Rise up! Wake and bake! - Last weekend, I went to my first hippie music festival. I mean the kind that people converge on, create a family in, dance through, and leave changed, nostalgic and reverent. I’m not much for living a life that revolves entirely around smoking weed, vending third-world craft items and living in a vehicle, but I have suspended some of my judgment of those who do. Despite my discomfort with a “lifestyle” that seems to contribute little or nothing to society at large, I am impressed with the temporary societies that arise at these gatherings. “Be good family”, like the bumper sticker says.

Slow start - I started the weekend a little slowly. Friday morning, my friend T. asked if I felt a bit hung over. “You were drinking with [Little Miss Thing] last night at The Hardware Store. That’s like eating chocolate with Willy Wonka; something’s bound to happen!” Which is so true. LMT is not only a fine drinking companion, but her witty banter approaches the bon mots and articulate, deep-referenced, foreign language throwaway lines of Gene Wilder.

Your hosts, the H. family - J. and R. and T. were my hosts on the adventure; they do this sort of thing often. J. is married to T., and R. is their small person. He has grown up around festivals and camping and road trips. It was pretty cute when R. offered a performer more home brew!

Travel - Friday was travel day. Traffic and ferries conspired to make us cranky, but everyone held together pretty well. We got to Darrington and set up camp alongside the road. At these events, there is car parking, car camping, and tent camping. The tent camping area is in wooded areas between four access roads. T. and J. found a place to pull off the road and parallel park, and just down from the cleared area I found a tiny patch of mossy ground perfect for my one-person tent. I was comfortable on my air mattress in my little orange dome.

Villages - Several groups had brought hand-painted signs to mark their encampments. There was Island Family Camp (didn’t find out if they were from an island, or if their camp was their island), Kids’ Camp (where kids could play to their hearts’ content), and F***Yeah! Camp, conveniently located across a patch of salal from my tent. They were generally cool, but after the 500th person walked by, read their sign, and exclaimed “F*** yeah!” at the top of their lungs, and after the Sunday morning drum fest at 3:30am, I was a little less enthralled by them. Nice folks, all things considered. (I am mightily pissed that journalscape has begun stripping the f-word from entries. It is sometimes necessary and effective.)

Spectacle - And oh, the spectacle. I was definitely playing the anthropologist, observing everything around me.

Flets – people strung one-inch diameter ropes between three trees, then weaved a dream catcher-like platform of smaller line. It reminded me of the tree dwellings of the elves in The Lord of the Rings , even though these were rope and not wood. Nonetheless, there was a whole camp up in the trees that made me long to be a tree-dweller, too. Don’t think I won’t find time to construct my own.

Fire dancers – Amazing visual spectacle of flaming twirling fans, suspended balls of fire, fire on a disc that gets thrown to the end of a rope and back, even a flaming hula hoop, and a fire dancer on stilts! Music and drums perforated my body as my eyes were barraged by the hypnotic wheels of light. Just go see something like this if you get a chance. Wow. I think this was the best part of the whole weekend.

Clothing – There were lots and lots of cotton halter tops, tutus, wraparound pants, utili-kilts, and sarongs. I must say that I don’t understand the skirt-over-pants look. Is there a certain usefulness to that, or is the person just cold? Given that it was about 85 degrees, cold can’t factor in. Skirt protects the pants from wear, tear and dirt? No, because the pants are already dirty, torn or otherwise worn. If someone out there knows the origin of this style, or its purpose, please let me know.

Stilts – Somewhere, someone should be getting rich off their stilt designs. I saw people using stilts that were clearly very thoughtfully engineered. The dudes got serious loft from those things! I know it must take a lot of practice to bound in strides ten feet long, and to make it look so graceful and effortless. It’s one of those things you watch and you think, “I really want to do that! I want to soar! I would be terrified! Why would I do that?!”

Food – Okay, I just wanted to get back into that kitchen because I so could have done better with the ingredients the café had on hand. Twice I got a chicken wrap ($8) that had stealth chicken I had to search for. No salt, almost no seasoning. The red and orange peppers were tasty, though, and the rice was good and sticky. As an accompaniment I once got garlic fries (really yummy) and once got hash browns (they had run out of fries, but had plenty o’hash leftover from breakfast). T. was smitten with the falafel and the hibiscus cooler. I found the pita on the falafel to be very dry and even with extra sauce that didn’t improve. My friend J. made excellent lavosh rolled sandwiches, with ham and basil and goat cheese, among other things. Brings camp food to a whole new level.

