valley", all songs I'm sure you would recognize as of late. :) I LOVED IT! :)
This day we raised $300 for beer and when Bowden and I woke up late we found out, as our grumpy crew passed us with too many cases of beer, by the time we got in a found them we were all in a bind. They were cracking down REALLY hard, seeing busts go on by guys dressed casual, carrying badges. Scetchy. But with too much beer not to sell it... We split up and tried to enjoy the day. Moving around a lot, abandoning our prime selling spot for good.
Jordan and Steffen did a bunch of the work that day, honestly, it was them who made it happen. As although the others of us tried, we weren't having much selling luck at all.
The highlight of the day by far, was Bowden aquiring a broken (but very fixable) banjo for free, because of his passion in his search for getting a banjo after last year's Rainbow Gathering (nearly getting one then). Asking for trade, Bowden desperately bartered with all that he had, not much other than beer, has vest and many pockets, and knife. The guy came back, impressed as I said, with his passion, and gave him the broken banjo with all of it's parts. We couldn't be more excited.
Later in the day we also aquired some other fun stuff which led to a beautiful beer defeat in which we carried our remainder of beer to the beach. A beautiful and somewhat confusing for me, night on the beach. Bowden and I didn't partake much in drinking, giving away a lot of beer to those in need. lol. Although a beautiful end to the weekend none the less.
Nani, Bowden and I had some major bonding time at the end of the night. We spent hours upon hours talking outside the van, unable to sleep. Pondering the next events of our travels, as the main Festival Goal had now come and go.
With drama ensueing once again, we had decisions to make and people to deal with the following day. Completely unsure of how the events would take place. We could only talk it through. Gather the information and opinions we had as level headed individuals, I feel as though this is when Nani and I really clicked onto a level of understanding. And I couldn't be more thankful for the feeling of full acceptance, and desire she had to keep me around. Recognizing my effort, hard work, dedication, and love and acceptance for her best friend, whom calls me his wife after all.
All we were left to do, was make a few final wishes. Including wishing the friendly little SKUNK! to keep walking and GO AWAY! Unable to move from the van, sitting down next to it, we didn't have much of a choice really... Funny how life puts things into perspective for you, just when you though you had it figured out... Left with wish and hope and dream for what is to come. Yet having no control of whether the skunk would turn tale and cover us in stinking odor...
Or leave us to venture on in our own way....
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