Once again the time for Imagine Festival arrived. The week before the trip Chris smoked two pork butts and I finalized the shopping lists for the rest of the food. Three days before the trip I shopped for food and last-minute essentials and then we started to cook. We cooked for the better part of the three days to have everything ready to feed our crew of seven. Half of our group from last year went again this year and we added another couple. The plan was to come home from work Tuesday night, finish up a couple of food items, pack the car and get some sleep before leaving at five on Wednesday morning.
When I anticipated the amount of time I needed to finish the deviled eggs, I neglected to consider how long it would take to peel two dozen eggs. After I finally finished with the eggs we started to pack the car. We added a portable kitchen and a third cooler to our festival gear this year. We also had the cot and two sleeping pads that we did not have last year. With the extra gear, we moved up to an SUV for the rental car. I debated between the intermediate-sized or the regular-sized but finally settled on the smaller one. With all the gear next to the car, I realized that I should have picked the bigger vehicle. It was too late to change it now so I started piecing the puzzle together and hoped it would all fit. I unpacked and repacked the car three times before I got it all in. Very happy to have fit everything in I went inside to get some sleep when I realized that I had not packed the large canning pot that we needed to heat our breakfast sandwiches. With trepidation, I once again unpacked the car. Somehow I managed to rearrange things to make it work.
By the time we finished packing the car it was 3 am. There was no point in sleeping for an hour so we decided we would head out. This meant pulling the coolers out of the car to pack the food, a challenge in itself. When we were finally ready to hit the road, the car was very literally packed from behind the front seats to the back of the car, floor to ceiling. We even had some things packed in the spare tire compartment.
About 45 minutes into the trip I realized that I had not grabbed our paper tickets for early arrival camping, the show on Thursday, and the pool party. For a moment I was upset that we would have to go back, but then realized that I could reprint the tickets when we got to Atlanta. The trip was nicely uneventful. We stopped briefly at McDonald’s for breakfast. We found it rather curious that while we both ordered the same sandwich, one had a fried egg and the other had scrambled.
As we drove through the Charlotte area I noticed a roll of toilet paper on the side of the road. A bit further and I saw another one. Over the course of the next mile, I saw about two dozen rolls, which was quite entertaining. Another highlight of the trip for me was a field of what looked like mini sunflowers. We did hit some traffic as we approached Spartanburg. Google Maps alerted us and offered an alternate route, which would save us a significant amount of time. When we took the exit we approached a small back-up at the traffic light. It was the most bizarre thing to me when cars started passing us on the left. They were all driving on the wrong side of the road to get to the light.
We stopped at Nu-Way Restaurant & Lounge for lunch and then continued on our way. Atlanta, as usual, was a bit of a traffic nightmare. The car we had rented had radar enhanced cruise control. I really enjoyed that the car adjusted the speed itself based on the traffic around us. At one point we had cars merging in from the left. Everyone was implementing the zipper process pretty well until we realized that the guy in the left lane was going to pull right into us instead of dropping behind when his lane ran out. That was a scary moment.
We arrived safely at our hotel and had time to take a nap before our son Joe and his girlfriend, Bridget, got there. On our way to dinner, we spotted a coyote in the lot next to the hotel, very close to the road. We thought it was a very strange place to see one as we were in a very urban area.
Our friend Matthew arrived sometime in the night, and Joe’s friend Chewie made it around six in the morning. His deployed girlfriend, Maddie, would be joining us the next night. While I was asleep Bridget did a beautiful job of decorating everyone’s car. We weren’t able to get out the door as early as we had intended, but it worked out as we were the second car in line to get into the festival campground. We listened to music in the car for the hour wait until the gates opened. We were all giddy with excitement as we waited to get in.
We watched as they started inspecting the car in front of us. To our dismay, we saw security confiscate their propane canisters for their grill. The canisters are not allowed in the festival but are acceptable in the campground. Apparently there was some confusion on this point but. after some back and forth over the walkie-talkie, they returned the canisters. When we pulled up for our inspection, we handed the staff a care package with Gatorade, Pringle’s, and Slim Jim’s. We knew they had a long, hot day ahead of them. Matthew and Chewie had to go to Will Call for their tickets. They took Chewie’s car and Joe took Matthew’s car through security. Matthew had a pack of lighters in his car. Security said he could only have one lighter, but for $10 she would let it go. Joe told her to keep the lighters.
