The Gathering of the Juggalos, Day 1

Wednesday, August 10th through Monday, August 15th, 2011
The 12th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos
Cave-in-Rock, IL
$175


I wear a ring on my right hand that is engraved with the words "Live without hesitation." I decided a few years ago that I wanted to live while I was alive, and since then, I've tried to expand my horizons and experience stuff that I never would have considered before. So back in January, after I went to an ICP concert and got to mark that off my bucket list, I decided to push the envelope even farther. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone, grab life by the horns and make my first visit to the one, the only, the Gathering of the Juggalos. It was going to be quite the step outside of my comfortable little box, but I felt that I was up to the challenge in more ways than one. Luckily, my friends Pamela and Nick had decided to go as well, so we'd all get to experience something new together!

In the months leading up to the Gathering, I accumulated any and every little thing that I could think of that we may need. I bought sunblock, bug spray, bandanas, flashlights, plastic silverware, mini fans, baby wipes, tons of non-refrigerated food, and loads of other stuff. My living room became the staging area for all my Gathering prep. I "test assembled" my huge tent in the spring just to make sure all the pieces were there, and even "test packed' my car to make sure all our stuff would fit. The only other trip I've taken that could measure up to the amount of prep I did was my trip to Japan. Except that this time, I wouldn't have the luxury of being near restaurants, stores or even running water!

The day before we left, I packed up all of my big items (the tent, cooler, chair, grill, my duffel bag of clothes, one tub of food and one tub of "stuff") then headed to Pamela and Nick's place to pack up their stuff. Nick helped me pack what we could, then we went to Pamela's work to show her our efforts. We actually ended up condensing one big tub and one big duffel bag of food all into the single tub, which saved a TON of space. With everything packed, the only thing left to do was sleep. Yeah right...I don't think any of us got much sleep that night!!


Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

On Wednesday morning, I got up around 5:30am, and after a shower and a final few moments of cramming stuff into the car, I left the house at 7:00am and made my way to Harris Teeter for some dry ice. We ended up with about 15 pounds worth, which didn't look like much, but was hopefully going to keep all of our stuff cold for a while. When I was done, I headed off toward Pamela and Nick, grabbing a quick breakfast at McDonalds along the way. Once I was there, we packed up the rest of their stuff, and once Pamela's mom arrived with her air bed, we were on our way. We were crammed into the car...and I mean seriously, seriously packed!



Pamela was in the front seat with two cases of water at her feet and a mound of stuff in her lap...



...while Nick was in the back seat with water at his feet and my cooler sitting in his lap! Poor guy! hahaha

As we hit the road, we got stopped by the longest light ever, then made a quick stop to top off the gas tank and for Pamela to pick up some smokes for the road. Once we were on our way, we cranked up the tunes, and made our first stop right as we got off the highway in Eddyville, KY. After we unwedged Pamela and Nick from the car, we topped off the tank one last time, then hunted for some Ziploc bags since that was the one thing we had neglected to pack. There weren't any at our gas station, so I ran across the street where I found a box of them. Once we were back on the road, it was a fairly straight shot up to Cave-in-Rock,IL. We only saw one cop, but I was extra, extra careful not to go even one mile over the speed limit for fear of getting stopped.

When we arrived at the Cave-in-Rock ferry, it was just leaving, but luckily we only had about three or four cars in front of us, so we knew we'd be on the next one out. All the people in front of and behind us were Juggalos...



...and we even spotted "615 LOC" tagged on a bench nearby...Lords of Chaos have struck again! hahaha



Pamela was mildly freaked out by the fact that we were about to go on a ferry, but some chain smoking helped calm her nerves! When the ferry was back, we all boarded, and it was a quick, pleasant float across to the other side. Once there, we drove out to where our directions took us, but didn't know which road was Lamb Road since we didn't see a sign. We followed a sign for Hog Rock, but after a few blocks, Nick said he didn't think we were going the right way. We turned around and went back to the main road to drive a little further, but ultimately decided that we'd gone the right way the first time. Eventually we found the correct way off into the wilderness.

Upon our arrival, we followed the car entrance, and bottomed out the car a few times as we went up the incredibly bumpy, incredibly dusty entrance road. I'm not sure how people with RVs get up that road!! I was just glad I'd fixed the shocks before the trip!



