This past weekend, I attended my first ever weekend-long music festival. All Good Music Festival, located in You’ve Never Heard of It, West Virginia, made for three days of camping fun for this girl. Four days for many of the unemployed and/or secretly rich hippies in attendance. But since I was busy earning my paycheck just in time for the weekend, I went for a Friday afternoon departure with my friend, Kristen, while our man-friends went a day ahead of us to make tent homes.

I was excited for a weekend of adventure– I’m far from being a hippie myself, but I do like flowy dresses, hippie music, and hippies. And there were a lot of those things. So I knew it’d be a good time. As I got ready Friday morning before work, bags packed by the door, I was so excited that I flipped my head awkwardly while applying make-up and pulled a muscle in my neck. So that was a problem. Surely to be intensified by driving for four hours and sleeping on the ground for a couple of nights. But whatevs. I went with logic, popped three Ibuprofen, and willed it to magically stop hurting.

Actually, it got worse, but I was distracted from my temporary pain by our stop in Frostburg, Maryland, which consists of a Rite-Aid and a hotel, along with a Sheetz that sits smack-dab next to a dollar store, both of which we breezed through in wonderment and awe. We got ourselves a beef/cheese dipping combo at the Sheetz since we were in need of some artery clogging before a weekend of port-o-pots, then stopped in the dollar store where I picked up a relatively useless pain relief sticky pad thing while receiving skeptical looks and an inquiry as to where we were from. I didn’t know it was so obvious that we were not, in fact, from down the highway on Pigs Ear Road, but sometimes locals can just tell.

With one hand on the wheel and the other back and forth between my sticky pad that refused to actually stick and the beef/cheese delight whose nutrition label I refused to read, I got us to the festival, which was clearly in full swing by the time we got there. This fact was confirmed by how far away from anything resembling music we were forced to park. I had tried to prepare myself for how overwhelmed I’d be by the span of it, but I hadn’t done it justice. What some call a “small” festival in comparison to others felt vast to me, and I wondered how we’d ever find John and Tom who had already moved the tents twice due to crazy neighbors. Turns out we didn’t find them. Not for close to two hours, anyway. With all of our stuff on our shoulders– which was great for my neck, by the way– we wandered from staff person to useless staff person who knew nothing of the road names within the festival. Luckily, I had the sense to keep track of our uncertain steps so we’d be able to find my car two days later, but I was pretty worried to leave ole Bertha behind with potential weirdos camped out nearby all weekend. I imagined her hood serving as a coaster for multiple beer cans (relatively harmless) and her roof transforming into a late-night dance floor (less so).

When we sat our stuff down to regroup and a car ran over Kristen’s sleeping bag, it pretty much solidified the tone for that journey.

Nevertheless, we found John and Tom after a lot of walking and a couple of overpriced cab rides on golf carts. I love golf carts, though, so that helped. What really helped was our coveted spot in the woods, which was one of the few camping spots without tents sitting one on top of the other. With relief from the sun, I was reminded of my first camping trip last year and how it was actually quite lovely and not too physically demanding.

This whole weekend, however, was physically demanding. While we indeed had some prime real estate in our favor, it was still a long trek to and from the music stages, intensified by the impossibly steep hills we climbed maybe a dozen or so times. TALK ABOUT A WORK-OUT. Not just any old work-out, but a work-out in flip flops. At 3 a.m. Up the steepest hills in all the land. I did it with minimal complaints, though, because I never do cardio on the weekends, and I was glad to be accomplishing things on days of the week when I’m usually lounging around, staring at my bellybutton.

Of course, the music was what we came for, and it was great. There were essentially no set breaks– one band finished, and another started immediately. This lasted all day and well into the night. And let me tell you, there are some really funny looking people at these festivals. Anything goes: crazy hair, colorful make-up, funky clothes, no clothes, and lots of glow sticks. I kept it pretty low-key (no topless photos on the Internet, mom), but at no point did I worry about whether an outfit matched. All Good festival was the ultimate people-watching experience.

I guess really the only downside of the weekend was when I went to step inside what looked like a decent enough port-o-pot but smelled like something even your dog wouldn’t lick and instead stepped in a very wet and disturbing puddle. Oh. My dear God. I was reminded of the time I stepped on a slug barefoot and thought I’d never recover from the utter despair and slime and how THIS WAS SO MUCH WORSE. The only way I could stop myself from shuddering until my teeth fell out as I looked for something skin-dissolvingly clean to submerge my foot in is that I figured it definitely was. Not. Pee. and was actually something very, very clean. ‘Cause, you know, sometimes clean things are sticky like this was.

I’m still shuddering.

Still, the weekend was an overall success. The pain in my neck did actually magically disappear once I settled in, my car, though dusty and with perfectly preserved beef/cheese leftovers sitting warm underneath, was not defaced in any way, and Kristen and I made it to John and Tom for a weekend of bonding over music, tents, and we-might-as-well-just-go-in-the-woods experiences. And, oh, did it feel good to shower on Sunday. Extra scrubbing on the tainted foot.

The happy family – photo belongs to Kristen