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I arrove approx. 3 PM on the 22nd. This was early enough that I encountered no cops or drunks on the way in, and was able to secure a place on Lysergic Ave. in Bus Village, only about 100 feet from the trailhead.

This was a gathering where I didn't take up any crosses, like the Banking Council trip last year. I did some small tasks around the kitchen, but I decided to be basically a bliss bunny this time and mostly make music and run around nekkid. It was also very mellow for me. I didn't run across one Shanti Sena movie the whole gathering (other than a few possible ones I made myself in Bus Village when I was in a world class cranky mood.), quite unlike Vermont and Oregon, where I was getting into them daily.

The site was along a creek valley, with steep sides going up to tabletop mountains beyond. All routes out included a strenuous climb of a few hundred feet up grades of 45 degrees in spots, and in the latter days covered with slick mud. It was NOT handicapped friendly, and many people regretted having come in with heavy loads on two wheeled carts. The walk from Bus Village was a mile and a half to the first signs of people, and another to Main Circle. It was tiring enough to be just a once in and out a day trip. I only trucked in about half of my musical instruments.

(However, one evening a relay of people brought in a spinet acoustic piano, about four feet high and heavy enough for at least ten to be carrying it, and set it up by Sun Dog. It was a high festive occasion coming down, all kinds of laughing people ready to take turns helping carry it. As they came thru Rainbow Crystal they set it down for a rest, and I was one of the people who played it. But I am interested to have a confirmation of whether it ever got OUT. I'm sure there weren't as many eager people standing by on the return trip, if it occurred. Did it get chopped up and put in the fire, as Gary Stubbs predicted?)

It was an athletic occasion doing that trail, but still I commuted to Bus Village every evening so I could have some guaranteed food, a dry bed, and the best shitter I have ever crapped into at any gathering. It was a long white box with a real toilet seat on a movable screwed down panel.

The land was almost entirely under deciduous tree cover, with ferns covering the forest floor. There were few meadows anywhere of tipi circle size or more, and the only large one down in the valley was swamp at one end and barely dry at the other. Most of it had blue and red tapes blocking them off with "riparian area" signs. Main Circle was placed at the drier end, and was off to the side from the most populous parts of the gathering, Many objected to having many people in the wetland, and Lovin' Oven refused to serve Main Circle, instead distributing their products on the trails. The Silent Meditation was held in a larger and higher meadow at the southern fringes of the gathering, and it was a waffle iron of grass mounds surrounded by little canyons, with few good places to sit.

On my first walk in, the first kitchen I encountered was Rainbow Crystal, and I was very pleased to find Gary Stubbs back on Main Trail being his usual sociable self. He had set up his place at Back Gate last year, around all the usual gate movies, in regular contacts with the cops, and if you know Gary you know to keep him the hell away from policemen as he has troubles keeping his civility around them. But that was last year.

Now I'll tell you what I like about Gary's kitchen: He always puts it right on Main Trail in one of the most heavily traveled parts of it. He sits in a chair and booms out in his bass voice "GOOD afternoon" to everyone who comes by "where are you from?" "is that right, I've been there, lovely place" "that's an interesting tattoo you've got there, it that of a..." "is that a guitar there? will you play us a tune" etc., etc". You can sit by him and watch the whole gathering come to you if you want. There is no bliss rail, anyone can come thru or sit down in it. I can go in and get a cup of water without having to put on clothes. He's got one product, his soup, that gets made eight or ten times a day, served boiling hot, and so he never asks you to wash your hands unless you're slicing and dicing. When people ask where the hand washing station is, he says, "Wash your dish at the dishwashing station. As your hands pass thru the water, they will become clean." Absolutely none of the uptightness, chickenshit, exclusivity, and sometime outright misanthropy that I encounter in some other kitchens. I set up my tent for stashing musical instruments et al. by there.

Most of the days the weather was humid and hot enough for nudity from about three hours after sunrise until sunset, and a few nights until just a few hours before next sunrise. A lot of other people were going nude too, I observed more of it than any other recent gathering. There was a creek running thru the middle of the site with many places conducive to basking and bathing (but the water was very cold!). I brought a lot more clothes than I wore, there was need for long skirt and sweater only one night. It was dry the first week, but early the next there was a strong thunderstorm accompanying a cold front that turned all the trails into quagmire in an hour. Then it started to rain late in the afternoon of July 2 and continued all night until sunrise. One rumor was that it was three inches. Then it was like the battlefield at Passchendaele everywhere, travel on the trails turned into a saga in every step, and it took four times as long to get anywhere. A dam of rocks that had been built across the creek was under thigh-high water for a day.

These muddy conditions prevailed until the end of my stay, the trails were under trees most of the day and the sun could do little to dry things. After several days of people walking thru, many in bare feet, the trails took on a general odor of dirty socks. The trails were lined with wet knee-high ferns and bushes, very treacherous for anything worn below knee level. I wore only minidresses when I was wearing anything at all. This was over high-topped work boots with a tread, often heavy and uncomfortable. I didn't travel around as much as I usually do, I hung around Rainbow Crystal (which became the geographical center of the gathering), and played my big drum either there or at Granola Funk, which was nearby. GrFk was the scene of a week of frequently intense and moving music that was often enough to occupy me without having to look further.

These conditions seemed to affect the flow of supplies coming in. Food was scarcer than usual in my neighborhood during the height of the gathering. I could eat up to two bowls of Gary's soup a day before my stomach would say, "Give me a break." All of the high volume high efficiency kitchens like Kiddy Village or Sun Dog were made remote by the mud, and most of the other kitchens nearby were new starters that had food only by chance encounter. I would be going to six or seven kitchens sometimes before giving up. Also the hamburgers and Dr. Peppers that come thru the old friends I have blat with didn't appear like they usually do (cuz I wasn't getting around as much). There were some culinary moments - like July 3 evening when the New Vrindaban devotees had a four course meal and a fast moving efficiently served line that took less than five minutes and that they let me go thru three times - but I would have starved if I hadn't had my propane stove and private stash. On the day before I left the gathering, I gave the money I had intended for the Magic Hat to Gary.

I left at sunrise on the 7th, earlier than I usually do. Late on the 4th, a combination of too much exertion, not enough food and water, and too much weed left me with the mother of colds, and I spent most of the fifth in my truck sleeping it off. Two Bears (claw) told me he was leaving on the 5th because he felt that all the magic he could do was done at the end of the fourth, and I started to agree with him for myself. Two weeks of athletic walking while semi-fasting had left me with a cumulative tiredness, and I needed to get back to the land of steak and eggs. I damn near didn't make it out thru the mud, and the last thing I said on the site was hollering "ASSHOLES" in the stillness as I was regarding two vans parked such that I had to rock front and back in the mud between them to turn onto the road.

Ain't no such thing as a bad gathering, and this one too was full of moments that I will be turning over in my head all year, but this was more tiring than most.

- Butterfly Bill