Beale Street Music Festival 2013 #bsmf13 (Day 1)

 My sixth trip to Memphis in May kicked off yesterday, this one being the beginning of our honeymoon. I’ve been meaning to write some about the wedding planning, but the planning itself took so long I haven’t had time to write anything. So, I’ll write about the honeymoon instead.


This trip started off with a bang, as it SNOWED in the morning. That’s right, on May 3, in ARKANSAS, it snowed. For reference, it’s usually about 80 degrees on May 3. Not snowing.

I drove the first three hours to Little Rock by myself, listening to The Odyssey. Jon’s friend had said we could park at his place, but he backed out at the last minute. I managed not to freak out, and a couple other friends came through for us. After parking one of the cars there, we set off on our honeymoon adventure. We only got lost once, and had to backtrack a looong way to get to our hotel in West Memphis. We got settled and took off for Tom Lee Park. About ten minutes after crossing the bridge, I realized I’d left the tickets in the hotel room. So we had to backtrack again, and got off on the wrong exit and took the loooooooong way around to get back to the hotel. We finally got back to the hotel and collected the tickets.

As I was standing in the door of the hotel room folding my tickets, the guy in the next room came out and said, “Oh, I’m glad I saw you doing that or I would’ve left my tickets and not realized until I got all the way to Memphis.” ARRRGGGHHH!

I went to get a jacket, since it was freakishly cold here, too, and when I came back, Jon was chatting to the guy. He said he’d give us $20 if we gave him a ride down to the show. I agreed, and we set off once again. We chatted to Leon on the way over, and about ten minutes past the bridge I said, “I think we were supposed to get off on an exit right after the bridge.” So for the third time, we had to backtrack all the way through Memphis.

We finally got to the park and went in to see Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, which was the first band on our schedule anyway. We missed eating at a restaurant, but got our customary gyros in the festival. We stood and listened to about half an hour of Sheryl Crow, which was better than I expected. Then we went to ES&MZ, which unfortunately, Jon didn’t like. While we were dancing around in the mud, some girls walked by and one of them totally nabbed my beer! I just stood there like, “OMG! She did not just do that!” For all she new, it could have been someone’s spit can, or someone could have peed in the can to avoid the porta-potty, or…EW EW EW!

Before she could even walk away, Jon retrieved the beer, though, and we continued dancing. After the show, we went to the last stage to see Alice in Chains. They were awesome! I knew almost all their songs, and the few new ones they played were really good, too. Jon loved the show, which was good, because I wasn’t sure he’d enjoy it. The first thing they said when they walked on stage was, “Well, at least we made it on stage this time.” We danced around, and got really close. It was so cold that the crowd was super thin, and we got to about the 10th row without having to push our way through at all. The crowd was pretty sparse, and calm for a rock show. But it was an awesome time all around, and though we froze our butts off the whole time, it didn’t rain on us. We sloshed through the mud to leave the festival, and just as we were walking past another stage, Hall and Oates were playing, “You Make My Dreams Come True.” We stopped and did a swing dance on the muddy sidewalk for the whole song. I dropped my phone in the mud, but otherwise, it was an exciting, fun evening that went off without a hitch. We even got the drive down on the way back, and realized we are staying really close to the festival, if only we don’t get lost getting there again!

Lena & Gabe's Excellent Adventure (Days 7 & 8)

The last 2 days of our trip:




On Friday morning we woke up to the storm. Gabe and I cuddled up in the tent and had a long snuggle fest. Then we got up and went to the beach. Perdido Key is a very narrow strip of land, so if you stood in the right place, you could see the ocean on both sides. We’d been on the Gulf side up until then, but Gabe decided he wanted to explore the bay side. So we went to that side and walked along the beach. Gabe loved watching the sandpipers skittering along in their weird way, and the pelicans gliding over the water and diving for fish. It was all very nice until we came upon a dead octopus. Gabe thought that was just amazing, and I’d never seen one up close, so we went and looked at it. Then we noticed a big jellyfish in the water…and then we saw dozens more, all along the beach in the water and on the sand. They were humongous! We came across the behemoth one, about twelve inches across, and I had a stick so I opened up the ‘skirt’ and let Gabe see the tentacles. That sort of freaked him out, and he wanted to go back. He had lots of questions about jellyfish the rest of the day.

