A wet, wet hempfest

Hempfest certainly has been a powerful event this year. We had to battle horrid weather and storms, but somehow we made it, and had an incredible ‘fest at that. I showed up at around nine in the morning on Saturday to an overcast day with rain predicted at 6:00.

I spent the majority of the day (until 6:00 when I left) walking around taking in the sights and sounds, and capturing what I could with my camera. It was really nice not to be responsible for a stage this year – I always disliked not being able to really enjoy the Hempfest because I was slaving away for it. Not that I mind – it’s a great cause and should be supported. This year I got to wander around taking photos and really get the Hempfest experience.

At about 2:00 in the afternoon it started to rain on Saturday. I was wet and miserable lugging around my gear, but kept on going for the sake of getting “the perfect shot”. I wrapped my camera in a plastic bag with a hole cut in it for a lens. That worked pretty well, although it did make operating the buttons and controls a little bit difficult. Within an hour or so I was drenched to the bone and looked like a wet cat. I was amazed at how many hardcore hempsters stuck around for the rest of the fest. 4:20 was certainly far from norm – all of the stages except for the main stage were shut down for electrical reasons because of the rain, so people were huddled together under tarps smoking out and celebrating Hempfest in all it’s glory.

After getting home I worked on photos most of the night. Brien came over for movies and pizza and we watched Diehard 3 (how very appropriate for the day) while munching and talking about some of the photos I took.

This morning I woke up feeling horrible. I think that being soaked for so long yesterday was really bad for me. My lungs feel like crap, and I have a bad cold. Luckily a little bit of Vitamin C and some Dayquil made it possible to get out of bed and head down the Myrtle Edwards park to do it all over again.

I got there and it was pouring rain – the storms last night had ruined tons of booths, and did some serious damage to a couple of our stages. Everyone was wet and miserable, but we kept going, and as the rain died off at noon or so spirits started to rise! Hempfest is going to lose a lot of money this year because of the rain, but hopefully the community in general will help get things back on track.

After the Dayquil wore off it was a struggle to make it to 4:20. Once that had come and gone I made a beeline for my condo and am sitting here trying to relax and make myself healthy again before I have to go to a long week at work. I have a little over 500 images to go through and can’t wait to see all the finished photos. I’ll be posting them online over the next couple of days.