What Do You Get To Do Without Your Kid/s?
I have not posted anything for the past few days because I was out of town. My fiancé and I get one day a year to spend without our children. For the past three years, we have attended a festival in the middle of a wooded field, with thousands of strangers. It’s called EST Fest!
We leave on Friday morning and don’t return until Sunday evening. The festival consists of a variety of music artists that play on two different stages all day until about midnight. The crowd gets bigger every year and the wait lines are horrendous but totally worth every minute of our time. We pack light and smart. This year we had to park our vehicle in another part of the town and catch a shuttle ( a slapped together vehicle wanna be that I was terrified to ride on) and it takes us to and from the festival. Once we made it to the field we were staying at we had to wait in line for a few hours to get our tickets scanned and our belongings searched. It was so hot and tiring. Also, definitely worth our time. Vendors sell tons of different items, foods, and clothing and there is a place to skateboard and a place to swim.
The pool has a huge slide that looks like a bike ramp you could do a flip off of. When the festival opens the pool there can only be 500 people inside at once and people wait in line for people to exit so that they can enter next. The first time we went, three years ago, I noticed a small paved trail leading up the grassy hill and we took off up the path and into the woods. As we traveled further it got narrow and we were covered by trees towering over head. I said something along the lines of, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a beautiful waterfall back here that we could secretly swim in?” and low and behold we found a big pond with canoes off to the edge of the shore. I know it wasn’t a beautiful waterfall but it was the point that it was a secret and it resonated with us. We pushed the canoe into the pond and got the paddles and got inside. There were huge fish swimming underneath us and it looked like an underwater city with algae buildings and seaweed trees. It was mystical and mesmerizing.
The layout of the area is
I find it amazing because so many people come to this event. So many different people from different environments and different lifestyles come here. But while we are all gathered in this field together we are all family. It’s a thrill to see the variety of colorful personalities that come together once a year to enjoy the same event. There are so many different types of people here. It’s not like you would assume it would be. If you have listened to MGK you would think people that enjoy rap music, or something similar to it, would be the ones showing up for this event. It’s not the case though. You see hippies, you see people in preppy outfits flaunting their butt cheeks, you see people in beautiful costumes and people that have their bodies painted all over. Some people are dressed in goth, some people are naked ( I kid you not we have seen quite a bit of flesh here), and a few people are wearing cowboy hats and boots. I saw a handful of girls without tops and only their nipples painted over with a cute design or glitter paint. It really is amazing to see this variety of life enjoying the same thing. It’s almost hard to express it in words.
We all show up for the event, wait about half the day to enter the place, and then wait hours upon hours to leave when it’s all said and done. And we are mostly waiting in the hot sun in the fields deep in the country. Beautiful! Both the environment and the people.
This is me, waiting in a huge line about 1/4 mile long. We all had our coolers, our chairs, and we would share what we had leftover, if anyone needed anything, while we were waiting.
This is where we go every year and we are childless for 2 whole days. It’s hard to be without my kids, especially after the things we have been through, but I believe the separation is a good thing and the children need it as much as we, the parents, do.
Do you get time away from your kid/s during a specific time of year? Where do you go? What do you do? Where does your child/ren stay?
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