We swam a few times, jumping in the water for about ten seconds each time, which Gabe loved. Unfortunately, we both got sunburned that day, too. In the afternoon we walked the mile back to the car and went into town to get some hotdogs for our campfire. It was supposed to rain again that night, and it was cloudy off and on all day, but we were hoping for a little bit of time for a fire first. We walked back to the campsite, took a little nap, watched the most amazing sunset I think I’ve ever seen (of course my phone battery had died and I couldn’t take pictures, grrr). Then we dug a pit and tried to light a fire.

Okay, first of all, our wood had gotten wet in the rain the night before. Secondly, our paper had gotten wet TWICE and never fully dried from the rain the first night we camped at the state park. Then it had gotten damp again Thursday night. And if you’ve ever been to the beach, you know that nothing dries there. Nothing. Ever.

So we crumpled up our soggy damp paper and put our damp wood on top and about 5 pieces of kindling we’d found along the beach. I lit the paper about fifty times and every time it only smoldered and went out. I was getting really desperate. I hadn’t carried that huge bag of wood down the beach for nothing. FINALLY a piece of paper caught fire, and I lit about five others with the flame. They burned for about one minute and then went out. I was about to scream in frustration, but I moved some logs around instead, hoping that all the paper hadn’t burned and left us with a bunch of big, damp logs and nothing to start them with. And suddenly, a flame flickered up from the smoldering paper. We frantically fed pieces of cardboard into the flame, and eventually, our fight started up. It looked like the wood was burning really fast, so we started cooking hotdogs immediately. They kept getting charred, but we managed to eat a few. I put the last two pieces of wood on the fire and they lasted…for hours. We didn’t have any marshmallows, so Gabe decided we should roast dried figs on the fire, so we did that a while. Then Gabe looked at me and said, “This is the best night of my whole life.” And it was all worth it.

We threw a couple hotdogs on the fire so Gabe could see them turn black, which he thought was pretty cool. He also enjoyed poking them with his skewer stick, and lighting his skewer on fire and poking it into the sand to watch it extinguish. He sat in my lap and we huddled into the warmth when it got chilly on the beach. The fire lasted a long, long time, and I let Gabe stay up late until all the flames died out. He got to dump a bucket of water on the coals, which he also loved. And fortunately for us, it did not rain at all that night.

On Saturday morning we got up early and watched the most amazing sunrise while we packed up our stuff. I wanted to make it back to Arkansas that day, but it was such a long drive I thought we’d stop in Little Rock. But we left so early that we got back to Little Rock by 6pm, and it was so early that I thought I’d just stick it out. We drove 14 hours…remind me never to do that again. It was awful, and Gabe got bored, and we were both sore from riding so long. We got back late that night, ending our epic road trip. And we both survived.

Lena & Gabe's Excellent Adventure (Day 6)

I lacked internet access most of the last few days, so I'll try to catch up real quick.

Day 6 (Thursday), we drove the short distance from Destin to Perdido Key. For once, not an entire day spent driving! It was wonderful. We got to the beach in the early afternoon. The ranger took our money and told us the camping was "primitive."
I said, "Great!"
He looked at me like I was insane, and told me that we'd have to walk a mile down the beach to the camping area.
No problem!
And then he said that before we got to the beach, we'd have to walk half a mile down the road from the parking lot to the walkway to the beach.
Also, no problem.
I asked if we could have a campfire and where we could get some wood. Didn't want to repeat the camping experience from the prior night. The ranger told us to go to the local Winn-Dixie (I didn't even know those really existed anymore) and buy some. So, we drove down and got two bags of wood. Let me just say that 25lbs might not sound like a lot, but it's heavy. Really heavy. Especially when it's encased in tough plastic with a handle made of the same tough plastic that threatens to rip through your skin as you carry it.
We got back to the beach, parked, and began our walk. I began to wish I'd listened when the ranger stressed again that I'd have to walk a mile on a soft sand beach. While carrying two sleeping bags, a gallon of water, a bag of food, and 25 lbs of wood. And Gabe had the tent in his backpack and a bag of paper for the fire. It was a long, long mile.
Finally we saw a sign: CAMPING BEYOND THIS POINT ONLY.

I staggered up to the sign like a dying man in a movie who sees water, dropped my bags, and thought about collapsing on top of them. Instead, I went back to meet Gabe, who had fallen far behind. I carried his bag (so light!) and we looked around the camping area. It was basically a deserted white sand beach with dunes as far as you could see. It felt like we'd been dropped on a deserted island. Once we got our tent set up, we ran down and jumped in the water....for about 15 seconds. It was maybe 59 degrees. Maybe.

