Left Annawan in the rain :( - Rained for the first few hours until just about when we hit the WI border. "Welcome home!" it seemed to say. :)
Dropped stuff at the hotel and then headed for the museum. Going south into town the traffic started backing up... there were TONS of bikes. Bikes in all 3, 4, 5 lanes of the highway. Bikes pulled over on the shoulders - and as we passed Miller Park, bikes in all the parking lots; bikes backed up - 4 abreast for what looked like a good 1/2 mile or more. TONS of bikes. All said and done - I'd estimate 100K bikes in the area.
Anyway - got through that and down to the museum. Checked it out. Pretty cool. Terry and I didn't have tickets, but Ted and Christi did and Ted (Mr Extravert) was able to score some tickets from one of the staff people. We made it in.
After we went to Miller Park. Found the bleachers were the main bands were going to play and camped out. It was ridiculous! Early in the day we wanted in line for 45 minutes for a bottle of water! Later in the day folks were waiting 2 hours to get a sub sandwhich. The vendor ran out twice (going to get some more from the store - will be 45 minutes... "OK, we'll wait!") Crazy. Terry waited for water. Ted waited for sandwiches.
We all saw "The Billy Bob Thorton Band" - Think Slingblade meets blues / southern rock. Yeah... well it was something to see. Then Sugarload. Country... hey, turns out I do like *some* country music. She had a cute way with the crowd. It was good. Then Kid Rock... think emnimn meets southern rock. Yeah - not a fan. Stayed for 2 songs then cut out before the rest of the crowd.
I overheard "They build the area to hold 30K people, but I heard there were 60K to 70K here." Given the place was packed and 1/2 the people were waiting in line for beer/water/food - I'd agree. Given it was right next to the interstate - there were quite a few bikes that just parked on the highway and the people were sitting on the concrete dividers just watching... till the cops showed up and chased them off. But plenty of people stayed on the grass embankment.
Got home around 10ish... spent some time on the computer and then crashed. Up the next morning at 6:30!
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