Well, it takes a lot for me to admit this, but the Bonnaroo music festival defeated me. After hundreds of dollars spent on camping gear, tickets, gas, food and lodging, Justin and I left Bonnaroo early. Why? Not because the music wasn't good, not because we couldn't take the crowds, and not because we don't love camping. It was, in fact, the blistering sun, ungodly heat, and a nasty case of sun poisoning. Now, I am well aware that this type of weather is to be expected at this type of event. However, I have never before experienced what it feels like to literally be BAKED by the sun (no pun intended). Now, this wasn't your typical "I'm going to try and get a tan by not wearing sunblock" type sunburn. This was 100 percent unpreventable. You all know that our Irish asses don't spend more than a minute out in the sun without protection. In fact, if we had done that at Bonnaroo, we'd probably be dead. Let's take Justin as an example. He was wearing SPF 30 sunblock on his back under his shirt. Over-cautious you say? Try again. After an entire day of cowering from the sun under a canopy, the sun penetrated not only the canopy above us, but it also burned our skin through our clothes and SPF 30!!! To say that Justin and I were burnt to a crisp is an understatement. We were definitely borderline miserable by day 2, but it wasn't until the reddish-purplish sun poisoning rash starting appearing on Justin's legs that I started to get really alarmed. Even I started getting rashy on my ankles and thighs. So between the severe sunburn, the 100 degree heat indices, and the constant fear of dehydration I began to fear for our safety. By Saturday afternoon, I was convinced that if we didn't get ourselves out of that sun and heat, one of us was going to wind up unconcious. But the worst part of it all is that so many of our favorite artists were playing nearby, and we couldn't even step out from under our sun canopy to go out and enjoy what we went there for.

Two reasons why Bonnaroo sucked:
1) There were way too many cool things going on at once, so no matter what you were doing, you were ALWAYS missing out on something cool.
2) The only thing worse than not going to Bonnaroo at all, was being there so close to the action and still missing out on everthing because of the sun and heat.

After three days at the festival, we caught only a couple hours of live music. Our activity was limited to the hours of the day that the sun was not out. And by the time the sun went down, we were so exhausted that even the night time shows were hard to enjoy.

Lessons learned:
1) Redheaded Irish people have no business camping in a field in Tennessee in June
2) I can drink 3 gallons of water without peeing any of it out
3) Justin and I are both pussies

I am sad and disappointed by this experience to say the least :(

Keep rockin'
Katie