The Natural Setting – The Whitehorse Amphitheatre is located in Darrington, Washington, bordered on the north by Squire Creek. The creek was a gathering place for everyone – for washing, for play, for kid fun, for civil engineering projects involving damming up the creek with a rock wall so the pool was just that much deeper. To the south is the immensity of Whitehorse Mountain, the towering granite peak that is the backdrop to all that is right, good and holy. (I kinda like Whitehorse Mountain.) People would walk up the gravel path and then just stop, taking in the majesty that was Whitehorse in the morning, or Whitehorse with clouds and mist, or Whitehorse with the pink tinge of sunset. When the sky went dark, people stood in the same places and watched it rain fire in the sky. The meteors had arrived.

Medicines - Ganja, ganja everywhere, of course. Reliably, about three times a day, one of a number of young men would come by asking, “how’re you set for ganja cookies? Caramel mushrooms?” After a while, I didn’t notice the smell anymore. I wanted more than I got. Plenty of alcohol was available - purchased, shared, concocted on site, what have you. I stuck with beer, mostly IPA and Hefeweizen. Safer that way. Made it through the weekend with only two xanax, both taken during the car trips, as I have some issues with feeling out of control when other people are driving. It’s my deal, so I deal with it. Done deal.

Facilities – You just don’t want to go to the Honey Bucket at 3:30am without a flashlight. There could be any manner of puke, poop, pee, or things you hadn’t even thought you’d find in a Porta Potty after legions of inebriated partiers have gone through. In defense of the festival organizers, though, I have to say that there were shiny, fresh potties every morning, and sometimes more frequently. Bravo.

Merchandise – I’m way over my logo t-shirt phase. I have no compulsion, in fact I have an aversion, to owning “the shirt”. Rip off. I did buy a festive striped shoulder bag and a bottle you hang incense in via a split ring. It has a carburetor to allow for air flow. Not a rip off, because even though I could figure out how to make one, I’d spend $400 on bottles before I perfected my technique and wasn’t breaking bottles. Twelve bucks willingly spent, there.

Venues – Main stage, Beer Garden, and Boogie Dome. All are self-explanatory except Boogie Dome, which impressed me much. This huge white dome was stretched over two parabolic supports. It was sexy, mechanically speaking. Well, sexy inside, too, as all the tranced-out lithe bodies swayed, jumped, pranced and bounced to the music. Ganja trance. Shroom trance. Music trance.

Who You Run Into – Ian, my bartender from Vashon Island, Friday night. Ed, the guy who bought the Toyota Van for $200 the week before, when he was on Vashon for Earthfair. That was it for people I knew. I’ll know more the next time.

What I’d Do Next Time – Bring a bicycle and ride into town. Ride my motorcycle there instead of catching a ride with friends, so I could take off for a ride in the mountains during the heat of the afternoon. Pack my own food and drink, which means bringing a car, which means the obligatory trip to the waterfall (the holy, dragonfly, Indian, summerday waterfall). Wear less clothing. Do more hula hoop-ing. Bring toys. Bring condoms. Spontaneously talk to people I didn’t know. Sink into being good family for a weekend. Arrive Thursday night to get a good campsite. Skinny dip Squire Creek. Meet a boy. Meet a girl. Kiss a lot.

Travel – We left after we heard a Vashon band, Troll’s Cottage. The raffle we had bought tickets for didn’t happen when it was supposed to, so we got our money back and left. Karma came around, because when we got to the Fauntleroy ferry dock, we waited only 15 minutes for a boat. Unheard of. Then again, after stopping at the H’s to get my car, I was able to get the Pt. Defiance boat with under 15 minutes of wait time. Blessing.

Home – The cats were purring all over, and Kitty Girl Molly put her shoulders on the floor and her butt in the air so she could be petted. Buck lolled on the kitchen table, belly exposed, willing me to make zerbits on his tummy and generally rough him up as I do. He is such an attention whore.

Next – Then it was off to Camp Sealth to volunteer in the infirmary, called Medamin, pronounced ‘meh DAH min’. The name is a throwback to the age of co-opting native culture and naming everything in pseudo-Salish. Shutanka, Medamin, Tekapi, WoHeLo! More about camp when I’ve survived it.