As I arrived at the Cornerstone site, I was glad to be back on the farm again. It was nice to see some familiar faces from the past years. I rushed over to the remote camping area to claim the camp-site we had last year, drop the tent, and a few other things, to hold onto our little patch of property, and headed back to the main gate to wait for Rick and the Brothers Odell. Randy, the final member of the Solid Rock crew, had chosen to stay behind and fill in at the radio station in Kalamazoo, so we would be without him this year.

I had briefly met Tad Odell last year, but had not met his brother Kip. How would this "week" go, I wondered. Would I come to like the Brothers Odell (as I have taken to calling them, at least to myself) or would it just be awkward, making for a very long six days? Only time would tell for sure, of course.

I waited a little over an hour for Rick's van to pull through. I piled into the van, and we drove over to the Press tent to register the four of us for the festival. As we were about to go into the tent, I realized that I left my wallet (and all my money for the week) in my car by the front gate. And worse, I had left the windows rolled down, and the wallet in plain site. Ugh! I explained to the other three that here at C-Stone, you can generally leave things laying around, and not have to worry about anyone taking them, but I wouldn't count on that, especially in regards to money. Trying not to panic, I calmly asked that we drive back to the main gate to get it. We arrived and amazingly the wallet is still there. My faith in Cornerstone is renewed.

After we registered, and got the camp site all set-up, we headed into the big city of Macomb, IL. This is a yearly ritual for the Solid Rock / Club Exit crew. First we head to Wal-Mart to pick up water, and various items which we had forgotten to pack (conditioner, soap, etc. -- just the essentials.) Then we head to Eagles Market to stock up on food-stuffs for the week.

On the way to Macomb, as we were riding, a bug flew through the open window and into Rick's shirt. This little episode led to what would become a "catch phrase" of the festival: "Intimate Entomology with Rick Fontaine."

Finally, after hitting Wal-Mart and Eagles, we decided to go to the IGA in Bushnell, both to get ice and to see if Molly, a cashier we met last year, was still working there.

We found out that Molly did indeed still work there, and we made plans to try to get her to "guest" on a segment for the show. Rick also told us that Randy wanted us to ask Molly to marry him.

On the way back to the farm, we stopped at a roadside stand selling "out of print" music. We browsed for a while, but didn't buy. Rick wanted to get the Chagall Guevara CD, but didn't like the idea of having to shell out $75 for it. My only thought was, I can't believe I have a CD worth that much in my collection!

Back at camp, everyone was tired from the trip, and we had forgotten to get a flash light or anything, so we all decided to get to bed early. In my sleeping bag, I realized that the air mattress that I had spent over an hour blowing up was not so slowly losing it's air. Hmm, was this perhaps an omen for how the trip would turn out? Well, I've slept on the ground before, I thought, I can manage a few days more.