Gabe played on the beach while I napped and took pictures of the beautiful area. We watched the sunset (gorgeous), ate some of our food, and went to bed early that night. We did not burn that 25lb bag of wood. We left it beside the tent.

That night, it poured rain. The tent didn't flood too bad, and it was kind of nice and cozy lying there with the rain beating down and the tent threatening to blow away, listening to the waves smash against the shore and hoping it didn't turn into a hurricane.

It's been a while...

It came to my attention recently that I've been so caught up in my writing, reading, reviewing, promoting, etc, that I haven't written a REAL, personal blog in way too long!

So here it is. Please, try to calm your excitement. ;>

Well, I guess one of the reasons I haven't been posting as much is that I've had so much going on! Wow. Besides 'real life,' where I've had family stuff like, oh, I don't know, weddings, birthdays, transitions, etc, I've had lots going on in the cyber & writerly world. I'm back to querying, although trying not to obsess this time. I'm still promoting The Superiors (I added a few new things at the bottom of the blog tour schedule for convenience sake, although the tour is over). I'm still editing book 5 (I know, I'll get to book 2 soon, I swear!)

And most importantly, I'm writing again. For a while there, I thought I'd gone permanently dry of ideas. Nothing came. Nothing. When ideas did come, they just didn't stick. I couldn't write, so I stopped and promoted for three or four months. Didn't do that much good, but hey, it got my mind off the crushing fear that I'd never write again. And then one day...inspiration. I've written a YA book set in the real world, and most of another. Then, in fit of procrastination, I went back to read some of the dystopian series I started and never finished. Turns out, it's not as hopeless as I thought. I decided to stop worrying about if it was too scandalous to ever be published, and just went ahead and started working on finishing book 3. The first day back on it, I wrote 40 pages. That's pretty much a miracle for me these days. I used to have 50 page days once a week or so, but that was when I was consumed. It gets so it takes over your mind pretty hard-core when you're writing for 8 hours straight. Stopping to eat? Forget it. Just keep my chocolate on my right and I'm fine. It's better to be obsessed with the story than with things outside my control, like agent responses and amazon sales. So that's it. That's what I've been up to, along with reading, listening to, and reviewing books. Now, back to the book I swore I'd finish this week...

Mudfest in May (Day 3)

Sunday the storms hit. We went to lunch at A&R (barbecue) where they gave us so much food I thought I’d explode. But it worked out, because I didn’t have to eat again all day. After the ribs (and Anna claiming she had a meat overdose) we went down to the festival. As we were walking to the park, huge black storm clouds piled up and the river started sloshing around with waves like the ocean and the tornado sirens went off. We got all nostalgic about last year, but not enough to go in and get drenched just in time to have the bands leave the stages because of lightning (Yes, that is exactly what happened last year). We decided to head up Beale and find shelter instead.

Our usual Peabody Place pool hall had closed, so we went down Beale to another bar. We figured it would be packed and we wouldn’t be able to play pool, but it was strangely deserted. Ryan left the festival and came up to hang out, and we played pool and talked about old times, and beat my sister and her fiancé, of course. Actually, Ryan beat them, and I cheered and played defense mostly.

When the storm had mostly passed, we went down to the park. A bunch of bands had cancelled, but we got to hear a little Ziggy Marley since he’d come on really late. Then we convinced Ryan to come to Saving Abel with us. We found an island of grass in the mud and sat on Anna’s poncho and just hung out. It was nice and relaxing, even though Ryan hated Saving Abel. Then I kidnapped him and made him go to Cee Lo Green with us.

Cee Lo was fun, but the sound on the stage was off so I couldn’t really hear the songs very well (sad face). We stayed at the same stage for Sublime, where again the sound was bad. Anna and Brad went to see a different show, and Ryan went in the crowd with his ex, so I hung out with his friend. I got my dance on even though the sound was still so bad I could hardly tell what song Sublime was playing. People got pretty mad that they played mostly new stuff. I didn’t care too much—the plastic mat in front of the stage was wet and all slippery, so dancing was super fun. Plus, everyone started leaving b/c the band wasn’t playing Sublime’s Greatest Hits, so I had a great view for once. I also met a girl who looked just like a tiny version of Zooey Deschanel. She was so cute I wanted to keep her forever. And they played “Badfish” so it was all worth it.

Afterwards, Ryan stayed with me while his friends went back to their car. We waited for Anna and Brad and then we all walked back to the car and left. I had an agonizingly slow drive back in the pouring rain and insane lightning, listened to The Shining, and got home at 6 am. Overall, a big fun mudfest trip. I can’t wait to do it again.