At the top of the road, it opened up into a grassy field that was full of hundreds of cars full of Juggalos waiting to get into the campground! It was close to 1:00pm by this point, and we knew we'd be sitting for a long time at the rate the line was moving. We parked and walked around a little while, and moved the car forward any time there was an opening. Nick eventually decided to walk forward and find our buddy Moonshine since he'd texted that he was near the front of the line.

After some walking around, he came back and said that he'd found him, and that there were two shorter lines all the way at the front, if I would drive along the right side and pass everyone. It felt like cheating to do that, but once I was able to get all the way over to the right side, I slowly drove past everyone until I saw more cars in front of me. Once I got there, Moonshine flagged me to go even further to the right since there was another lane there. So I drove up again, and ended up four cars behind him. I'm not sure why people weren't utilizing all the lanes?? There were four lanes open, but the rightmost two lanes had almost no one in them while everyone else was cramming into the other two lanes. From the back of the line, you wouldn't know this since you couldn't see that far ahead, but the closer people definitely should have realized it. It's just like at Disney World, and how people will line up 20 deep at certain turnstiles while there is always the one turnstile with no line! I'm sure we easily bypassed 300 or more cars just by driving all the way up.

Once we were near the front, Pamela decided to sneak off into the woods for a bathroom break, and later came back to declare that it had been the best pee of her life! hahaha Eventhough we were so much closer, the line was still agonizingly slow. Each time they opened the line, they took four cars from each line. Eventually, we made it to the single line that was heading into the campground, only to round the corner and find that we were still probably half a mile from the entrance! Ugh! A million years later, when we finally got to the front of the line, we saw that each car was being searched to make sure there were no fireworks, weapons or glass inside the car. I'd made sure in advance that all of our alcohol was in plastic, and that I had nothing that would be considered a weapon. The people in front of us weren't so lucky though, and had to pour all of their whiskey into plastic bottles before they were let inside!

Once we were cleared for entry, we tried to follow the map as best we could. Dennis had said that the best place to camp was the "Haunted Forest" but we quickly realized that there was no such place! We did spot Haunted Haven though, so we assumed that that was what he meant. We found our way quickly to where we needed to be, but missed a turn and ended up driving up the road on the left side of Second Stage. After turning around, I backtracked one turn and made a right into the Haunted Haven. We drove, and it seemed like most of the spots were already taken. We passed a little cottage on the left, then came upon a cross street that turned to the left, that had a large empty area on the corner. Perfect! So I parked the car on the far end of the empty spot, then quickly dragged my cooler out to the corner so we could stake out the entire area.



Once we were parked, we started to get settled into our home for the weekend. We emptied out a lot of the trunk, and unrolled the tent. After a little trial and error with the tent poles, we managed to get the tent completely assembled within about 15 minutes.


Tada! Our three room condo for the weekend.

We gave Nick the job of hammering in the tent stakes, while Pamela and I set up the chairs, and unloaded our personal luggage. We had somehow ended up with a very inconvenient hole right in the middle of our campsite, and after all of us had almost fallen into it, we decided that that was a great place to set up the grill.

Once we got all our stuff arranged, Pamela and Nick started the daunting task of trying to inflate their air mattress with just the little manual pump I'd brought. They huffed and puffed, trying to blow it up for what seemed like a million years, but they were getting absolutely nowhere. After a while of just hanging around, snacking and relaxing down to vacation speed, Moonshine showed up for a bit. Luckily, he had an electric air bed pump that would run off the cigarette lighter in his truck, so he mercifully offered to blow up their bed for them. While he and Nick were gone attending to the mattress, Pamela and I just chilled, and I started to drink on some of my margarita that I'd brought.

Once Nick was back, complete with a fully inflated air mattress and one of their cases of beer, we decided to grab our drinks and take a walk around.


Pamela's first encounter with a port-a-potty!

We first found our way back to Second Stage, then kept going straight up a huge hill. Once we came down the other side of the hill, it opened up into a field containing the Bomb House and the wrestling stage.


Pamela and Nick at the wrestling stage



Following the path further, Lake Hepatitis was on the right, and Spazmatic and the food stalls were on the left. We walked a little further, then decided to scan the merch booth, which was unexpectedly open. I was very tipsy by this point, but I did manage to coherently ask if they had any sterling silver Hatchetmen, which they didn't. All the stuff seemed very expensive, which was a bummer since ultimately I'd have bought way more had prices been lower.

