Tennessee Road Trip Part 5: Bonnaroo to Boston

The grand finale (pretend there's one of those accent marks there ok thanks) to this extensive two-week road trip.  A bittersweet ending to a great adventure.

Mon. 6/17/13
The sounds of tent deconstruction woke us up early on Monday.  Which filled me with a nameless dread because we had to do the same.  Surprisingly, it wasn't as horrible as I initially assumed; within an hour we were all packed up and filling the car, which Scott had driven up to the tent-only area.  We said our tearful goodbyes to all the friends we had met and by 8:30 we were driving north toward Kentucky.
Five minutes after crossing the border into the eleventh state on our road trip, we stopped at a Waffle House for breakfast.  I ate more than humans are known to eat, including a crazy huge portion of hashbrowns.  Flushing toilets were a scary and foreign concept to me.  (So foreign, in fact, that I forgot to flush that first time.  Whoopsidaisy.)
We drove a little bit further to south-central Kentucky before entering Mammoth Caves National Park, our next destination.  Most activities in this park include taking part in some form of a guided cave tour into some section of the 400 mile long cave system.  What better way than to get started right away!  We first joined the "Historic Cave Tour," which is a short two-mile loop in an extremely wide cave segment.  This cave is enormous, and this portion was about 40 ft high and quite wide.  But there were also sections called "Fat Man's Misery," which required you to make some interesting twists and turns if you happened to be portly.

I've never been in a cave of this size before

Olde-timey graffiti is still graffiti

This cave is really dry, which meant no stalactites or stalagmites.  A lot different than Carlsbad Caverns.
The second tour we joined required a bus to take us five miles away to a different entrance - this one created by dynamite rather than natural causes.  This is the longest cave system in the world and we ended up seeing a combined three miles of it.  The temperature differences between the outside and in the caves was astounding.  Probably a 30 degree difference if not more.  It was the first time I used my sweatshirt on the trip other than a pillow.
This section of the cave was a bit different in that it had three distinct segments: one in which the cave was expanding and dripping water, one that was wider and drier, and a third section that reminded me of a quintessential "cave experience" with familiar cave geology like pillars, stalactites and stalagmites.  The Frozen Niagara, one such area, reminded me of Carlsbad Caverns.  Really cool stuff.

Caving Champions

Cave stuff

EVEN CAVIER STUFF

But the tour was only three quarters of a mile, so we were done and back on the bus pretty quickly.  People were asking the dumbest questions, like "when do the two hours start" as the guide was reading the government mandated rules.  Michelle got hilariously snarky, making comments that had me loling a bit too loudly and mentioning that cave monsters eat children.  She had slept a lot on the ride, but it appeared that she could use a bit more.
Back at camp, we set up the tent and Can Jam.  After two "defeats," Michelle and I destroyed Scott and Sarah when I JAMMED THE CRAP OUT OF THAT CAN.  We cooked dinner over a fire, which included ALL the rest of the food we had and two cases of beer.  It actually ended up being a lot of food.  Before I knew it I was exhausted and went to bed.  I followed through on my threat to steal Michelle's star pillow, since she failed to give me my sweatshirt pillow the previous night.  So I was having a great sleep with pillows and everything when Michelle wakes me up for her pillow back.  I said "let's wait on it."  She asked "when?" to which I honestly replied "when you forget about it."  And it worked.  I had that pillow for the entire night.

Tue. 6/18/13
It was pouring out when we woke up, so we decided to keep sleeping until it calmed down.  Scott, Sarah, and Michelle had all left things outside to dry... it seems to have had the opposite effect.  We saw a crapload of wild turkeys on our way out of the park, but we were so used to them at this point that we didn't even care.
We continued driving north through Kentucky until Cincinnati, crossing the river into Ohio.  It was here that I had the brilliant idea to have lunch at the Munich Beerhall recreation of Hofbrauhaus.  I've been there before during a week of training for work: it was delicious.  A liter of german beer and a bunch of bratwursts.  It was so good.  I let Scott drive the rest of the way for today.

They unfortunately don't have a larger size

JFK apparently was caught trying to steal one of these back in the day

Cincinnati over the river.  That place is pretty decent.

After a few more relatively uneventful hours in Ohio, we stopped near Columbus at Scott's parents' house.  A nice little farm house on a big plot of land with corn a-growin'.  We rode in the Mule around the property to see everything and then we spent the rest of the evening shooting clay pigeons with shotguns until dinner.  Good times.

Farm stuffs

THIS IS HOW I HUNT

Game Face

Scott's parents made us a lovely dinner and I took the first shower in like six days... the first real one, because the one at Bonnaroo barely counts.  Later at night I went out to look at the stars and fireflies out in the fields.  These are the normal fireflies that I'm used to seeing in PA.  Not as incredible as the Synchronous fireflies, but still amazing.  I probably stayed out there watching them and stargazing for half an hour.  At some point we went out for an unreasonable amount of ice cream and went to bed before an early morning.

