After a year break, I packed up and returned to Cornerstone Festival. I’ve been to five previous festivals, so this feels like a return to something familiar for me. This year, I’m riding with my friend David, an admin for a Christian dance forum and Jerry who was declared “god of the Internet” by Dakoda Motor Company’s Peter King years ago. That’s pretty heady company. Me, I’m just a guy with a blog.

Speaking of blogging, I got the opportunity to blog live at the official Cornerstone site this year. On that site I entered posts about twice a day and I tried to keep it pretty vanilla there. Here, however, I’m going to be ruthless, because I’m such a mean, bitter critic. Laugh here.

The trip is off to an auspicious start. Right as I’m leaving I find out some knucklehead has used my credit card in south Florida. What is it with me and that place? So, I get the card cancelled and I’ll deal with doing a fraud report when I get home. Adriene will be getting home in a couple days and she will watch the mail for the form to make the report. She’s gone because she’s visiting our other Internet friends.

There’s something to be said about the drive from Georgia to Illinois, especially on the 4th of July week when I’m all patriotic and thinking about the country. The trip starts in the foothills of Georgia, skirts around Lookout Mountain, and then goes around and finally over Monteagle. We then go across the Cumberland Plateau to Nashville (and the neccessary lunch stop at the mall food court.) From there, the trip winds around the hills and lakes of western Kentucky, over the Ohio River, and into the hills of southern Illinois. Then, all of the sudden the hills and trees give way to cornfields. Rows and rows of endless corn.

We break for dinner at the garden where I guess they grow the olives and then travel through the cornfields surround by fireflies blinking on each side. We arrive at the Western Illinois University dorms around 11 PM and drop our stuff off in our rooms. Now if we just figure out which bathroom is the men’s room and which is the women’s room.