After a quick rest on a nearby park bench, we each took our photo with the big "Welcome to Shangri La" banner that was nearby, then headed back to the camp.


Me with the banner


Pamela with the banner


Nick with the banner

We were all pretty hungry since we hadn't eaten much all day, so it was definitely time to grill some burgers! During the drunken walk back, we passed someone in a van who was spinning out on the big hill, and a bunch of people, myself included, all pushed from behind and helped the van up the hill. Hooray teamwork! Once back at the camp, I threw some charcoal into the grill and got it going, while Pamela staked four of the tiki torches into the ground around the campsite so we could have some light. I'd gotten the kind of charcoal where you just light the little bag and it fires up all the coals, and it worked really, really well. Very glad I didn't have to mess with the lighter fluid I'd brought.


Tending to the grill while Pamela lights the torches

After a while, we threw the burgers on the grill, and enjoyed them with Pringles and a host of condiments pilfered from various restaurants in the months preceding the trip haha. After we'd each downed two burgers (we had no way to heat them back up, so we had to eat them right then or they wouldn't be good the next day!), Moonshine dropped back by for another visit. While he was there, I asked if he'd mind blowing up my mattress for me, and he grabbed it and took off with it! I was going to carry it up to his camp and back, but he insisted that I stay there, and he'd bring it back. That was so nice of him!



Once he was back with my mattress, I made up my bed, and it looked just like a little bedroom :-) Since we all wanted to get a good night of sleep, we ended up turning in at just after 11:00pm. It was only once I laid down that I realized how steep of a slope we were on. It was pretty much impossible to lay flat without rolling downhill to my left side, but it wasn't quite as noticeable when laying on my stomach. Surprisingly, I fell asleep quickly and slept very well.

The Gathering of the Juggalos, Day 6

Monday, August 15th, 2011

As Monday dawned, I got up around 9:00am, having had slightly more sleep than on previous nights. It still wasn't comfortable since I was still sleeping on the bare plastic mattress, and now the whole left side of my face was hurting. Once I was awake, I grabbed a mirror and got a good first look at my eye. It was almost swollen shut, with the two cut areas being completely red and bloody, and the entire rest of the side of my nose and upper cheek being bright purple. All the blood and other stuff was crusted into my eye lashes, so I grabbed a Q-tip and a bottle of water, and tried to clean off as much of it as I could. It looked bad...a lot worse than I was hoping that it would look. I was also pretty clearly getting sick by this point. I'd been coughing some the day before, but was hoping that my throat was just irritated from all the smoke everywhere.

Once I opened my tent door, Dennis got his first good look at my eye, and had pretty much the same reaction I did! Since I was already starting to feel yucky, I didn't even want to get off the floor of my room of the tent just yet. So I deflated the mattress and started to pack up my clothes into my duffel bag. My clothes were foul...I mean wet, smelly, dirty and generally disgusting. I knew that my unworn clean clothes weren't gonna be clean by the time I shoved my dirty clothes on top of them, so I didn't even bother trying to separate them, and just threw everything in all together. Since my shoes were all disgusting beyond belief, I bagged them all into a garbage bag to throw into the car. Lord knows that those shoes were covered in mud, beer, Faygo, pee and plenty of other stuff that I'd rather not think about! I was glad I'd brought four pair, though that meant that I was stuck in my formerly white, now disgustingly orange and yellow crusty flip flops for the drive home.

When I finally made me way out of the tent, I made my way to the showers one last time, and found that I was the only person using them! I figured that, given the lack of sleep over the weekend, people would be slow to rise and leave the campground. But it was completely the opposite, and most campsites appeared to already be abandoned. It was really tough to keep my eye dry during my shower, and I had to keep reminding myself not to reach up and wipe it off if it got wet!

