Quite late on Monday night we finally returned from
the Gathering of the Vibes.
“But wait”, you might be thinking… “I thought you were
coming home Sunday afternoon.”
Ahh, yes… the original plan, what a distant memory.
Instead, this is how the weekend unfolded.
Day 1: We finally got the entire car packed about 2 hours
behind schedule because I am always late for everything
and the amount by which I am late increases exponentially
the longer the occasion is for which I am packing.
Anyway, I finally threw the last couple of things into the
van
and Casey fired it up, only to find out that there was
gas spewing from a line.
This should have been a sign,
and 5 days later I would remind Casey that October (the van)
did give us some warning with the gas leak incident.
Anyway, Casey fixed the line only to have
gas spray from another line,
and another.
Finally, all of the lines were fixed and we were on our way.
We pulled into the Vibes late that night
and got in a 45 minute long line to have the van searched
only to discover that we needed to wait in another line first
to get our wrist bands before having the van searched.
Several hours later, we finally got our bands and
had been searched (all they found was a baby).
We pulled up to a stop sign heading to the camping area
and, at that precise moment, October decided she was done.
Done.
Casey’s attempts to revive her were in vain.
So I suggested, seeing as it was 1:30am and pouring rain,
that we simply sleep where we were and wait until the
morning.
That idea worked fine until there was a knocking on the
window
at about 3:30am by a security person informing us that
we could not park there.
Miraculously, the van started and ran just long enough to
pull out
of the parking lot before dying again.
This time, some helpful people pushed us through the gate
and into a camping spot at the festival.
So there we were, right inside the gate with a dead van.
But at least we were there.
The biggest bummer, besides the fact that we didn’t know
how we were going to get home,
was that we could not get to family camping,
an area set aside for small kids that was close to all the
stages.
Instead we were about as far away as you can get.
At least it was a pretty walk.
The next couple days went by pretty fast.
Despite the black cloud of how-are-we-going-to-get-home,
we had fun at the festival.
We walked around and listened to music,
taking in all of the sights,
like the random groups of hippies,
"dude... what do you think that is, man?"
and their creations,
the vans and trailers of all sizes and shapes,
and the happy people.
We spent a lot of time in the kids area.
Orin found a tattoo that he rocked the whole weekend.
while he played soccer,
climbed on the vibes sign,
relaxed by the ocean,
learned to hula hoop (kind of)
felt inspired by an empty canvas
got his face painted for the first time
and got a hug from a Jerry Bear.
Casey learned Kung Foo.
and enjoyed the night life.
Ilea slept
and I hung out in the parents area and relaxed.
On the last day of the festival
Orin took part in a peace parade
where all the kids got together, made masks and streamer wands,
and marched from one stage to another.
I think it is safe to say that after that
we started to get a bit gloomy
knowing that everybody would clear out tonight
and we would still be stuck.
At this point, we had our hopes set on a part
that the people at Napa said would
be in between 11 and 12 the following day.
However, they lied.
The next day at 11:55 we called
and were told that actually the part wouldn’t be in until
2:30… if it got ordered, that is.
Ilea was down to two diapers and the battery on
our cellphone was almost dead
so we decided it was time to go with the backup plan:
Uhaul.
On Saturday I had booked a Uhaul with an auto trailer just in case,
so we decided to tow the van home.
But, when I called Uhaul, they informed me that the reservation
they made me was for a pick-up 65 miles away
(apparently that was the closest one with the auto trailer
available and they had missed the part
where I said our car was BROKEN DOWN)
So, there we were with a dying phone,
a poop machine, and no food in a park empty except for these guys:
So I called Enterprise rental,
After all, they will come and pick you up, right?
Sort of… but not for a couple hours because they were
really busy.
Ha.
Did I mention it was hot?
So we sat and waited, until finally Casey
got an idea about how to fix the van.
He tried it and it worked!
We were off!
I literally started to cry when we hit the highway.
It was so wonderful,
that is, until we broke down again 20 minutes later.
Of course I had already called and canceled
the Enterprise pick up, so I called them
back and scheduled a new one.
By the time they picked us up, the original part
had come in to Napa, so we drove the rental car
back to Bridgeport and got the part.
Casey put the part in and, miraculously, it worked!
Just kidding, it didn’t.
So we finally gave up and called a tow truck.
When the tow truck driver got there
he said that this was the second VW bus he had
towed today, so we had him tow October to the same place,
you know, so she would have a friend to hang out with
for the week.
At that point, we bid goodbye and drove home in our rental
Kia
glad to finally be out of Connecticut
and swearing up and down that we would never return...
at least not until next weekend,