Wed. 6/19/13
I think it was my dread of returning back to my normal life mixed with a few hiccups during the drive that put me into a sour mood.  Which is not how I want to end a great road trip.
The day started with a great breakfast provided by Scott's parents.  Today, however, we packed up two cars.  Scott is starting his new job that requires a car soon, so he's taking up his old Mustang.  This relieved some of the space issues we were having.  By 7:30 Michelle and I were driving Soup and Scott+Sarah were in the Mustang, heading out for a supposedly 13 hour drive to Boston.  We had walkie-talkies, codename Winterfell for Scott's car and Riverroon (the Robb accent on "Riverrun" is critical) for mine.
Most of the drive was fairly boring.  Driving across PA was beautiful; I had never been to that side of the state before.  Naturally we had to stop at Wawa near Scranton, where I proceeded to drop my hoagie.  No matter, I was given another for my folly.
The trouble hit right around New York.  Scott decided to get EZpass, so we went on ahead through the toll.  Some issue with the overpass had forced 20 cars to pull over to the side of the road, but I had no idea what the cause was at the time.  Scott found out for us.  Apparently there was some piece of something on the overpass just hanging out damaging cars like a boss.  I was lucky, but Scott's oil tank got destroyed.  Winterfell was taken out of commission by a bridge: kind of ironic.
We had to wait a few hours for the police report and for the tow trucks to finish with everyone else to come pick Scott's car up.  Luckily we had my car to fall back on and no one got stuck in NY.  So we all piled into Soup and continued on our merry way to Boston.  Two horrific bouts of traffic later and we finally made it, in only 16.5 hours.  So fun.  I didn't get to sleep until 1:30am.
Not a great way to end the road trip, but I think a round of Thorns and Roses would be a great way to put some perspective on it.  My thorn was definitely the fog in Shenandoah - we just couldn't see anything in the park: a 120 mile drive through a ping pong ball.  My rose was a tie between the insane synchronous firefly show and Paul McCartney singing Live and Let Die.  So epic.

Another successful road trip completed

Tennessee Road Trip Part 4: Bonnaroo... at least give other festivals a chance, you know?

Bonnaroo.  Holy crap.  The word "epic" is actually justifiably used in the following transcript.

Thur. 6/13/13
It turns out that Scott made it back to the campsite at some point in the night AND brought the remainder of our car stuff too.  Good man.  The three of us tent people woke up early, when the Sun started baking us in our tent and people outside started stirring.  A lot more people showed up to the festival today.  Our mini neighborhood started to take form - a lot of really cool people are grouping around our "city" structure.  Apparently people had a really tough time getting in - like leaving Nashville at 6pm and not getting past security until 4am.  I guess there was an accident that exacerbated the horrendous traffic, so we were kind of lucky.

So Tennessee is fucking hot.  I had to keep applying sunscreen every 20 minutes until the clouds and wind eased the situation a bit.  Today was really crowded when they opened the Centeroo gates just because everyone was trying in at the same time and were really excited I guess.  So we hung out, had some beer, hydrated, and got to know our neighbors a bit.  We met Phil and Liz, who are great people, and Phil had us on the edge of our seats with a crazy intense story about Navajo Indians trying to kill him.

Also, Phil has a didgeridoo

Right when we got in line to enter, it rained for about five minutes.  It was perfect.  It cooled everything off and made life a bit more bearable.  Although now we were coated with a gross sunscreen slime: oh well.  Our first goal was to go to "the Other Tent," (all the tents/stages are named something confusing and stupid like that) to see Twenty One Pilots.  I had never heard of them before, but I had some positive recommendations and they certainly delivered.  Sarah and I watched from near the front and center, which got EXTREMELY hot and sweaty.  But these guys put on a hell of a show - so energetic and so fun.  At one point they had the crowd hold them up on platforms and they played drums while being held up by the crowd.  It really was a great show.

They're not actually skeletons, don't worry

The crowd is holding them up right now like at a normal concert

There's got to be an easier way

After the fantastic Twenty One Pilots show, I explored for a while with different groups of friends since it's so difficult staying as a cohesive unit.  I took a mini "shower" in the main waterfountain, which helped quite a bit after that last band.  Alissa and I (owe yeah, Alissa showed up for Bonnaroo today) got some meatball hoagie thing at a foodtruck for dinner, and I continued wandering.  I got a ticket at the comedy tent to see Mike Birbiglia  with Michelle and Alissa, which entailed getting the ticket two hours early.  We're lucky that we're camping right outside the festival entrance, because a stop-off at the tent for a beer and a shirt is so feasible.
The comedy show was great; Mike was funny but his opener was hysterical.  After that we meandered from tent to tent listening to a few new bands.  We wanted to do the Silent Disco (where everyone has headphones only those people can hear the music that the DJ is playing), but the line was ridiculous.  So we went to this Christmas-Pizza-dance club thing... it was weird.  But a lot of us were waning and in need of sleep, so we called it an early night with bands still playing on the nearby stage.