Once I was done, I headed back to camp, where Pamela and Nick were just stirring. As soon as they got a good look at my eye and I told them the story of how I got my massive shiner, they both thought it was hilariously ironic. I'm really glad that I was already able to look back on it and laugh since it really was a funny thing to have happen, even if it totally sucked at the time. Pamela kept saying "A turkey leg! A God dammit TURKEY LEG!" hahaha Smiling and laughing was hurting my eye, not to mention bending over to pick something up since it would make the blood rush to my head. But it was all good. Everyone has scars from the Gathering...mine just happens to be a physical scar :-)

Since we were all up, we decided to go ahead and polish off the nacho ingredients. This time, we coated the bottoms of the plates with some bean dip we had, then loaded up the chips, chili and cheese. After I was done, I wiped out the inside of my bedroom, then started to generally clean up the entire area. At 11:15am, someone on a golf cart drove by and yelled that we had 45 minutes to get out. Um, what?? I didn't realize we had a check out time like a hotel! I literally thought we had all day. So once we knew that, we really kicked into gear to get everything packed up. We gathered up the trash and threw it into the ever growing pile by the road, and started to pack stuff into the car.

At one point, I'd just put something into the car trunk, and was stepping between the car and the tent. My right foot slipped on the wet grass, and I ended up puncturing my ankle with the metal end of my Four Loko sign! At the exact moment I did it, I thought I'd jabbed the metal stake all the way through my ankle since it hurt all the way across my ankle, a good four inches or more away from the spot where the stake had gone in. I immediately yelped, pulled the stake out of my ankle (it had poked about 1/8th of an inch deep), and saw that I was bleeding everywhere! Dennis immediately came over and grabbed my first aid kit, cleaned off the wound and patched it up with gauze and tape. It hurt really, really badly, and the entire left side of my ankle was starting to swell and make it hard to walk.

I just couldn't believe it. I got hit in the eye with a turkey leg, I was getting sick, and now I'd been stabbed in the ankle with a metal sign. Every muscle in my body was sore, and my neck hurt from getting hit with the flashlight. I just wanted to go home. I really hate when a trip makes me feel that way, but all I wanted was to just take a shower, poop in a real toilet and get a good night of sleep in my own bed. My ankle was actually hurting so bad that I was barely able to do anything else to pack up the car. I managed to throw some smaller stuff into the car, but Pamela and Nick had to take down the tent, and Dennis helped with cramming everything else into the car. By the time everything was stuffed into the car, it was right around noon time. We'd ended up throwing away a bunch of stuff, including my pillow since it was so dirty that it would be worth the $10 to just buy a new clean one, and not worry about trying to clean the dirty one.

Dennis piled all of his stuff all over himself and started to walk to his car while Pamela, Nick and I said a last goodbye to our campsite and got into my car. And lo and behold...it wouldn't start. GAH!!! Apparently charging the cell phones and cameras all weekend had drained the battery and now it wouldn't crank at all. So I yelled for Dennis to come back, and told him what was wrong. I was really breaking down by this point, so Dennis headed out and found someone who had some jumper cables and was willing to give us a boost. With that done, he piled all of his stuff onto the trunk of my car so he wouldn't have to carry it all, and I drove out slowly while he followed. Once at his car, we bid him a farewell and made the drive out of the campground.

Once we got into Cave-in-Rock, we found ourselves in line for the ferry for about an hour, with Dennis being two cars behind us. I kept getting out of the car to talk to him, and lots of other people were walking around as well. There was even some drama with this woman who called the police because the people behind me wouldn't let her cut in front of them in line for the ferry, and accused them of holding her against her will. Stupid. Maybe she should have tried waiting in line like the rest of us!! Pretty soon it was our turn, and luckily Pamela wasn't too freaked out by the ferry the second time across! Dennis made one last trip up to our car during the ride, and we parted ways once we made it across the river.

As soon as we made out out to Marion, KY, we stopped at the McDonalds we'd spotted along the way, and immediately made a bee-line for the bathroom. I'm honestly not sure if I'd ever been so happy to see a real toilet! Even Pamela later asked Nick "Wasn't it great to take an air conditioned shit, baby?" hahaha When we got there, the place was full of Juggalos, all obviously having the same idea that we did! One guy got my attention to ask what version of the Hatchetman charm I was wearing, and I got to tell him all about how I got my enormous black eye. Afterward, we all got some lunch, then headed out toward home.

