"How I Spent My Summer Vacation" Pt. 3

Ok, so I'm going to backtrack a little bit. My last post was about my last few weeks before becoming a college graduate. This post is about some trips that happened in that time period, but deserve their own post. Both trips were to Seattle and both were pretty amazing - albeit for very different reasons. First, my trip to the Sasquatch Music Festival, then my trip to Joe's Memorial Service. Westward, ho!



SASQUATCH
First, let me share with you some highlights from Sasquatch. So Sasquatch started on a Friday and went Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. A four day long festival in honor of their 10th anniversary. Now this was the weekend after the Spring Concert mega weekend, so I was exhausted already. I slept for most of the plane ride, but awoke as we were starting our decent. I looked out the window and saw the Cascades... and I was glued to the window for the rest of the flight. I fell in love with the northwest. It was absolutely beautiful from above: the mountain range, the forests, the Puget Sound, the hilly city with tall evergreens and pines everywhere, and the awesome skyline.

So I landed and my crew (my 4 friends who had driven out from Chicago four days earlier) picked me up from the airport. We stopped by a liquor store and a mini-mart, stacked up supplies for the weekend and drove two hours west to George, Washington. We got there at dark, so those of us who had never been to Sasquatch before didn't really understand where we were. We set up camp in the dark as RVs, Campers, Trucks, Cars, Campgrounds and even School Buses blasted music and started party city.

Gosh, how do I describe the camping situation... Thousands upon Thousands of vehicles, tents, screened enclosures, and camping chairs lined up in rows, separated by large gravel roads. We made friends with the campsites around us. We called ourselves a neighborhood and bonded quite a bit throughout the trip (best bonding moment may have been the 30 person shotgun as people stood on roofs of cars).

People were constantly partying. Music was ALWAYS blasting somewhere. I heard it when I went to bed at 4am, when I awoke at 10am... It was crazy. There were people doing all sorts of drugs, wandering into our camp and acting hilarious.

So when we woke that first Friday morning... when we climbed out of our tent and saw this... we knew it was gonna be an awesome weekend.

Every morning, we'd wake up, throw some hot dogs on our little camping grill, and crack open a Natty Ice. After a few hours of drinking and dancing and enjoying our neighborhood's company in the perfect weather we had, we would whip out our schedules and decide when we wanted to start the mile hike from the campground to the stages.


There were three stages: the main stage, a secondary stage, and a smaller stage inside a giant tent. Bigger acts were obviously at the main stage, more intimate acts at the tent. We jumped between all of them, but always had a presence at the main stage ("HQ") where our blankets, booze and belongings were. Did I mention we had to sneak booze in? They sold beer inside, but it was like 8 dollars for a tiny bit. So we filled up some vodka and rum in flattened waterbottles and ziplock bags and shoved it down our pants and in our hoodies. We then got checked by security who went through our bags and patted us down at a checkpoint by the entrance. Its kinda like Spring Concert! There also was "Beverage Enforcement" walking throughout the concert arena, but they would only take something away if it was super obvious (full disclosure: this happened to us once... it was embarrassing).


Now onto the music... Chromeo was honestly the best act. They friggin rocked it. It was so groovy. I would say they were the act on the main stage that had the crowd rocking the most. I don't remember most of the Flaming Lips, but the effects during their act were pretty awe-inspiring. Rodrigo y Gabriela were amazing too. Matt and Kim were something else too. Foo Fighters were rockin. Modest Mouse was fulfilling to finally see. Bassnecter was out of this world. Ratatat was, as usual, a sight to see. Glitch Mob were really fun too. Axis of Awesome was hilarious. Oh! And Macklemore put on a great show! I really wished I had seen Fitz and the Tantrums, as well as some other performers. Full Line-Up.

Highlights were my friend and I starting a dance line that grew to literally more than 200 people during Chromeo (I've been trying to find a video on youtube, but no luck yet), the "Glowpocalypse" (everyone throwing glowsticks up when the beat dropped) during Bassnecter, Falling in love with Kim during Matt & Kim's performance (this is echoing Toto's post a while back about how fun they are live), and all of the dance parties which strangers to bands I didn't really know.

Overall it was an amazing experience. It was like a whole 'nuther world with very few rules and crazy social norms. For those 4.5 days, I was in another reality. I totally think I'd do it again, but boy I don't know if I could do "festing" like some people do. It's exhausting! It was like a four day long spring concert... my body was pretty beaten after it was over. But it was so. much. fun.



JOE'S SERVICE

I'm not going to share too much about Joe's Service, but I will share a bit. So I return from Sasquatch on Tuesday AM. Then... on Friday morning, Mallory and I get dropped off at MSP airport and board a flight to Seattle. I got to know SEA/TAC pretty well that week. We arrived at immediately got picked up by Hugh's Brother (I mistook him for Ol' Hughfus himself), Mallory's Sister, and Rob. We went straight to a Mariners game, where we met up with Hugh, Jon Carter, Pat and the rest of the family. It was awesome seeing the Sjoeberg family in one of their elements (a Mariners Game). They were heckling and yelling and dancing and getting everyone riled up. It was a really fun time. Afterwards, we headed to the Sjoberg house, hungout into the wee hours of the night and crashed. The following morning was the service and the reception. Both were incredibly powerful and moving. Everything got really real once we were there at the service and other people started coming in (we had arrived early with the family). The Carleton and Beloit crew had a row up behind the family and I'm glad I was able to sit next to Jon and Mal and near Hugh because I would have felt less comfortable balling my eyes out to someone I didn't know as well. After the great service, we went to Joe's high school where there was a great slideshow, some speakers and musical performances, and some refreshments. After that, in true Sjoberg fashion, we had a celebration of Joe's life back at the house with drinks, lawn games, and food.

Overall, it was an amazing weekend that provided me with as much closure as I'm going to get. Being able to connect with the family and with Mal, Hugh and Jon during such an engaged weekend was more than I could ask more and was so helpful to my grieving process. Throughout it all, the Sjoberg family was so welcoming and amazing. I feel honored to have met them. As a family of member of Joe's said at the funneral, "Because of who this it is, this is the worst funeral I've ever been to, but this is also the best funeral I've ever been to, because we are celebrating it in a Joe like manner, with friends gathering and memories being made." Amen.


MOLSON OUT.