I had a blast at the Gaian Mind Festival this weekend.
We managed to get two pictures out of the whole weekend (sorry
Friday night they had an opening ceremony for the festival and we did some dancing when the DJ sets came on. It was all based in a rock circle on the highest part of the camp. Tons of stuff that glowed with the black lights that were all over the place. I’d never been to such a thing so it was quite and experience. We had glowsticks and really got into the whole thing.
The rain was pretty intense Friday night, so heavy that it came through the tent. Everything got damp, but our tent is big enough so we were able to pull everything in from the edges so we didn’t get as wet as some of the other people in our camp did. Michael and I hit the bed around midnight, which was pretty early since the music and partying went on all night. But we didn’t get much sleep, the partying went on all night and the bunch of college kids who pitched a tent next to us were very noisey.
People were still dancing in the morning, which is when Michael shot this photo:
Saturday was pretty fun. The rain stayed away all day and we could enjoy the weather. We met up with a girl in our camp named Jessica (who was not with the wacked out college kids next to us) and went to a sweat lodge with her. That sweat lodge was the beginning of a new friendship! She is a really cool chick, my age and is really into a lot of the same things we are. It’s always great to meet smart people who you can just talk to without having to explain all your references, she just got it. She had been camping with some friends, but due to the rainy conditions they headed out in the early evening for another party and she ended up chilling with us for the rest of the weekend.
After the sweat lodge we went swimming. We spent a lot of time walking around the camp and hanging out by our camp with a campfire. We went to a talk on the year 2012 and the “impending global mind shift” which was interesting but not really my thing. We had dinner around 6 and then went back to the camp to enjoy the fire some more.
We got more neighbors in the late evening, a couple of really nice guys who turned out to be from Phoenixville. Jessica, Michael and I went with them to a black light show that preceeded the dancing and DJing of the evening. The rest of the night was spent hanging out with people at our camp, eating smores and going up to the rock circle to dance when the mood struck. I really got into the dancing that night, and there were many more people than Friday night. The vibe of the place was great and we had an awesome time. When we finally got to bed around 2AM I was still really into it all and wanted to stay out and dance but I was exhausted.
This morning we got up and showered. Packed everything up and then it started pouring again – arg! We had to walk up to the car in the upper parking lot in the rain, take down the tent in the rain and pack up the car. We were dirty and drenched by the time we drove out of the camp around 10:30AM.
On the way home we swung by Stoudts Black Angus Restaurant & Pub, right next to their Brewery. I was tired, but couldn’t pass up an IPA, which was good but not as dry as I generally like.
We got back home here around 4, parked the car in our driveway and took a 2 hour nap. It was only after the nap that we unloaded the car and I got a real clean shower. I feel civilized again now, but exhausted, hopefully this entry makes sense, hah!
What a great weekend, we’ll have to go back next year.