WeFest: The Tenth Circle of Hell

So I’m sure you’ve all noticed that it’s been nearly two weeks now since my adventures at WeFest, the super-sized country music festival in Detroit Lakes, MN, and I have yet to even mention it, let alone post an article about it. The truth is, it’s taken me this long to process, assess, decompress, detoxify, and move past the post traumatic stress of arguably the most hellish voluntary experience known to man (outside of war, but I’d say people who volunteer to go to war are a little unhinged to begin with).

Allow me to give you the rundown of a typical WeFest day. Everybody was up by 8 AM at the latest. The sun baking our poorly ventilated tents haphazardly pitched in treeless fields made sure of it. Once up, the typical WeFester had to make a choice: either face a wicked hangover, pop an Advil and attempt to rehydrate, or have a drink, catch a quick buzz and hope that for the rest of the day you won’t even remember you have a head to ache.

Most opt for the latter.

The showers at WeFest were crowded and virtually unusable (imagine the collected grime of thousands of people spending days in the dirt). Most mornings we had someone drive us into town where we would grab breakfast, a round of screwdrivers and a bath in the lake (which was actually awfully refreshing).

We’d finally make it back to camp around noon, at which point it was time to “go walking” (apparently a WeFest tradition of literally just walking around). Assuredly more fun than it sounds, the beauty of “walking” lies in the people. We met some strange characters on our walks, from a beer guzzling WeFest medic cruising around on a four wheeler to a vagrant who looked as if he made a regular home of that desolate field, and WeFest built up around him.

It helped that we had a tricked out Radio Flyer, customized in John Deere green and reinforced to hold 600+ lbs, to cart our cooler around in (a particularly effective mode of transportation when it came to hills).

You can find pretty much anything at WeFest, depending on where you walk. Slip-N-Slides, pools, booze-infused watermelons, yard games galore, dance parties. It truly is a party for the Renaissance man.

The lengths of our walks varied depending on the groups’ energy level, success in finding outrageous people/events, and most importantly, beer supply. We’d typically hobble back to the campsite at around five and someone would drunkenly fire up the grill for dinner (which we would eat dangerously undercooked because no one had the patience to wait it out).

And then it was the night time, which we all know is the right time. The concerts, the crowds, and of course, the Oof-da Tacos.

To be continued...

Thanks for reading.