I had been waiting for this weekend for years, September 18 to the 21of 2008, the annual Terrapin Hill Harvest Festival.  Terrapin Hill is like a little Woodstock right in my home town, and right down the road from my own house no less.  Every year of high school I didn’t get to go to Terrapin because I was in the marching band and we had a competition that weekend every year.  I remember coming back from the competition after the long bus ride back home and I could hear the bands at Terrapin Hill playing in the distance.  Every year I wished that I could be there and experience something completely different from the norm in the small farmer town I lived in.                     

            Finally, after six years from sixth grade to my senior year of high school, I was finally free from living at home and had the money for a ticket to Terrapin Hill.  I and two other friends, Ozzy and Hannah, planned to go and meet up with our friends that had already graduated.  It was better than what I could possibly have imagined.  It was a three day long party with no parental supervision.  It was just me, my friends, and a huge congregation of hippies and dead heads from way back in the day.  Compared to the small town just seven miles down the road this place was like a whole other planet. 

            The people at Terrapin were all peace loving, dreadlocked, hippies.  I met this one old guy that was a dead head from way back in the day.  He was wearing a vest and pants that seemed to be made entirely out of patches from festivals and bands, and he had a story for almost every one of them.  I saw entire families of hippies there.  There were Tie-dye toddlers dancing under the stage lights with their parents.  Every night there was a fire dancer show with a drum circle to keep the rhythm before the last band went on stage. There were drum circles jamming at every hour of the day.  I joined in every chance I had.  Everybody was dancing, singing, hula hooping, drumming, and just having fun without a care in the world.  This festival is a place where I and other people like me can go without stares and avoidance from mainstream society because at Terrapin we are the mainstream.  I finally felt like I fit in. 

            The little shops around the campsite were pretty freaking cool.  One shop had guys making glass jewelry, pipes, and ornaments.  You could even ask them to make a completely customized pipe right there.  There were all kinds of organic foods.  I had an organic soda that was just plain awesome.  Terrapin Hill itself is an organic farm. 

            It was a great weekend.  No parents, no jobs, no worries.  There was great music everywhere around the campsite along with the incredible live performances.  I can’t wait for next year’s Terrapin Hill festival.  Hopefully I’ll be on stage next time. 

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