Stagecoach: The gift that keeps on giving...

Indio, Ca --- The last weekend in April marks the annual Stagecoach Country Music Festival aka Ragecoach-Liver-Damage-Palooza-2011. And with that comes a plethora of mixed emotions and physical pain. It's been almost 2 days since the memorial incident and I am still feeling a number of things.

Soreness. Particularly in the middle-calf and shoulder regions. I attribute this to excessive jumping during Darius Rucker, Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts. Not sure why the shoulders are feeling this way.

Nostalgia. Laughing about many things I did that I will both appreciate and regret. More specifically, quickly clicking though numerous Facebook albums that will inhibit me from denying anything. Thank heavens for the 'de-tag'. 

Poverty. Spent far too much scrilla. I don't know why I try to kid myself into thinking that a good grocery run will prevent me from buying overpriced venu food. While I like to consider myself a connoisseur of all things pertaining to corn dogs, breakfast burritos, garlic fries and chicken fingers, Stagecoach is not the place to sample food items when I have a perfectly good turkey sandwhich ingredients! Lastly- one should only consume $10 glasses of white wine and margaritas in moderation.

All complaints aside, it was an amazing weekend but I still need some time for serious reflection before I buy next year's tickets. I will part with a few more common themes and lessons learned from the weekend and the few pictures I managed to capture. 

#1) Have your vehicle serviced before embarking on road trips. Seems like an obvious precaution. Not for us apparently. Five minutes into our journey, having just cracked our first road-Corona's, we get on the on-ramp to the 91 and can't help but notice our engine is smoking and it's temperature has increased dramatically. Two hours later we board the same on-ramp in a newly repacked vehicle, evaluating when the time is right to crack the second road-Corona. 

#2) This venue is completely overwhelming and complicated. First things first, don't bank on your drunk friends delivering you your parking pass to the gate when you get there at 1:35 am. Also be sure you don't try to get to get into the camp ground at 1:58 am when it surely closes at 2 am. Almost had to steak a tent in the middle of a parking lot. Thanks to a kind worker, we were let in eventually. 

#3) Don't borrow your parents camping gear from the 90s. Clearly my memory of our family camping gear is all wrong because I don't remember our tent having non-bendy poles and twine as some of it's most important parts. 

#4) Save your ticket if you want entrance into the concert. Imagine four drunk idiots trying their best to articulate to a ticketing gate manager about how they didn't know they needed a ticket and a wrist band to get into a concert they have been looking forward to for months. I don't think I need to explain much more here. 

#3) Rascal Flatts was an amazing messenger to deliver the news of Osama's death. How many people can say, "Oh yeah, I heard about Osama's death...Rascal Flatts told me"? http://bit.ly/jP22gm

#4) Take Monday off work. Due to the road and camp ground policies at the venue, there are many restrictions to where you can and cannot drive your car within 2 hours of the show. After the ridiculous amount of obstacles thrown our way already, we decided it was best to be on the safe side and wait it out. Made another great choice and decided to lay down for a power nap/pass-out session without setting an alarm. Luckily I randomly arose from a deep sleep and rallied the troops to pack up around 1 am. After some intense and speedy tent packing, cooler emptying and trecking to the car, we finally hit the road by 3:45 am. Barley making it through Moreno Valley's trecherous mountain roads, a tired driver requested that we pull over in a J-Box parking lot in Riverside for some rest around 5 am. Around 7 am, we hit bumper to bumper rush hour traffic in OC. At approximately 7:30 am, a few mangled bodies emerge from a Jeep Liberty on the side of Hermosa Ave. I immediately throw myself in the shower and head to work around 9 am, not really knowing if I am dead or alive... 

 



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