In this week’s #EDCTales, our hero does some Day 3.5 post-shenanigans shenanigans and seems to have misplaced his car….
While the show was technically over, there was still one place where it wasn’t – Camp EDC. Camp EDC is the campgrounds adjacent to the festival where people who want to LIVE the EDC experience for the full 96+ hours can go. It isn’t cheap to camp there – but really what is the price for such luxurious accommodations as a Shiftpod, an air mattress, $15 acai bowls (whatever that is), and $20 drinks? If you’re pinching pennies, I might recommend looking into your nearest Moon Tribe or Rainbow Gathering.
To get into Camp EDC, you need to have a special wristband. Thankfully, Rikki & Danger Kitty were able to go back to their RV, wrangle a few sleeping friends from their comas, and get us some wristbands while I waited in the Lost & Found line for my phone and the Art Director & *The* Wendy waited in the parking lot. This line was extremely long and thankfully Insomniac has gotten the process down. I tried calling the phone twice in line, and the second time they told me that it hadn’t been turned in yet, go online and check the “Lost & Found” and they will ship it back to you.
We put on our perfectly legit wristbands and walked into Camp EDC after a perfunctory glance at our wristbands by security. At first, it looked like a dirty alleyway you would expect to find near a racetrack. But after a few minutes walking, we came to the camping areas – which looked pretty nice. ShiftPods on green astroturf decorated as one would with a suitcase full of crap. It was actually really nice. But the best was the Mesa – the common area of Camp EDC.
THIS WAS TITS! Pool, bars, food vendors, bumper cars, merch stores, and DJs playing. We found a little shady area to sit down and saw Mamba, Jojo, & BDB. Again, one never expects to see Mamba – one simply celebrates when Mamba arrives. We sat and bullshitted about the previous nights adventures. As I hadn’t had anything of substance (or legal) to eat in many hours, Wendy & I went off to see the food vendors.
Here’s something you may or may not know about Wendy – she has friends everywhere. Literally, you could be anywhere in the world and someone will know her. Thankfully, this person in question was operating one of the breakfast places. Wendy went up, gave them a hug, and came back with two egg & cheese burritos (no black pepper). I quickly wolfed it down, sharing a mere bite with the woman who I love. But everyone had already switched to box wine, so I think nourishment was had.
We enjoyed the company of our friends, made new friends, saw friends we hadn’t see in a while, and did some decompression. But all things must come to an end. We gathered our things and made our way out of Camp EDC. It was noon and the desert sun was beating down on us.
Unfortunately things had changed in the seven hours since we left the speedway. Paths and roads that were once there were gone. We made our way down the new pathways past to the former home of the rideshare drop off, north of where we had parked sixteen hours earlier. We had to take a break in the shade that was still up.
I told the Art Director to stay in the shade, found a couple of unopened water bottles, and made my way through the crews cleaning up this mess to find my car. I would come back to pick her up, because I am that kind of guy. My internal compass remembered where it was and I started off.
Except my car wasn’t there. There were no cars anywhere. Wait, there was a car way over there being loaded on a tow truck. FUCK!!!! Our detour to adventure had resulted in my car getting towed!
I went back to my beloved and tried not to panic. They were clearing out the lots. They would move those cars to a central location. The “where” was what eluded me.
Thankfully one of the safety personnel had stopped at our shady oasis to allow his puppy to take a pee break. I asked if he knew where they were towing them. He didn’t but offered us a ride on his gator, which we gladly accepted.
As we drove around the speedway, we saw the crews disassembling everything. We saw other festival goers walking along finding their rides or whatevers. We saw people just sitting in the tiny bits of shade, trying to determine what their next steps were.
We eventually found the car, unharmed and with the other stragglers. We drove home and eventually crashed out for a bit. Three days later, I still feel like I haven’t gotten enough sleep.
Next time – some final thoughts, suggestions, and our hero answers the question of if he will ever fucking do this again!!