December 20, 2002

Happy Belated Holidays. This is my latest edition ever. My excuse is I had this writing class and was pretty much chained to the computer until Dec 14 -- I mean seriously, for the last week I didn't make the bed or wash dishes. Bob was out of town and I ate nothing but frozen burritos -- it was scraping low for me. Then it took me awhile to get back in the groove and get this thing going. So for 02, how do I narrow down the highlights of a year that had so many highlights? I think the stories of the year are High Sierra and High School Reunion.

BTW, I have my own domain and if you still have my teleport information you desperately need to update your address book.

HIGH SIERRA MUSIC FESTIVAL (HSMF)

I bought Bob HSMF tickets as a surprise last xmas. He'd been talking about it and I consulted an expert and was greatly encouraged to go for it. HSMF is a wild music festival that takes place over Fourth of July weekend where regular adults who in their normal lives have jobs, mow their lawns and pay their utility bills, turn into raging, drug-snarfing, sleep-ignoring, partying maniacs. The music starts about 11am and ends around 5:30am. I am not exaggerating in the slightest.

We drove down to Quincy, California (90 miles NW of Reno) which takes close to 10 hours but you end up in the beautiful Sierra Nevadas. We met our friends at the The Ranchito, a quaint roadside inn -- even better than it sounds -- where we spent the night before rising at the butt-crack of dawn to get in line for our primo-camp spot. The Festival site is a Fairgrounds and the camping is basically shoe-horning several thousand people and their tents, provisions and gear (and when I say gear I am talking about pool tables, lighting apparatus, huge canvas banners with logos and camp name (e.g. "Camp Groove"), rugs, living room sets, musical instruments, Nordic Track -- these people are serious) into the corners of the parking lots and other open spaces creating a tent city one click this side of ghetto. Let's just say the camping facility and the honey buckets are not the reason anyone goes to HSMF.

page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 | Newsletters | PamPage

PHOTOGRAPH: Pam and Bob in San Francisco Photographer: Aileen Wilder

This page was made on December 20, 2002. Featured artist: Particle. Featured beverage: pinot noir.

Posted: 12.20.02
http://www.pamrentz.com/pampage/xmas/v12/p1.html