HIGH SIERRA MUSIC FESTIVAL 2004

This year Bob and Matt drove down on Wednesday and camped out in the field in the car to get in line, set up camp the next day, and began enjoying music shortly thereafter. I took a flight to Reno and met Walker and we drove in Friday night. Everything went perfectly smoothly until we arrived at the gate about about 10pm and the wristband person had left and we had to go back and get the car and drive to the opposite side of the grounds to go to will call.

Everything was dark and we found one guy sitting on a chair surrounded by cones and he said, "Will call?" We said yes and he pointed and said, "Follow the cones." We drove into the dark, bounced up and down on the rutted "road" that possibly wasn't even a road and headed to what appeared to be even deeper into the middle of nowhere. Convinced we had screwed up we swerved through the cones and headed towards a light and camper which we thought must be it, but no, we were now in the backlot campground. Now what? [These pictures don't match the narrative in case you're wondering. These are pictures of camp.]

We drove around the campground until we saw another guy in an orange reflector vest who looked promising so we zoomed over to him and he asked for our wristbands. "We're looking for will call." "You drove through the cones, didn't you," he said, greatly disappointed. He directed us out the campground exit and told us to start all over again. I convinced Walker to cut back through the cones -- not like anyone was going to chase us. [photo: Matt, Doug and Festi-rug.]

This time we stayed on the dark path until we curved around a huge pile of logging debris and found the will call building. Validly wristbanded, we headed in for the festival. By this time it was way past my bedtime, which I shamelessly announced at camp -- as if these hardcore festival people would admire me for staying up "so" late. "We have things to keep you awake here," someone offered. I declined. I stayed up until 2am two nights in a row -- which is the kids' bedtime at HSMF -- but still. Good for me.

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