Fri. 6/14/13
We woke up early in the morning... somehow.  The first order of business was of course sunscreen.  And then a gin bucket - which is almost exactly what it sounds like - followed by Can Jam.  Hanging out with our neighbors is pretty great.  Really fun, interesting people.  The atmosphere and the culture here is so friendly.

Let's just say that Michelle was "not pleased" with missing this picture.  The word "livid" could be used if we wanted to though.

After a fair amount of hanging out, we went to go see a band called Reptar.  They were a 9-person band that played kind of pop-rocky kind of music.  They were ok: kind of reminded me of a highschool band.  We left early to go wait near the front of the stage that Of Monsters and Men would be playing at.  But first: we wait 2 hours in the hot blistering Sun!  It was worth it though; they put on a great show.  Exactly what I would imagine - a fun band playing some really good songs.  And the Icelandic/Elvish accents were pretty great too.  I guess I was applying sunscreen every two minutes during the wait, so I somehow got out of it sans sunburns.

I would assume Icelandic people would melt in this heat...

o hello

We then booked it over to the main stage to catch the second half of Passion Pit, which incidentally is when they played all the songs that I know and enjoy.  We were towards the back of the crowd, but it didn't make much of a difference to me.  At this point we only had a couple of hours before Paul McCartney, so a lot of people went back to camp for a quick nap.  I instead toured around the Centeroo area, got some dinner: just kind of walked around the festival area.  We are camped so close to the Centeroo entrance that I was able to head back to camp for a little food and beverage action before the concert.

The allure of gigantic Meatwad is too great

We all went in about half an hour early for Paul McCartney and got relatively decent spots; every person in the festival was there.  This show was amazing.  He played a great mix of Beatles and Wings songs, singing tributes to John Lennon and George Harrison: it was definitely the best concert I have ever seen or will ever see again.
Such a great combination of amazing songs including Blackbird, Hey Jude, Band on the Run, Let it Be - a crazy gamut of emotions.  I was belting out every single song.  SO MUCH FUN.  He also played some songs never before performed live - All Together Now and For the Benefit of Mr. Kite - I had a blast.  It was seriously almost too much.  And then: Live and Let Die.  I can only describe my feelings with a quote that was heard on the way out of the concert: "I laughed, I cried, I shit my pants - full fucking gauntlet."  Just as the heavy guitar riff of Live and Let Die set in: fireworks erupted and fireballs spouted from the ground.  One of the best moments of my life.  I lost it.  I will never forget it: legitimately epic, comparable to Homer's "Odyssey."  One of the fireworks exploded a little too close to the crowd, but whatever - it felt like a warzone anyway and that would be an awesome way to die.

SO LIVE AND LET DIE

After he finished, he came back for an encore with hilarious quips like "you guys still want to hear more? ... ok."  Then he blew my mind with Helter Skelter, my favorite Beatles song.  I freaked out.  I have never had so much fun at a show before.  I can't even describe it.  Imagine the Universe around you is filled with just pure awesomeness in the form of music and lights and Paul McCartney's unstoppable rocking out is the cause.  And then ANOTHER FUCKING ENCORE.  Someone threw up a stuffed animal Walrus, which he proceeded to serenade on the piano with the medley from Abbey Road.  Ending with "And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make."  I will never see a concert as good as this.  If I were capable of producing tears, I would have been weeping like a little girl.
But the night was still young: we had some EDM bands to see.  We heard one pretty good DJ for a bit after getting through the monstrous crowd leaving Paul McCartney's stage.  We followed this up by seeing Pretty Lights.  This DJ is aptly named because the light show was nothing short of exquisite.  They were projecting 3D images onto the smoke surrounding the stage, and people hurled up their glow sticks every time the bass dropped.  It was a lot of fun, but we were a bit too far back to experience the optimum awesomeness.  So we left and went to the Silent Disco.  It was hilarious, because whenever you remove your headphones, everyone looks really really stupid.  But it was a lot of fun nonetheless.
We finished our night with a pretzel from the Amish food truck (yeah I don't really get it either) and then went back to the tent as the Sun started to rise.  Great night.

