Land of Pumpkins

Saturday morning starts around 10 am with Bloody Marys. I have one of my Mom's, which is excellent, and follow it up with a version made by Hessica that tastes faintly reminiscent of rubbing alcohol. Myself, Sis, Jarles, Damie, Yates and her fiancé Wes, Bini, Za and Nah begin escalating the drinking by tapping into the kegs and playing some Beirut. About 12:30 or so, it's time for the legendary walk into town, so we fill our glasses, pick up Miles on the way and head towards Cameron's.

Once at Cameron's, we pick up pitchers and retreat to the double decker smoking bus where we proceed to swelter, smoke and drink. It's a welcome moment of respite before heading on to the festival itself. We finish the pitchers and move on down Main Street.

Once at Main Street, the crowd is overwhelming. It's hard to move in general, but trying to keep our very large pack together is a different task entirely. The goal is to find restrooms and beer cups. We get both, some people get in line for food, and we continue on our way. Sis at this point has found a party for us to check out, so we take it a block off Main and find a very large backyard party that the cops don't seem to have any interest in breaking up. Of course, Sis and Hessica start running into everyone they ever went to school with, and as our luck would have it, the kegs are tapped. We make a quick Cunha's run where the festival tradition is to buy 2 dollar 22s and pour them into the Festival cups. This generally saves a very large amount of money, given that festival beers are around 8 bucks a pop.

We head back to the party, only Sis has disappeared. She's gone down to San Benito house and left us at the party she brought us to. Hessica tells us that she's going to go get Sis so we can start the procession back, or at least reassemble and decide what's next. But when she gets there, Sis isn't ready to leave and so we wait outside the party, throwing a frisbee in the street, waiting for Hessica to come back. When she returns, we're all pretty much done, and we start making a straggling attempt to walk back to Cameron's. Bini, Nah and myself throw the frisbee the entire way (making it quite a bit longer of a walk), and when we get to Cameron's, we're in perfect time for the two Sandies (y and ie) who have come to pick us up and drive us back to the house.

When we get back, Topher and Marc show up, the grill is going the food is everywhere. I, however, having been drinking for nearly 8 hours (and beer, not my usual Rodka for days like these), manage to eat a bit of steak, a helping of the Caesar salad, and then, upon seeing people watching the baseball game, and feeling generally fatigued, I crawl upstairs and fall asleep. It was a bit earlier than I had intended to go to bed, but given that I heard about some various conversations and moments following my departure that it's maybe better I wasn't around for, I'm not too displeased.

I wake up at 5 in the morning, almost completely sober, and unable to sleep. Sis and I solve this by spending about an hour outside smoking bowls before we head back upstairs and sleep until around 10.

Another successful Pfest, and happy to say that all the new comers enjoyed the time and are already looking ahead to next year.