Friday night, 7pm, chris complained that he could not go to the Harvest of Hope Festival in Richmond's unofficial sister city, St. Augustine. Apparently, the plane tickets were too much so he couldn't afford to go. I suggested we just take his car and drive down there, and so long as i didn't have to pay for gas, I was available to make this happen. Chris, in true form, called my bluff and I called drew good. In my mind, drew was on the way and a proven good time/driver. The plan was to drive all night, arrive at st augustine around 8am, take a nap and go see some bands.
At 9am, we arrive in st. augustine and eat at Manatee Cafe, a little health food eatery. Once the food hit our stomachs we were pretty tired so we went to the beach and slept until about 1130am. 
If you'll notice, i have used a gym towel i found in my car as my bed, my shirt as my pillow, and my bandanna to block the sun from my eyes. This proved to be a bad idea, as I now look like I got sunburned while dressed up like a ninja turtle. We woke up, drove to a friends house, and immediately left for the show.
As with most music festivals, this one had the lesser known bands play during the day. This proved problematic in a sleep deprived state, so drew and I took naps under trees until Valient Thorr played. What a good show, if you like Les Savy Fav, Motorcycle gangs, and extraterrestrial mythology, you should see this band.
Oddly enough drew and I both ran into people we knew at the festival, a scarcely advertised event 10-12 hours south of where most of our friends are. We got sunburned some more and waited for the major bands to start playing. Then the temperature dropped. Sunburn and cold weather is no fun. For about 6 hours I stood freezing, trying to keep moving to avoid what I thought would end up being hypothermia. Then I figured out that if i snuck behind the bbq food cart I could keep warm. At this point, I am filthy from sleeping in dirt, have a weird sunburn on my face, have barely slept, have no idea where warmth or a place to sleep will happen, and I smell like pulled pork.
Then Bad Brains played. Worst. Show. Ever. Remember that reggae album that they came out with, but no one ever bought? they played all those songs and then went over on their set by about 40 minutes. Second to that was Tilly and the Wall. If you like this band please take a moment to punch yourself in whatever private parts you happen to be working with. They seriously had a tap dancer for the entire show. She looked like a rejected american apparel model and, at best, the band sounded like a gloria estefan rip off.
Best show? Probably Propaghandi. They were pretty pissed at bad brains closed out the night with a near perfect set. Then when the show shut down, they decided to just finish out their set that was cut short by Bad brains. Unfortunately, the event organizers weren't having it, so they cut off the sound. Then Propaghandi played just from their amps and the audience sang out loud. It was beautiful, much like the few moments before a mass riot are beautiful.
Drew slept in the car that night and I slept on someones floor. Sleeping with a bandanna over your eyes and earplugs in your ears has its disadvantages. One of the big ones being that when you wake up already confused as to where you are, it is much more difficult to determine your situation quickly. This becomes even more problematic when you wake up to: "don't move that, you'll crush him!" Apparently I was sleeping next to a broken couch (true) and someone was trying to get to the fold out bed part so they could get the mattress out. To add to this, one of the people involved was some girl that sounded just like AEB, but without the powerful brain. Then some guy was really apologetic for waking me up and kept calling me 'sir'. i responded with being way too nice, that kind of nice where your voice goes up an octave because you're overcompensating.
After a surprising full night's sleep, we walked to downtown and got some mayan food. a-mazing. Then we walked around the fort by the water, took some pictures, and walked back to the car to start our trek back. I arrived in richmond at 330am, about 55 hours after I decided to leave.
Dear summer,
Thank you for coming early, I missed you.
love,
jimifoster
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