Sat. 6/15/13
Our late night inevitably led to a late-ish morning.  I finally got out of my sleeping bag, drenched in sweat, as the Sun was already insanely hot.  We hung out at camp for a while because the first band I was interested in seeing, Matt+Kim, wasn't until later in the day.  Remaining at the tent meant beer, didgeridoo: the usual.
The Matt+Kim concert, however, was great.  A lot of fun energy going on.  We managed to get to the front of the stage, which was just a wild sweaty mess.  More crowd surfers and balloons than one can count.  Kim was quite "vulgar," which isn't the best word to describe her antics, but I'll stick with it for now.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  By the end we were all packed together as close as people can get without pain (there was some pain) and everyone was sweating all over each other and I think Sarah's hair was in my mouth for the entire last song.  It would make a germophobe want to puke in the sink.  When we got out, we all needed a crapload of water.  I was bummed about missing Portugal the Man, but being near the front of Matt+Kim was definitely worth it.

I left this concert covered in sweat, 50% of which was my own

After a much needed dip in the fountain, we went over to the Lumineers show and actually got decently close.  They played their two songs early in the set, and the rest of their music was only ok, so Scott and I went over to the main stage for Jack Johnson.  Mumford and Sons was the scheduled headline for today, but there were some medical issues that forced them to cancel the rest of the tour.  Everyone is ok, so that's good, but a lot of people were unhappy about the cancellation.  Not me.  I had seen them last year in Portland and I have a hard time believing this show would be better.  Also Jack Johnson is my guilty pleasure musician.  And he was so damn good.  I belted out Bubble Toes (like there's even an option).  A lot of my friends were too tired or whatever and didn't go, and Scott eventually left after napping in the grass, so I was on my own.  So I snuck into the VIP section up at the very front.  It was amazing.  I was so friggn close.  Even though he and his band hadn't played together for over a year and he only got the call to headline at Bonnaroo with only two days notice, he still rocked it out.

My camera sucks with this lighting, but here's how close I was to the screen on the stage

And there's Jack Johnson a stone's throw from me!

After that, there was a plethora of shows I wanted to see, so it was go time.  I was on my own, so I had the mobility to move around quickly to actually see a lot of them.  I caught R. Kelly sing Remix to Ignition, some Billy Idol, and stayed for most of Weird Al, which was hysterical.  Definitely a stranger fanbase at that show than anything else at Bonnaroo, but it was great.  I lost it at Amish Paradise.
I managed to meet up with Michelle and her friend from Harpoon (everyone seems to just collect friends here) and we wandered around the festival for a while enjoying beer and music.

This was basically my shower for the past few days

We created a unique, depressing game called "the grass is lava," where you can only step on pieces of garbage to get around.  It was devastatingly easy to traverse around the festival area.  We stayed for a bit of a Zeppelin tribute-ish band, which I loved.  Except there was usually no singing, which was weird to me.  But then some more wandering and eventually bed after a really fun night of walking around Centeroo.

Sun. 6/16/13
Sunday we awoke, still struggling.  Not sure why.  Probably because of the number of continuous days camping and the various odors emanating from the immediate area.  Phil and Liz had brought a portable latrine: great for us because we could avoid the lines and shitty conditions (literally).  However, the smell was fairly overwhelming.  And some unknown drunk person took a dump outside of the latrine.  So I had the opportunity to step in human feces... so messed up.  Who the hell takes a dump behind someone's tent?  Anyway, to help pitch in, I offered to empty the latrine one morning.  Michelle and Alissa joined for moral support.  The idea is simple: go to a port-a-potty, dump out the top, unscrew the storage container at the bottom, and then dump that out.  What happened was: dump out the top making sure to get urine all over my hands, unscrew the bottom making sure to get a frothy mixture of excrement on my hands, and dump the storage, getting some on my feet.  There weren't enough Wet Wipes in the world.  I can't believe I didn't vomit.  A shower at least helped.  Worth the $7.  Plus - free Frucktiss shampoo.
Anyway Sunday was our day to finish off all the infinite number of beers that we didn't drink.  It was also the final day of the festival.  I'll leave some stuff out and jump right ahead to the first show we went to - Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.  Our entire tent area family went in together and loved every second of that show.  They were great.  How can you not love Thrift Shop?  And We Danced?  Holy crap.  I was feeling great.  I found a pack of gummy sharks in my bag, which delighted me.  And the soles of my feet were sweating WAY too much, which I didn't understand, but whatever: the concert was great.  Today was the first day we had a little cloud cover, and it is amazing compared to the direct, 100 degree heat in Tennessee. At one point during the concert, Phil screamed out "If it starts raining right now I'm going to lose my shit!"  Probably the funniest thing I've ever heard.
We all broke off after that: Phil and Liz to go make a drum, Sarah to hang out with her new makeout partner/boyfriend/husband, Alissa to go do whatever it is Alissa does, and Scott, Michelle, and I to go sit and wait up close for the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros show.  A very hot and... interesting wait.  Anyway, the 19 person band that is Edward Sharpe came on and played some fantastic songs.  At this point Scott went to go lie down and take it easy near some structure, but Alex from our tent are somehow found and joined us.  The show was great, Alexander from the band came out right near us singing really strangely, as he is wont to do.  At the end of the show the mentioned that they would play a bit longer at another stage, so we crept over there for a few more unplanned songs.  We requested Wagon Wheel (of course) but it was a no go.
We checked out a bluegrass band while devouring fried oreos, which are just the best things ever, and returned to the campsite to prepare for Tom Petty (aka more adult beverages).  It started raining, but our chant of "four more days" and bittersweet excitement for the last show overcame the rain.  Tom Petty played some great songs that we danced to, sang to, and and some slow ones that we nearly slept to, and of course Free Fallin'.  We hung out back at camp for a while just shooting the shit until I realized how exhausted I was.  I attempted some cleanup, but it was not going to happen.

