The Best (and Worst) of Bonnaroo

It's been about three days since I got home and I am just now starting to feel somewhat normal again. After doing this for 5 of the last 6 years, I'm not sure if I'm getting better (preparedness!) or worse (old age!) at it, but either way it is truly the best of times and the worst of times. As I described it to a first time Renegade, it's like childbirth....you forget how terrible it actually is and want to do it again once the memory of the pain recedes. Yes, I just compared a music festival to childbirth. Here are the highlights and lowlights...

The Best of Times

Randy's Renegades Reunited!

In our sweet team shirts. Honestly, these kids are effing awesome/ridiculous/hilarious. It pains me that we are all together only once a year.

ARCADE FIRE

although Kristin and Eddie would disagree

The Flavor Savers

Honestly, what's not to like about these guys?

Riding the Train

The picture doesn't do this late night, campground traveling C'mon Ride It (The Train) party justice. We literally had strangers join in and horse cops were jealous that they couldn't. 

Fish Tacos

Seriously, they were delicious, healthy, and uber cheap.

Old Crow Medicine Show

We spent this set talking about all of the naughty things we'd do to Ketch if we were single ladies. Fiddle playing has never been sexier!

Drinking beer at 11am

And Eric wearing my shorts.

3am Campsite Dance Parties

Slash Backstreet Boys/Ke$ha sing-alongs

The Worst of Times 

Oh Em Gee, the HEAT

I don't think a photo can accurately convey just how hot it was. Drew likened our tent to sleeping in an easy bake oven. We were using 85-100 SPF sunscreen and still got crazy tanned. Without tent fans and a camp shower, we might have died.

The wait to get in

Us in the Walmart parking lot (about a mile or two from the site) waiting for the others to arrive around midnight.

Our fearless leader

The sun rising as we were STILL waiting in traffic to get in

Drinking too much Red Bull and thus getting so nauseous I had to go back to camp instead of seeing Gogol Bordello. I'll never forgive myself.

The Dirt Boogers

Thanks to the dust, unless you wear a bandana like a bandit the whole time, everything that comes out of your nose is black. Unfortunately, it is too hot to be a full time bandit. Drew:"If I picked my nose as much in real life as I do here, I would have no friends."

The Port-A-Potties

(no picture required)

Pottying atop 1000 strangers' poop is never a pleasant experience. Neither is finding a urinal full of vomit. Or opening an unlocked port-a-potty to find a dude pooping/exposed penis.

The drive home

Though the ride there is equidistant to the ride back, you are far dirtier and drained and sad and ready to die on the way back. This is us after making the 10 hour trek back to Virginia. To quote Drew once more, "I'm glad you can't smell this picture." To top it off, she and I still had 3-4 hours of travel ahead of us.

CANKLES!

This was taken roughly 4 hours after the picture above. I twisted my right ankle the night before, but it only hurt all day instead of swelling. Then I took a shower, and, BAM, Cankle City, USA. Don't worry, they're gone now.