Bonnaroo & Bonanzas

 Decisions are being made to think outside of the normal suburban life we are now living.  By that I mean, we embraced our inner hippies for a few days and headed down to Manchester, Tennessee to do the ultimate music festival.....BONNAROO!!!

Oh and we decided to take the youngest one with us.  

We left Houston on Wednesday with our Bonanza loaded with our camping gear, tent, canopy, clothes, chairs, etc.  You get the picture.  We car camped for 4 nights.  Hot days and cold nights.  I think we all came back with colds and rejuvenated.

John and Shelby doing the preflight check list. 

Bonnaroo's popularity comes from the mood the festival takes on.  All come to enjoy themselves and "Not be that Guy/Gal".  Radiate Positivity, and High Five as many Bonnaroovians as possible.  Here is John and Shelby doing their part.

Hanging around these 20 somethings gave me hope for our future.  Tolerance, patience, love, peace, all were represented here.  I was surprised to see NO police officers inside the festival and from what I could see not much for a need for them.  We did have mounted patrol around the tent areas and were very pleasant and peaceful.

There was no shoving, pushing, or unkind words.  I did not stay up very late the first two nights so I did not see if there was mayham after dark.  The one night we did stay out till 2 am everyone was just enjoying the music.  There was the occasional spastic dancer that we all just stayed cleared of and when he accidentally bumped into someone,  nothing came of it.  Everyone left their "chip on their shoulder" at home.

I maybe fooling myself and thinking it was more majestic than it actually was.  If the reason everyone was so mellow was the smell in the air, then I wish more people would smoke it.  Fun people and great music.  And best of all they had craft beers, like tons of it!! I must have tried at least seven to ten new beers.

Okay maybe the best thing about the festival this year wasn't the craft beer but the showers and flushing toilets.  It was worth the $10 for the shower, but I noticed some of the younger generation opted out of the shower routine.  Probably because if you had to choose between $10 shower and $8 beer, the beer would win with this crowd.

Water camelbacks and bottles were everywhere as you can see by our fanny packs.  Though I know for a fact some camelbacks contained more than water.  We only saw one unfortunate fellow being carried out by medics.  He was conscience and looked dehydrated or maybe a bad trip.  That was the only person I saw who looked "out of it" from the 100,000 attendees

We met this hotty waiting in line to enter on the first day and commented on his "no regrets" tattoo.  He said he would have misspelled the word, like in the movie "We are the Millers", but he was tattooed five years before it came out. Funny guy.

 The shroom  aka water park to cool down.  Everyone had a great time especially when we had shade!

 This is Big Red.  Not sure what the history was on this but it was swarming with festival goers.

 In order to find our tent in a sea of tents we used the Texas Flag.

 Tents near the entrance. We brought our own.

Best sunset on our second night.

 This was pretty much me most of time, little make up if any, sweaty and enjoying my jams.
Some of the best acts I saw were ones I never even heard of, if you get the chance look them up!!

• Anderson East
• X Ambassadors
• Leon Bridges
• The Record Company
• Nathanial Ratcliff

Found these cool glasses which were quickly confiscated by Shelby.  In all honesty they look better on her.  Ah to be 20 again.

We met up with one of her sorority sisters who came with her dad and uncle.  I had a great time talking to her family regarding the festival and music.  In this world we have more things in common than not.  (I believe Maya Angelou said this) and it rings so true.

My honey was such a trooper.  He had the worse experience with his Chaco's, they gave him the worst blisters and by Saturday night he was done.  Yet he stuck it out with me and watched the entire Pearl Jam concert with me.  Dancing in pain but nonetheless dancing.

Eddie Vedder brought out his daughter, Olivia and we all sang her Happy Birthday.  She turned 12 and looked slightly embarrassed.  You could just see the proud beaming papa and not the rock star, it was adorable!

Camping was a great, time with each other was great, music was great, going to THE music festival for a mini vacation was.....simply put.......HAPPY ROO!!!