Thus describes a majority of our time at Bonnaroo.  There was so much going on that I had to leave some of it out, but trust me: it was a great time.

Tennessee Road Trip Part 3: Nashville and some Bonnaroo

The road trip went by really quickly, but I'm realizing it was actually pretty long based on the amount of time it's taking me to type everything up.

Tue. 6/11/13
Sweet merciful crap.  I am currently sitting next to a magnificent waterfall at Gaylord Opreyland Resort in Nashville.  Follow me, dear readers, as I walk you through today's adventures.
We woke up fairly early with the intention of packing up camp, doing a short waterfall hike, and saying our goodbyes to Smoky Mountain National Park.  We actually did pack away the campsite relatively early, but the downside of this hike was that we had to drive through Gatlinburg ONCE AGAIN to get to the trailhead.  It was only 1.4 miles on the Trillium Trail to the Grotto Falls, so I mistakenly decided I could pull it off in my flip flops.  Well, technically I did, but I was sliding around all over the goddamn place.  It was only a little hike and the falls were really cool; you can go around behind them, which we did.  It was nice doing it early in the day before a lot of people started to show up.

Baby waterfall

Loving these natural showers

Then we started our ~4 hour drive to Nashville.  First passing through Pigeon Springs or Pigeon Fort - I don't remember or care to remember the name, but it was really tacky and had like eight go-kart places.  Pigeon Forge - whatever though.  Main thing is we ate at Chik-fil-A and it was good.
Then some driving, some of which was tainted with terrible country music, but soon enough we arrived at the glorious entity of our resort.  You guys - showering.  What an incredible thing.  Five days of indescribable horror washed off, leaving an arguably clean person, ready to explore this enormous hotel/resort.  After this epiphany of human experiences, I toured a FRACTION of this resort (the waterfall area mostly), but there is still a small city and a river with gondollas that I have yet to find.  It is gorgeous and amazing.  Right now I'm chilling outside at the pool with a Pina Colada.  So.  Freaking.  Perfect.  A vacation on our vacation!

This is just insane

Here's the indoor waterfall near our room - just normal stuff

After some well deserved rest and relaxation, we went into town... kind of... to do some much needed laundry.  While that was going on, we went over to Centennial Park, which is kind of lackluster.  We saw the fake Parthenon... not sure why that's there but ok.  And the mini pond there was kind of gross with algae, but it had a friendly turtle!  So that's good.  But other than that nothing.

Just Parthenon in Tennessee.  Deal with it.

So we got our laundry and then went to Loveless Cafe for the most incredible dinner ever.  Ever.  So southern.  An all-you-can-eat friend chicken/pulled pork with friend green tomato and biscuit shindig.  I ate so much that I hate myself.

Sunset behind Nashville after dinner

 Exploring our hotel made me realize that this place is beyond enormous.  We walked through four different segments of the resort, passing through a conservatory, a long river, and out to an island on said river.  It had olde-timey buildings (INSIDE the glass-structure surrounding the resort complex) and a water foundtain show and a crapload of other stuff.  Even a Jack Daniels restaurant surrounded by barrels for some reason.  This place is nuts.