Once inside, we picked a perfect spot. We had trees in front of us to ward off the morning sun and were within sight of the “secret” stage site without being too close. We quickly set up. Again we had four canopies and our big tent. We set it up in more of a square than last year. It worked out perfectly, giving us a kitchen area, a living room (Matthew brought a beautiful rug for a floor) and a spot for the flamingo. We put our tent behind the big tent to take advantage of the tent canopy. It worked out nicely, as we were able to sleep until 10:30 or 11 every day before the heat chased us out. We had enough tapestries to enclose our entire space, shade our personal tent, create a beautiful ceiling for our enclosure, and hang in the changing room for some privacy.
After we set up we went to Shakedown Street to check out the vendors. For the first time Imagine had a stage going on Thursday. It was a fun, low-key evening. The temperature dropped after dark. I was cold at the show, but it made for really nice sleeping weather. After the show, Chris made amazing pork tacos with homemade salsa.
In the morning we awoke to neighbors as the campground filled in. It was nice to relax for the day. Since it had been so cold the night before, I bought a beautiful jacket I had seen the day before. We spent the afternoon making pimento cheese sandwiches and then got ready for the show. I was super cute all in blue with long, glittery, blue eyelashes, face jewels, and glitter. The show was spectacular. There was even a drone light show in the sky in perfect timing to the music. I loved the peaceful, happy feeling that I had as I sat on our tapestry wrapped up in Chris’s arms watching Squnto. When we returned to the hive, there was music coming from the “secret” stage. We pulled down two of the tapestries and were able to see the show from our living room. The music, which goes all night, was a beautiful “mellow” sound that was great to fall asleep to.
Saturday was another first for Imagine. They opened up part of the festival grounds for a pool party in the afternoon. It was nice to spend part of a hot day in the pool. I donned light up butterfly wings and thoroughly enjoyed the night’s shows. We enjoyed pork sliders for dinner after the show.
We gradually broke down some of our camp throughout the day on Sunday to make pack up easier in the morning. We took a break to play Cards Against Humanity, which kept us laughing. Once again I put on the eyelashes, but this time in purple. The night before we had all done our own thing at the show so we decided to stick together for the last night. We put Joe in charge and danced the night away. We followed our totem, a pair of cartoon boxer shorts adorned with glow sticks. Chris and I danced our hearts out during Seven Lions, my pixel whip flying the entire time.
Joe said it was time to head to the stage on the other side of the raceway so off we went. It felt as if we were on an epic journey as we followed Joe and our totem. We stopped at the Disco Inferno stage to dance more before continuing on to Amazonia. The Jade Cicada and Tipper shows were spectacular. The mix of music was unlike anything I had heard before and I loved it. We could see the fireworks on the other side of the stadium as the festival drew to a close. We headed toward the exit and found a spot just a few rows back from the stage at the last show of the festival. After the show, I was so proud of Joe and Bridget as they put on gloves and picked up enough trash to fill two bags before they left. Joe picked up an arm full of styrofoam light-up tubes. When we got back to our hive he pulled all the light strings out of the tubes and hung them all around the tops of the canopies. It was beautiful.
Not ready for the festival to end, we stayed up until almost dawn, visiting with our neighbors and listening to the music playing from the stage. Joe broke out his fire staff and started spinning. The last time I saw him spin was the first week he had the staff. It was impressive how well he did. He has obviously been practicing. Before we knew it there were three more fire spinners. We enjoyed the wonderful show. Security stopped by, we thought to shut the fun down. He checked to make sure that we had water ready but allowed us to continue.
In the morning we packed up then headed to Waffle House for one last meal together before we went to our respective destinations. As we crossed Georgia there was a traffic backup caused by a horrific tractor-trailer accident. Not even five miles further down there was a tractor-trailer on fire on the opposite side of the road. Otherwise, the trip home was long but uneventful.
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