We made one stop for gas on the way home, and when I did, I could really tell that I was in bad shape. I was so sore that I could barely get out of the car, and my ankle hurt really badly when I moved it or stood on it. My throat was hurting and obviously my eye still hurt, not to mention that I was self conscious about it. For the rest of the drive, Nick slept in the back seat with stuff piled all over him, while Pamela meditated in the front seat because of a bad toothache. It just really looked like the Gathering had chewed us all up, spit us out, then yelled "See ya next year, muthafucka!" Once I dropped them off at home, I headed home myself, and didn't even bother to unpack the car. I did manage to get all of my laundry done, which was a miracle considering how awful I felt, but there was just no way that it could wait! And of course, I had a great night of sleep that night.

So now, as I write this, the Gathering was two months ago. It really was one of those experiences that I will never, ever forget. It was such a dichotomy...some parts were completely, over the top awesome, while other parts were the total bone. Some parts would make me run back for more in a heartbeat, while other parts would really make me take pause and think about it. But even at the time, I knew that I would look back at the whole thing with rose colored glasses.

Yes, I waited in a lot of lines. Yes, I got a black eye from a flying turkey leg. Yes, I stabbed myself in the ankle. Yes I got sick from sleeping in cold, wet linens. Yes, I was disgusted by the port-a-potties each and every time I had to use one. But y'know what...it was the Gathering! There's nothing else like it in the world! I was there with thousands upon thousands of people with whom I share a very unique bond, all of which would have my back if I ever needed them. And all of whom were there for one simple reason...they are proud to be Juggalos.

The rest of the world looks down on Juggalos, but for one long weekend a year, there's a place where we can all gather and just happily wallow in the fact that the rest of the world hates us. We can listen to what we want, wear what we want, act how we want, consume whatever mind altering substances we want, and no one will be there to tell you that you need to act differently. No one cares about your national origin, your age, your religion, your employment status, who your favorite football team is, or when the last time was that you had a shower. All they care about is that you're a Juggalo. That's it. None of the rest of it matters there.

So all in all, at least for me, the good outweighed the bad. I got to see ICP, Twiztid, Boondox, Blaze, ABK, Ice Cube, MC Hammer, Psychopathic Rydas, Hopsin, Critical Bill, and Kung Fu Vampire, not to mention the incredible Dark Lotus performance! And on top of it all, freaking SALIVA was there!! I got to meet Boondox and got tell him face to face how much I appreciate his music. I got photos of me with Violent J and Shaggy, not to mention getting their autographs. I was there during the ICP seminar when so much cool stuff was announced. I laughed my ass off at the Twiztid seminar. I watched Tech N9ne from the top of a Ferris wheel. And most of all, I got hang out with thousands of friends that I hadn't met yet! It was an amazing experience, and one where the good clearly trumps the bad.

Pamela, Nick and I are already planning out a strategy for next year's Gathering. Primarily, we want a Big Balla site. We got very lucky with the weather this year, but we very well might be stuck in 100+ degree temps next year, so having access to electricity for fans as well as cell phone chargers, camera chargers, hair dryers, lights and whatever else is critical. We also decided to try our best to be able to afford an RV. It would be so heavenly to have your own dedicated toilet to use, not to mention an air conditioned place to sleep, and a place to wash your hands. But even if we can't get an RV, at the very least we need taller tents, where we can stand up inside the sleeping areas. The living room part of my tent was great, but the bedrooms weren't big enough to have a mattress for two plus room for anything else, and they weren't tall enough to stand up in. It meant that we did a lot of stooping and a lot of climbing over stuff.

We also decided to admit the fact that we will probably want to just eat at the food stalls, and budget accordingly. We had a huge tub of food with us, and while we did eat out of it, by the last couple of days, I just wanted a real meal and not snack food. I'd still take breakfast and some snack stuff, but not anything like we took this year. I'd also make sure to take plenty of grape juice, fruit and other healthy stuff to hopefully avoid getting sick. I'd suck it up and eat my Zicam drops all next year too, to give me that much more power to fight off getting sick. Pamela and Nick also figured out that you needed to buy plenty of beer and cigarettes in advance, and have an efficient way of carrying your beer around and keeping it cold. One night they used a bag from one of the folding chairs and said that it worked well but that it leaked everywhere. I'm sure they'll come up with something more efficient before next year.

So I think that's it. MCL to anyone who has made it through this entire trip report. You deserve a pat on the back! Thanks for reading! Whoop whoop!

-Julie