Electric Forest Festival

The Electric Forest Festival took place in Rothbury, Michigan, at the Double JJ Ranch. The Ranch is a beautiful spot, with big open fields, lakes, and a replanted long leaf pine forest that was planted on a grid. The trees are spaced perfectly for hammocks and to hang art installations on; needless to say, the production team went all-out when they decorated for the festival weekend!
We left Ann Arbor in the morning on Thursday, a bit later than we meant to but still pretty much on track, and got up to Rothbury in no time. However, we once again ran into trouble with the damnable GPS. It tossed the address for the festival grounds and took us to the city center of Rothbury. Lost and getting frustrated, we reverted to the directions giving on the festival site, which also weren't very clear. We got back on the highway, this time heading south since we had overshot, and once again didn't find the right exit. We re-entered the address into the GPS, and this time it took us to the gate - the wrong gate, as it turned out. By then there were folks around to ask questions of, and we managed to get directions to the actual gate on the other side of the grounds and got into the traffic line, only slightly the worse for wear.
Oh, the traffic line; truly a festival rite of passage. Some of the bigger festivals clock hours upon hours when it comes to getting the cars loaded with festival goers and gear into the grounds. Going to Bonnaroo 2003, I was stuck in that line for over 12 hours - and that after the 10 hour drive to get to Manchester, TN! Whew! Fortunately, the line for Electric Forest wasn't taking that long. There were only about 15,000 ticketed folks going to the fest (as opposed to the 30,000 of the previous Rothbury festival, or the 50,000 Burners) so it was a pretty small event as they go. We even managed to get in the line, get searched, and cross five or six lanes of traffic in order to make it over to the ADA camping in only a few short hours of time.
Our friend Dave managed to get us into his camp in the ADA (handicap accessible) and WET (work exchange team) reserved areas. This was a great benefit for us because those camps were the closest to the gate into the stage area. It was also very roomy, with relatively clean port-o-potties and even a somewhat more mellow area than out in the acres of regular camping. We got in, got set up, and our friends continued to arrive and put up their temporary homes. Once we were all done, we had quite a set up! A fully outfitted camp!
There was a moment of stress for me, as another carload of folks rolled into our camp and one of them turned out to be Patrick, my ex. Although it's been several years since that nasty split went down, there's still been quite a bit of tension between us on the countless occasions that we've run into each other. The last time we crossed paths (at a Keller show in VA) I tried, once again, to smooth things over a bit so that the level of awkwardness could hopefully be relieved. The conversation then was less than promising, but apparently it did have the desired effect, as we ended up getting along fine and even enjoying each other's company by the end of the weekend. That was a major healing moment for me, and I'm really glad it happened. I think I've finally moved past my anger with him and that whole situation. Perfect! It's so nice to stumble into those moments of positive life experience in the midst of what is mostly just a fun party!
The festival officially opened the gates to the stages around 2, and we made it to our first show - the Emmitt Nershi Band! Drew Emmitt, the mando player from Leftover Salmon, and Billy Nershi, the guitar player from String Cheese Incident, lead this great rocking bluegrass group. We danced our pants off with Crash & friends. It was a great start to the festival!
We caught a bit more music on Thursday, and explored the forest a little bit, but decided to turn in early and get some sleep to prep for the rest of the festival weekend. The folks around us did not, however, and the partying went on around us till late in the night. This lead us to name our camp "Camp Schwilly", and that stuck for the rest of the weekend.