I like to call this the "Titanic room"

A view from the island from the other side of the indoor river

Just a normal water show at our hotel in Nashville no big deal

After exploring for a while, we took a cab downtown on the Broadway Street area.  This street has a ton of bars with live hands in every one.  The night started off a bit slow, but ended up being awesome.  We first went to a bar called Honkey Tonk, and it was terrible, as the name might suggest.  Not only because the music was country, but because they did a 45 minute long sound check.  Honestly this was better than listening to country music, but the girls were not pleased about it and made sure that we were very aware of their discontent.  Then we witnessed a music video in the making when a convertable was being towed around and filmed.  The great thing about Nashville is that there is live music everywhere.  So we explored.
The next bar was called "Something" and "whiskey" was in the name, but the band kept yelling "Holler and Swaller" so we're going to go with that.  It started off as crappy country music, but we requested Wagon Wheel, which really turned the night around.  We also had quite a bit to drink, if you haven't already learned from the quality of my handwriting (note: my handwriting at this point in the journal is even worse than normal).  The band loved us and kept giving Boston shout-outs.  We got a recommendation to Roberts for 50's/60's swing music.  It was beyond amazing.  I loved that music (obviously a lot better than country) and they were a very entertaining group.  The acoustic bass player kept swinging his bass around and rocking out.  And they sell Yuengling in Tennessee!  Huzzah!  I met some Bonnaroo people there, two of which had just gotten engaged that night in the middle of the street.  Pretty cool.

"Holler and Swaller" or something to that effect.  The best part is the bear in the corner of the bar.

Also this older gentleman asked Michelle to dance

Definitely a fun place

 Our last bar was another recommendation, but this place was only minorly ok.  We stayed long enough to witness some bar drama unfold before cabbing it back to the resort.

Wed. 6/12/13
I somehow woke up early and without a hangover miraculously.  And somehow Scott and Michelle were both in the same boat, so we explored a lot more of the different resort areas.  Now we're taking a swim break at one of the infinite pool areas, and HOPEFULLY this Eastern European pool guy Eli will open up the bar soon.  Pina Coladas aren't going to make themselves.  And they are starting to sound pretty damn good.

Fact: they were.  After the pool we took our last real shower for a while and left the wonderful resort for the harsh reality of the Tennessee heat.  And re-packing the car in that heat is simply horrible.  But we pulled it off after sweating the entire supply of water out of my body and headed downtown.  We didn't have too much time though, because we had a pretty tight schedule to meet up with our friend Bridget et al.  So we had a mediocre meal and walked up Broadway for a bit, going into a cool print store to pet the cats there.

These statues are beyond awkward

Prove it.

Then we hightailed it out of Nashville and got some gas, since we ad heard that people run out of fuel waiting in the Bonnaroo line in the past.  NOT US.  And then a trip to Walmart to meet up with Bridget and obtain some last minute supplies.  5-hour energies were a must.
The exit for Bonnaroo was closed and the highway riddled with cops to deal with the insanity of Bonnaroo.  We had to drive 13 miles past the exit to get in line on the opposite side.  But we were early enough that it didn't take all that long, and before we knew it we were through security and parking in Lot 1.  It turns out that getting here early is exceptionally bad because they weren't letting people out of our lot to go to tent-only camping.  So we had to semi-set our stuff up at the car before packing it all back up and waiting in the "please let us out of here" area.  Scott managed to sweet talk us out with some lie.  Not a horrible trek to tent-only camping and Centeroo (the main activity area), but our spot in the camping area is optimum.  Probably a 40 second walk into the festival area.  We spent some time setting up and marking off our area and grabbing some food at one of the food truck areas.  We made friends with some cool neighbors too.  We helped Chad from Alabama set up his tent in exchange for some beer, which we had locked away in our inaccessible car.

Waiting in line wasn't nearly as bad for us as it was for people arriving later than us

The view of Centeroo from our tent

At this point, the night takes a horrible turn.  Scott and I went to meet with Bridget to pick up some supplies they had for us.  They were staying in their car camping area, which is like 20 minutes away.  So that was a long, heavy trek.  Then Scott, Sarah, and I went down to our own car area, borrowing Chad's wagon, to get the rest of our stuff because we heard they were opening that lot up again.  Nope.  They let Scott and the wagon in, and after some time of Scott not being able to find the car and having the wagon get stolen, and then having it found, we decided to call it quits and to get everything in the morning.  NOPE.  The Centaurs (what I call the mounted horse people) wouldn't let Scott out now, so while he had to go sleep in the car (it turns out not really, he got through a few hours later) Sarah and I had to walk a newly lengthened route back to the tent.  It was a miserable night for everyone.  Maybe not for Michelle since she had like 10 hours of sleep, but the rest of us rued the evening.

It's ok though, Bonnaroo is totally worth it

Tennessee Road Trip Part 2: Smoky Mountains

Continuing the journal entries from last time.  I'm pretty sure the weather improves a bit, and as a result, so does my mood.  Plus I was witness to some pretty amazing things.

