A lazy morning: group decision not to go to venue so early to achieve later staying power. And did I tell you about the shower situation? 5 stalls for probably 400 women. The lines Friday morning weren’t too bad, about 30 minutes. But Saturday they were more like 2 1/2 hours. Taylor took matters into her own hands and ran behind the truck watering down the campground to prevent too much dust (although several of us thought it was to wash away the stinky hippy smell). She was so cute, and when the truck came back around, don’t you know she had about 10 other people who thought it was a brilliant idea and joined in. Meanwhile, we were chatting with Matt and Michelle, who had spent Friday at the beach relaxing and had decided to come by the campground to pick up the gear they had left with us (long, not-so-interesting story). While they were on their way, I sauntered over and spoke with the security guard at the gate to explain the situation and find out if they could come in to get their stuff. He was a nice man, Fidel was, and said they could come in and hang out with us. Well, that is all it took for my little brain to hatch a plan to get Matt and Michelle into Coachella. They arrived and came in to the campground, and I explained that Tay and I could get our festival wristbands off, so we could enter the concert grounds and then someone (name a Michael) would carry them back and re-enter with non-ticket holders. Plan went off fine (although not without Tay and I spiraling into stories of how they’d gotten busted as time ticked on and Evan laughing at our silly neuroses). Anyway, as you can see from the group picture taken minutes after their safe arrival, all went fine. We spent the day cruising individually or in small groups, and had two meet-ups: first for Hot Chip, one of my personal favorites and the first band to which I could dance my ass off. In fact, my spine and lower back started aching, so I decided I should keep them still and shake a moo moo with my legs. Bad decision, as you will find out (or see in pictures above) as you read on. Dani and her friends met up with us for that one and Rachel performed the nightly ritual of handing out the glow-in-the-dark bracelets that she and Evan brought. We danced together for about 30 minutes when Dani and Michael made their move to the front. We all split up after that until meeting under the big bird (see behind us in the group picture and again in the night scene) to go see some phenomenon named Tiesto. WAAAAY too loud for me, but danced a few while thinking that this was the biggest dance party I’d ever been to (80,000 people). Speaking of the night scene, I will say that this festival had the most sophisticated visuals of any festival I’ve been to. You can see the ferris wheel, the string of balloons (there were usually 3, going up about 300 feet, and each had different color LED lights along the bottom), the lit-up bird, which provided shade during the daytime, the big plastic colored light things, and there were several other items and artwork of interest that aren’t shown. Keeping all the visual stimulation as high as possible! Anyway, after a couple of dances, I headed over to a tent to see (yes, really) Devo – and they were GREAT! Danced a few, but body giving out, so laid down for a while, then headed back to camp. Left knee starting to ache and even ow when I lay myself down to sleep. Woke up in massive pain at 3:15, couldn’t get comfortable and finally had to wake kids. They got EMTs, who proceeded to drop my leg on the way to the golf cart (yes, that was me emitting that blood-curdling scream), then to ambulance, and on to the emergency room. One MRI and 7 hours later, I was hobbling out with a badly sprained knee. Couldn’t wait to get back to my posse and sleep for 5 hours so I could make it through another day of music and fun!
