Bonnaroo Too (The drive)

The trip to Teenneessee.

You could set up your tent at the Bonnaroo campsite Thursday near noon, which is what we wanted to do. (Which made me wonder, and ask, "Uh, if Chelsea is taking the car, can we still camp at the Bonnaroo site? It says all over that you get your cars parking space and the 10-15 [I can't remember exactly] foot squared area in front of it.")("Uh... it should be fine, there is day parking..." [uh... oh....kay])

So we Set off tuesday morning with me driving. We went up and took the interstate that goes through wyoming and across the motherland to ... some state over there -> (east), where we take another road that connects to some thing that goes over to the, hey manchester! (This is how directions work in my head, in case you have ever given me directions to anywhere, I am not the best interstate navigator.)

After a couple hours I can tell that I hate driving when it is so very, very bright outside.


I instantly forget how sleeping in a car is ALMOST as worthless, rest-wise, as sleeping in an airplane. So I let Zach take over and pretend like I am going to be able to fall asleep in the middle of the day.



Zach drives for a while through wyoming and it feels like he is softly jerking the steering wheel back and forth but really he is just trying to adjust for the ridiculous winds that sweep over this flat and arid sorry excuse for a state. Sorry Dad/Grandpa.

I don't really get any sleep, especially when we take the time to stop at the worlds largest dust fabrication facility. Show here.



OR when we start our 20 years of The Carpenters Sing-a-long Marathon...



♫... the world lookin', down on creation...♫

Zach was not pleased by the marathon to say the least.
Brandon did what Brandon does best, complained. Juuuust kidding... just kidding Brandon. Just playing, man. But seriously, he complained that Zach was weaving all over the road and was curious if Zach was tired and wanted to take a break. This question come in the following form, over and over it was repeated whenever we are driving, "Hey Zach, are you ok?" "Are you ok to drive, Steve?" ... Like nails on a chalkboard.

I decide that I want to try to sit in the backseat as it might provide better sleeping conditions. Brandon takes over driving and Zach takes a break.
"Oh wow, this wind is crazy!" I wake up (Not really asleep, just forcing myself to shut my eyes...) "Brandon..." "Yeah?" "Brandon, are you feeling alright? You are swerving all over the road!" Me and Zach give a satisfying chuckle. Medicine is a prescription best served to people in a snarky and sarcastic way... and cold.

...

Here is another picture of Zach.



You're welcome.

We drive a lot, and the sun slowly sets behind us. The horizon fades from white to dark blue, and finally black. Our eyes are allowed to leave perma-squint mode and I take up my position as lead night-driver. Brandon gets this wise idea that we shouldn't drive through the night... Pffft. I try to ignore him and hope that he falls asleep only to awake in the golden fields of teenneessee. He stays awake (Of course, you can't really sleep in a car) and it starts to lightly rain. Blast...
Brandon lays another question on me, "Hey I think it is better if we stop and stay somewhere for the night, and then head off again in the morning." My option are: A)... Okay, that is probably a good idea.
(If he feels unsafe then I would have to be a real dick to ignore him.)
We stay at some comfort in, or something... it has a shower, and that pretty much rocked. I really did feel ocmpletely safe at that point, so I was kind of upset since driving at night seems ideal temperature and eye-damage wise.

We get up, say a prayer, and head out on the road again in the morning. (Yes, Willie Nelson was playing at bonnaroo too.)



Oh, We listened to 1984 on the way up which was really interesting but hard to pay attention to and try to sleep at the same time. Interesting book.

We tried to listen to a couple other books on tape but none of them really stuck, so we ended up just listening to music.

Driving back east is a lot more pleasant than driving around Wyoming, and this helped distract us for the last section of the trip.

We eventually get to Manchester and find the house of the family where Chelsea is going to sleep. When we step our of the car we can feel how muggy the air is. This is going to be painfully awesome! The family is REALLY cool, and extremely kind. They offer to let the guys set up the tent in the back yard for the night... and then they say we can crash in the living room on their couches. We follow procedure and say that it is okay, that we will just sleep in a gutter or something, but they insist. "Oooooookaaaay." We enjoy the last taste of air-and comfortable sleep for the next week.

Before sleeping though we go over to walmart to pick up some perishables. The walmart parking lot is covered with festival goers. The entire parking lot, full... at walmart. Seriously.

The single most important item that we (I) had hoped to buy at the walmart is not to be found. Bagels... all the god-forsaken hippies took every last bagel. None left, not even a smashed week old bag of onion-blueberry-oat bagels... Damn hippies.