Cornerstone

It was late June at midnight and the gale force winds were whipping through the trees. I was gathering all my supplies and clothes as my Grandmother was ranting about her worries that I would be in a car for eleven hours, with four males. I was moving swiftly trying not to forget anything that I may need on my seven day journey for a music festival, where I would have to camp in a corn field in Bushnell, Illinois. Time came, and I ran outside to get in the car, that I would sit in all night and morning. My Grandmother launched my luggage into the trunk of the van. Then we were off!

The overly crowded car and over a dozen more that followed rapidly evacuated Mississippi. The car was crowded as we sat elbow to elbow and very uncomfortably. I began to feel a slight car sickness and started to have small anxiety attacks. I had to get my breathing under control or the entire group of traveling cars would have to pull over at a rest stop for me to adjust. Blaring music played of not calm happy music but loud and, at the time, obnoxious scream-o music. The car ride seemed to have lasted sixty days and sixty nights.

When we arrived to Bushnell, I got out of the car to stretch and inhaled deeply, I could smell the excitement. As I observed the cornfield, I saw it was packed full of tents with people from all across America. The smell of the food stands made me feel malnutrition. My taste buds stood up like the arrector pili muscles when getting the chill bumps. I began my seven day trip by having a mouth watering, golden crisped corn dog. Then, night came. I was worried of staying in a tent in the middle of no where, but I had no choice. The temperature went from one hundred degrees to forty degrees in no time. I went to sleep wrapped in a massive sleeping bag, shivering like an Eskimo.

I awoke to awful music at 7:00 a.m, and I was lying in a puddle of sweat. I glanced over the person lying next to me, to see a spider the size of a small soccer ball. That day I went to several concerts. One, in particular, was overly crowded, I felt like a needle in a hay stack. With all the people crammed together in the tiny tent, I had more sweat from someone else, and then I had of my own. When the band approached the roar from the crowd bordering me was like standing within feet of a nuclear bomb.

The day came to pack up and go. The heat of that day was like walking through the Sahara Desert with a hundred pound fuzzy jacket on! No day had been that scorching. The excitement left the air. Tents were coming down. The smell of the food no longer made my stomach growl. I was discontent, hot, and blistered. I was home sick, and needed to return home.