Growing up I didn’t get out too much. Sure, I went to the movies with friends, went to birthday parties, but it was rare for me to spend the night away from home. Being away gave me anxiety and I also know it gave my mom anxiety so it didn’t happen very often. I had this cool boyfriend for a while that hyped me up for an experience that I had very little knowledge about, MUSIC FESTIVALS. In particular, a decent sized one called Bonnaroo. Bonnaroo is held in Manchester Tennessee and it would bring upwards of 80,000 people together in (mostly) harmony. Cool boyfriend quickly turned into ex-boyfriend and here I was still wanting to attend this amazing-looking event!
A week before the event I told my mother that I had tracked down complete strangers on the internet that agreed to let me hang with them. That was a big ABSOLUTELY NOT from mom and moments later my (younger) sister had a ticket. The two of us were nervous-excited beyond belief! At least my sister had traveled away from home by herself or with friends which was a step in the right direction.
the bags are packed
It was an early Tuesday morning and our bags were packed and we crammed our camping gear into my sister’s Honda CR-V. I can remember shaking like a leaf, overwhelmed with anxiety but battled with the excitement of actually stepping outside my comfort zone. We had a hotel booked for the evening about an hour away from the festival grounds, a total of 14 hours away from New Jersey. Mom and dad prayed for safety in travel. We were on the open road!
We made it to Virginia before we needed to pull over for gas and snacky snacks. By now the anxious thoughts were full steam ahead in my brain. ‘Should we be doing this?’ ‘ What if the car breaks down?’ ‘What if someone crashes our tent and we have nowhere to stay??’. So many ‘ifs’, and then there is this younger guy sitting outside this small gas station shop with a sign that read ‘headed to tennessee?’. I like helping people, sharing my change with someone if I have some but I had never picked up a stranger. This kid could be a killer and I have no idea! Maybe we should’ve left him behind for safety reasons but instead my sister says ‘headed to bonnaroo?’. As only festival magic can do, it brought us just the person we needed! His name was Mushy.
Our new friend Mushy, aka Matthew, was our hitchhiking trip saver! He explained to us that this is how his summer/festival seasons tended to go. He would work hard in the winter, typically as a waiter, and then spend the summer hitchhiking to festivals all over the country! At 25 this guy had been to more places than I could ever dream about! It was clear we were not going to get killed by this random stranger because we all wanted to get to Bonnaroo. Mushy calmed our nerves with stories of nice people and great music at every festival he had ever attended.
We approached our hotel and we said our goodbyes to our friend. We knew not for long as we agreed to bring him the rest of the way to the festival grounds in the morning.
the next morning
As I’m gathering my continental free breakfast I hear a pitter-patter of feet walking on the tile floor of the hotel lobby and who do I turn to see my Mushy! He told us he pitched his tent nearby and that if you walk into a hotel breakfast with no shoes on people seem to think you belong there. Good advice, I’d use this later on in life.
We all piled back into the car for a trip to Walmart for last minute food items and anything else we realized we’d forgotten. The three best friends with not a care in the world! We finally arrived at the check-in line where we said goodbye to Mushy. It was emotional and sad because my sister and I both knew that it was because of this boy that we made it 14 hours to Tennessee. We didn’t have to be sad for long though, Mushy had found us inside the festival and pitched his tent in the woods right by us! This was just the beginning of our first Bonnaroo (this will have it’s own blog post one day!) and we already had the biggest smiles on our faces.
the following summer
The following year my sister and I both had new boyfriends who wanted to join us on our trip to Bonnaroo. And even though we didn’t pick up any hitchhikers, our trip there was still smooth. It wasn’t until the first morning at the festival grounds I woke up to grab an early coffee and who do I see meditating in the distance, my friend Mushy.