Getting to Coachella Part 2

So Lester and me arrive into LA around 4:30pm. We pickup our rental car, head down to Snata Monica for a little breather, then pickup Joe. After having some dinner, and waiting out the rush hour traffic we make our way to a grocery store to stock up on camp food, then head out of town. As we are heading out we inadvertantly miss our exit, which turned out to be a good thing. As we were driving I ask Joe, “Hey, where in LA is that ice cream sandwich place you took us to last time we were here?”

Well it just so happened we were right in the neighborhood. So another short detour, and we were all munching on some fresh Diddy Riese ice cream sandwiches. We finally got going out of town, much later than expected, but alas we had nothing but time, and lots of road to drive.
We arrived at Coachella around 2am thinking we would have to be tip toeing into camp to setup our tent. To our surprise however there was a solid stream of cars going into the campground. It was shocking actually, my first glance at what would become my home for the next 3 days. A giant open field with thousands of tents already setup, and hundreds of people in line, or in the process of setting up their tents.

We ourselves got in line and in no time at all we were given out a plot of land to setup our tent. The first thing that struck me about the setup was how organized things were. The field was completely segregated into small organized plots, in which you were given to setup your tent. Depending on how big your party was, determined the size of plot you were given. The plots were organized in lines, with pathways in between them.

By the time we got our tent up their was already a new line of plots being filled up, and after our walk around the campsite (where we watched the drum circle get busted by cops) there was another row being setup. We finally headed to bed sometime between 3 and 4am as the campers continued to pour in.

The next mourning was like waking up after a first snowfall, where you look around in disbelief at how different your surroundings have become. instead of snow however, we were looking around and seeing tents, loads of tents, tents where 4 hours ago their had been no tents, and of course that constant stream of new campers flowing into the camp grounds.

I took a second walk around the campgrounds now in the light to discover that things were even more organized that I had gathered the night before. Their were rows of porta-potties around the outside of the campgrounds, a bunch of portable showers, a food court area, an internet cafe and phone charge station, and a general store. Got to love roughing it.

Around noon we met up with a friend of Joe’s named Sandeep and his friend Nick (or Nico) who would be camping with us. We had requested a larger plot so they could setup beside us, so that all worked out well. Sandeep and Nico where both really cool guys, and was glad to have them camping with us. They got their tent setup in no time, and afterwards we were ready to hit the first show of the weekend.