Wanee 2018

Andrew has been trying to convince me for years to go to a music festival with him. He has been to countless shows and always has a friend willing to go with him; in fact, he and Steve even went all the way up to the original Woodstock site several years ago. So honestly, I never felt the urgency to go because I knew Andrew wasn't missing out. And I'm not really keen on tagging along with him and his buddies just to say I went.

Well, in mid-December I was chatting with a friend/coworker and she mentioned that she and her husband had been to the Wanee Music Festival several times and absolutely love going. I recognized the name of the festival because Andrew had mentioned it before and that sometime he would like to go. This was the push I needed! Even though Andrew hates surprises, I knew he would love this one! First and foremost, I ran the idea by Grann and checked to see if she and Pops would be able keep the kids for a few days. I wanted this to be a fun getaway for just the two of us since we don't usually have that opportunity. Since I wasn't sure about all of the logistics with camping (did we need water and power hookups?) and what kind of tickets to get, I just printed out a flier for the festival and wrote "Interested?" across the top. I wrapped it up and gave it to him for Christmas. I think he was confused at first, but needless to say, he was VERY interested! Within the next couple of days we booked our tickets and even decided to splurge on a VIP package to spoil ourselves a little bit. Since we would be camping in the Vanagon, Andrew wanted to make sure it was in good shape for a 4-hour road trip. He spent numerous nights in the garage over the past several months working to replace the front and rear suspension, brakes, and putting on new rims and tires. He rebuilt the motor last year, so after all of these upgrades we hoped it would get us there and back without any issues.

The festival officially began on Thursday, and Andrew convinced me we should go a day early just in case we broke down and needed extra time to get there. I was able to take the extra day off work, so on Wednesday we dropped Ryder off at school, Harper at Pops and Grann's house, and Garcia at the pet resort. Then we headed north!

Let the road trip begin!

The Vanagon isn't known for its speed! We hovered around the 55-60mph mark the whole way up the interstate. :) It took us about 5 hours instead of just under 4, so it wasn't bad.

I snapped a picture of the lineup with my phone so I'd always have the schedule handy!

Our home away from home for the festival. The weather was beautiful, so we left the van open when we were at the campsite so the breeze could keep it aired out.

We even had a little backyard space!

I think our new fruit hammock was the finishing touch. :) 

The empty spaces immediately on the other side of the fence were completely filled up within 24 hours of our arrival. We were so grateful we got there when we did!

our "living room" for the week

One of my favorite parts was walking along and checking out other people's camp sites. You could tell who the regular festival-goers were because they personalized their sites with signs, lights, and other decorations to go along with their tapestries.

breakfast of champions!

This lake was only about a 2 minute walk from our site. It was amazing to see all of the tents lining the perimeter of it. 

Knowing I would have some free time this trip, I brought a new coloring book with me. I colored a little bit each day and almost finished one entire picture. :) I probably hadn't touched one in almost a year, so that's saying something!

The park is beautiful with lots of huge trees for shade.

This Jerry Garcia mannequin was set up in front of someone's camp site. I was going to just take a picture of Andrew with Jerry, but the lady saw us strolling by and told me to grab an inflatable guitar and hop in the picture too!

We spotted another Vanagon with an awesome setup--notice the fake chimney on the roof!

The Mushroom Stage is a wooded outdoor amphitheater. It is the smaller of the two stages and has lots of trees for shade! People would just hang their hammocks up and leave them there for the duration of the festival. It was so colorful!



 

This was inside a vendor's booth where we bought the kiddos a small souvenir: a hackysack for Ryder and a purse for Harper made out of the same material.

See the guy in the middle with the baseball jersey that says "Big Daddy"? He and his group of friends apparently had shirts made before the festival with their nicknames printed on the back. We saw self-proclaimed Big Daddy almost every day (wearing this same shirt and too-short shorts) and he was over-beveraged THE ENTIRE TIME. I was embarrassed for his wife and friends. I would have found his behavior entertaining, except for the fact that at the first evening concert he was standing near us when he decided to fill his mouth with water and spit it while shaking his head side to side like a human sprinkler. Not cool, Big Daddy.

Phil Lesh, one of the original Grateful Dead band members

We nicknamed this purple shoes man "Jerry" because he danced and sang along to every Grateful Dead song. So fun to watch!

For a couple of the evening concerts at the Peach Stage, we brought a blanket and chairs and sat in the very back of the field. This gave us a great vantage point for people-watching! From here we could watch people hula-hooping, playing frisbee, blowing bubbles, and just enjoying the music.

I have never seen so many people with dreadlocks in my life!

hanging out in VIP

--our VIP section view of the stage--
We could walk right up to that fence!

When we weren't at the shows, we passed the time playing Skip-Bo. We probably spent hours playing it over the 4 days we were there.

We decided that our upgraded tickets were totally worth it. We were fed lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday, and the food was really good! It kept us from eating "cup o' noodles" or fried food from the vendors for every meal.

One morning we decided to have toast with Nutella, peanut butter and banana. No toaster? No problem! Andrew toasted our bread over his camp stove. What a treat!

one grateful guy!