Sat. 6/8/13
Fog socked us in this morning, so unfortunately no sunrise this morning.  Instead, we slept in a bit and had some bagels and other easy breakfasty stuff when we did finally wake up.  Cataloochee campground, our temporary home for the first two nights in the Smokies, is a bit further away from the rest of the park.  Good news is that our view from the far East side of the park encompasses layer after layer of mountains stretching westward.  The unfortunate part is that it takes about two hours at least to drive to the rest of the park for hiking or sightseeing.  But we toughed it out.
We drove along Blue Ridge Parkway, which is a lot of switchbacks and views.  HOWEVER the fog really ruined our chances of seeing anything, so it was slightly unimpressive.  Also, the hike we were going to try was on a closed road, so we had to continue to another visitor center in an attempt to salvage the day for hiking.  We did - we drove up to where the Appalachian Trail intersects the road that cuts through the park.From there, we hiked north along the AT for four miles to Charlie's Bunion.  It was really cool hiking along the AT; we actually had quite a few amazing views of mountains layered on to infinity.

The clouds cleared up too!

We are LOVELY

 The other cool thing was that on one side of the trail we were on North Carolina and the other was Tennessee.  Not sure if you could tell, but I got a kick out of it.

Hahahaha Wheeeeeeeee this is the best

Charlie's Bunion was pretty amazing.  Some good views as the fog rolled in around us.

But seriously, who named it?  Charlie's Bunion?  Come on, Charlie.

WE DO NOT FEAR HEIGHTS

Moar poses

It was only an eight mile hike, so we drove over to Clingman's Dome, which is the highest mountain in the park (and third highest on the AT).  A portly southern gentleman spoke to us in what you could describe as an "extreme accent," warning us of the treacherous physical nature of the trail from the parking lot to the top of Clingman's Dome lookout.  It turned out to be a paved half mile.  And while the view was not "one thousand miles," it was still really nice.  We hung out for a bit, just people watching (making note of a particular group of unicorn/dragon enthusiasts).  We ended up playing the game "mentally hilarious or southern?" in which there are no conclusions or winners.

Sometimes it bothers me that my phone takes really nice pictures

Big windy path up to the top of the lookout

Is it just me, or do those farther mountains look a bit... "smoky?" har har har

I'm betting sunset from up here is pretty swell

"Headed down south to the land of the pines, thumbing my way to North Caroline"

Now we are watching our foil dinners graaaaadually cook.  The ground beef has been hanging out in a lukewarm cooler for... the duration of the trip, so... that should be fine.  The lack of ice suggests that the meat might be slightly suspect, but the real concern here is the level of complaining that accompanies it.  The fire took a little while to build up so we're going to check out a nearby meadow for some rumored Elk before we start the cooking process.
We just got back from our little Elk adventure: we saw five large females in the meadow, which was really cool to see.  However, the number of mating insects... on my windshield... was surreal.  So many.  It was insane.  But still, the Elk were worth it.  Especially to see the sky turn sunset colors.  We are now a-cookin' up our foil dinners in the coals.  Driving around all day has worked up an aggressive appetite.  And dinner is turning out to be pretty damn good.

PRETTY

These are some serious collars on the Elk

Later on, Scott and I went back down to the meadow for some star gazing and firefly watching.  Words can't even begin to describe how truly epic of an experience it was.  The stars were out of control clear.  And the fireflies were just insane.  Thousands of them surrounding us in the meadow and in the forest.  And the most impressive part was the synchronous nature of their blinking.  Everything would be completely black for a few moments, and then all at once hundreds of fireflies would start blinking like an enormous, endless Christmas tree all around us.  And then this would repeat.  I've never seen so many of them before.  I can't even.


Sun. 6/9/13
The day had a bit of a slow start, but we eventually packed up camp and started on our way to the other side of the park.  Scott and I were actually able to pack up camp and pack up the car in a relatively decent speed - we're getting efficient at this.  On our way out we saw two male Elk on the side of the road looking majestic as fuck.

Helloooooo sir

REALLY big

The drive to the other side of the park (the north/Tennessee side) was long, but actually a pretty fun drive.  We made it to a few pretty good overlooks.  One of the things I've noticed about the Smokies at this point is that the farthest layers of mountains have a blue haze about them.  It definitely gives them that quintessential "smoky" look.

Almost offensively beautiful

Out first stop for the day was the Ramsey Falls hike: an eight mile round-trip hike to one of the more impressive waterfalls in the park.  It was also quite humid and steep, more so than we were expecting, so it was an extremely arduous hike as well.  But so absolutely worth it.  Plus, I got to hike fog's-out-guns-out all the way to the falls.  We then went for a "swim," or more realistically a walk under the falls, and it was amazing.  By the end of the hike all of our clothes were soaking wet, either from the falls or the sweat, which really only added to the horrific smell that my car has been acquiring.

