I had seen a show advertised when they first released the schedule and moped all day when I saw that two of my all-time favorite bands, The Wheeler Brothers and The Avett Brothers would be playing on July 28th. It affected me so deeply that it was the first thing I thought of when I found out we would be home the month of July. And I promptly bought tickets. Most people might start planning, writing lists and packing when they know they have to leave the country in two weeks and still don't have a permanent apartment to call home. Not me. I was making different kinds of plans.
It also happened to be one of the first things I talked to my friends about after the great surprise. And just like that, we had recruited four people and started researching campsites for the weekend.
Fast forward a month and the day had finally arrived for us to get to NB for a weekend of camping, tubing and Brothers-watching. And the best news was that a big group of friends had been planning the same trip and would be camping a short ways away! When we made the connection at a late-night bonfire, we all screamed like little girls. (And I was the only actual girl...) How much better does it get? Camping and concert-going with an amazing group of people? Yes, please.
Hubs and I also took this as a chance to buy our first home. That's right. We bought our first tent! It was a special moment, but Hubs wouldn't let me take a picture with our "realtor", a very helpful sales associate at Cabelas, so you'll have to use your imagination.
We were first to arrive and set up camp. We had a great campsite right on the river and took full advantage watching all the sunburned, frat guy tubers float by. Hilarious. The rest of our crew showed up and Hubs and I introduced them to Pimms, a delicious British drink some friends of our introduced me to while in Moscow. It's a perfect summertime drink, like a sangria, only gin based and with Sprite and cut up fruit and mint leaves. I sent some pictures to our friends who are used to drinking it on the lawns of Oxford and I'm sure they got a kick out of seeing it served out of a blue drink dispenser with a dirty river in the background. But it was for sure a hit and will be the drink of choice on camping trips from here on out.
Our first dinner was steak, shrimp, caesar salad and a strange potato concoction I made up. In my mind, it was supposed to end up like a warm, German potato salad, but it ended up being mashed potatoes with bacon bits and sour cream. Oh well. It worked. And proved the point that you really can't put too much sour cream on something, which is something we've picked up in Russia. It may not be what you thought it would be, but its still good. We're kind of awesome at camping food. And it'll only get better when we're back in the states permanently and I can rescue my dutch oven from whatever closet has eaten it.
It was good to be outside with good friends. Late night dunks in the river, good conversation switching from the serious to the absurd is exactly what we needed. And the next morning? Connecting with our other friends for a few hours of tubing! I'm ashamed to say it, but this was my first Texas tubing experience and I was ready. Being the smartest idiot on the planning, I brought a bag of wine, which is basically four bottles of pinot grigio while everyone else crammed as many Lone Star's as they could in our small cooler. When they were out of beer, I was sure to still have plenty of wine and take up less space. Brilliant. 
Only I didn't count on the kindness of strangers, especially drunk strangers and as anyone who's floated a Texas river knows, you never run out of beer. It's the strangest concept. Almost as strange as how no one has to pee when they're floating... Just the magic of the river I guess.
As much fun as I had with hands down the best group of people to go with, I'm ashamed to say I didn't like tubing as much as I thought I would. I loved the company and my face hurt from smiling and laughing so hard, but every time someone stood up, either to help their tube along or to shotgun a beer, all I saw was their drunk ass losing their balance and cracking their heads open on the rocks. And a lot of people were standing up to shotgun beers.
I fell asleep in the car on the ride home. (no comment please.)
But I'll be damned if I'm going to miss the best concert of my life, so lots of water and a delicious meal of burgers and ranch style beans, we were off to the amphitheater!
This concert did not disappoint. It was everything I missed about live music. And very reminiscent of seeing Mumford and Sons at Jazzfest with one of my best buddies. Imagine with me... Avett Brothers would start out a song we knew and we immediately screamed our fool heads off, certain they were singing straight to us. People within a certain radius were switching between watching us make asses out of ourselves and the concert. By the end of the night, my voice was gone after trying to sing loud enough for the band to hear us. And they may have. It was glorious. Beiber fans know nothing of crazy fandom. We love music. 
Our plan at the end of the night was to get a taxi back to the campsite and one of my friends promised to take the reigns since I was having weird anxiety about the whole thing. I don't know when I got so anxious about not having a plan, but it seems to be happening a lot more these days. But the cab was late. And I was tired. And then the cab still wasn't there. Every time we would see a cab, we were convinced it was ours, only to be completely disappointed. My friend and taxi point person did everything right, except use a good cab company, which she had no way of knowing which was good or not. And even though I hadn't been drinking (I wasn't about the need a potty break during the greatest show of my life...) and probably could have drove, it beat fighting with all the other thousands of concert-goers to get back to camp.
Finally, after two hours of waiting, our buddy took the initiative to make friends with a large 12 passenger van who shuttled us to our campsite. I was furious, but glad to be "home". And glad to unwind. We didn't have a campfire, but we had the light of an iPhone and tunes from the bands we had just seen work their magic on stage. And we had the kinds of good conversation you should have when you're camping. The deeply personal mixed with the reminiscent mixed with the absurd. By the time I shut my eyes for the night, my heart was bursting at the seams.
Like most things in life, it wasn't a perfect experience. But in its own special way it was. I think its important to balance the great with the not-so-great. I don't know if we have the capacity to just know good. Its those extra, unexpected downers that make the good so very great. And its even better when they overshadow the bad so you don't even remember it at all.
Cheers to camping with balance. With a badass soundtrack in the background.
*Important Side Note: Hubs is NOT smoking a joint in that picture. (don't pretend you didn't notice...) It's a piece of gum and there is no explanation to why it is hanging out of his mouth. And its the best group photo, so it has to go in the blog. He'll be responsible for explaining that to our future children...
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