SO DELICIOUSLY COLD

I'll take all the "showering" I can get at this point

We then continued on to our campsite for the next two nights: Elkmont campground.  This place is extremely popular this time of year because it is the best place to witness the mating synchronous fireflies.  Luckily I researched the crap out of this so that we were able to get two consecutive nights here.  AND we were able to set up our tent before it started raining.  Well... barely.  But it is more than we can say for either of the other times we've set this friggn thing up.  We scrambled inside and ate some "peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches," which can only be called as such because the crumpled smushed bread is still technically "bread."
With that ordeal behind us, we drove up for a short walk to another waterfall called Laurel Falls.  We were PROMISED a bear, but I guess that's some sick joke the rangers play on us, because there wasn't a damn one.  We did, however, get to see a nice waterfall that we climbed up on for pictures.  This started a wave of copycats.

The person taking our picture decided that getting the waterfall in the picture wasn't really important

I've stood on higher

Fully drenched again, we piled back into the car to obtain some beer in the sickeningly touristy town of Gatlinburg.  That place is so bad it made my skin crawl.  So tacky and touristy, even worse than a boardwalk.  But our beer obtaining mission was a success, just as the downpour started.  We had a difficult time starting a fire with soaking wet tinder, but our neighbors lent us a hand and we shared some beers and had a grand old time.
Once dark set in it was firefly time.  We were lucky that the pouring rain did nothing to dissuade them from the mating procedure.  And our campground was prime location.  Some people were getting bussed in from Gatlinburg - it was that big.  Only red lights were allowed so as to avoid messing with the firefly mating.  The combination of the lack of light and the torrential rain made it difficult to stick together, but we somehow all found each other after getting separated.  After our eyes adjusted a little it started getting really intense.  More fireflies than last night even.  It was overwhelming.  I don't know how long we stayed there, but we were fortunate enough to see a few iterations of the synchronous blinking.  One time it would start from the right and move left, passing along in front of us with literally thousands of blinks, all commencing at once.  Later in the night the blinking would start very far away from us, and then gradually sweep toward us along the forest in a wave of blinks.  It was so hard to believe that it is a completely natural event carried out by beings of this planet.  Just so incredible.  It's a feeling that's really hard to describe.  And unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures of it (not that it would do anything to justify it).


Mon. 6/10/13
Scott and I awoke early this morning for our big hike - a ten mile round-trip trek to Mount LeConte.  We woke up around 5:30 with the intention of catching sunrise, but the clouds were determined to thwart our plans.  We did, however, make it to the trailhead by 6:30 - well before anyone else, so we had the entire trail to ourselves for the morning.
The start of the hike was humid and rainforesty, but that early in the morning it felt great.  The trail followed a stream for about a mile and a half before breaking off into a rock-tunnel-staircase type thing.

Scott makes his way through the "tunnel" ok I have no idea what you call this

We then ascended a bit to the bluffs, which was a really unique rocky semi-cave structure.  We walked through a curtain of falling water to enter what looked like a wide half-cavern.  And the views of the Smokies were unbelievable.  They are aptly named because the mists and fog traversing the mountains absolutely looks like smoke.

So smoky!

The waterfall created a doorway into the cave area

Scott has made it under the ledge

I've not seen anything like this before

A few more miles of hiking through rocky, wet terrain (with some great views of the surrounding mountains) and we hit the point in which we entered a cloud, so it got a bit colder, wetter, and foggier.  But it wasn't too steep and summitting was easier than I expected.  We had a few snacks on the summit, listening to the wind blow through the trees, which sounded exactly like waves crashing at the beach.
And then the downpour.  I knew it was coming.  After just a mile we were completely soaked, but it was ok because I was still riding high from what a good hike up it was.  It didn't clear up until we made it back to the bluffs, but we didn't mind too much.  The other hikers that we passed were not of similar disposition.  By the time we made it back to the creek the cascades were torrenting and my dogs were barking.  And everything I owned was completely soaked.  But we completed the hike and made it back to camp in time to find Michelle and Sarah awake and antsy for things in the car.
Upon our return, we feasted upon a plethora of bagels, english muffins, and hummusy snacks.  We then slothed pretty hard most of the day.  I believe I briefly fell asleep on the picnic table, and perhaps in a sunny patch of grass by our tent.  After a few hours or so I decided to be a little active since it was suddenly nice out, so I went running along the river.  Holy crap, so hot.  I had to dunk in the stream afterward.
A few people wanted some odds and ends, so we made another trip out to Gatlinburg (UGH) to pick up some supplies.  Now we are about to set off into the world of pie iron pizzas before we head out for fireflies once again.
Time passes.  We ate.  Deal with it.
The fireflies, as expected, were once again epic.  I still can't even fathom how a phenomenon like that even occurs.  It is straight-up magical.  Thousands, maybe millions of these guys lining the forests and meadows and streams, all blinking in sync.

Thank you Smoky Mountains.  You are awesome.