My Trip to Creation 2006

The excitement was rising! The event I had been waiting for all summer long was approaching nearer and nearer. That event was Creation Fest 2006. There, thousands upon thousands of people come from all over the country to watch Christian bands and speakers perform. Though the facilities were not exactly ideal (Sleeping in the middle of a farm, using portable bathrooms, and showering in small wooden stalls with a hose) it remained my favorite event of every summer since 2003.

It was Sunday morning and I was all packed and ready to leave for the festival. After loading up the car, my church group and I set off to Mount Union, PA for Creation Fest '06. But not five minutes after we left the parking lot it started to pour down rain. Not just a normal hard rain, but so hard you could barely see the lines in the street or even certain street signs. And whenever we reached State Line, we had to take a detour because some of the roads were already flooded!

Fortunately enough we made it up to the farm grounds in one piece, and the rain had even lessened to a light drizzle. Though the rain was still just hard enough to be miserable. We then unloaded the van and began to set up camp. We had two large canopies (Which were a story in themselves to set up without instructions), a few tents, and a half shelter type sleeping area for the guys that we called The Shantee. After setting everything up we went out for dinner at a pizza shop in town, and came back to spend our first night at the farm before the next days excitement.

Unfortunately, during the night it poured again. Around three that morning we awoke to a loud crash! One of the smaller tents, which held our food and kitchen equipment, had collapsed from the weight of the rain on the roof. So, to save our food for the rest of the week, we had to jump out of our beds and move everything. And our faulty workmanship on the Shantee did not help matters either. There were holes in the roof tarp, so water was dripping on us all night long, and it was raining so hard that the floor tarp was not doing much to keep the water rising from the ground out of our beds. It even got to the point where most of us chickened out and decided to sleep in an empty tent for the rest of the night. Eventually even the tent flooded. But in the morning our decision to move to the tent proved very smart. Those who remained in the Shantee woke up to find a newly formed lake flowing in between their beds. But we suffered through it because we knew we would be having so much fun at the festival.

When we woke up the next day we came to find that the whole farm was flooded with up to six inches of water in some places. Our trips to the bathroom had lessened since we had the choice of wet feet or holding it for a little while longer, and we were charged with the task of trying to fix our failed Shantee and broken tent. Eventually, we had everything fixed to where we hoped that it would hold out for the rest of week.

But not long after our group leader came walking down the path to our camp site. Everyone sit down. I have something I need to tell you, he said with great disappointment in his voice, I just found out they have decided to cancel the festival. Greatly saddened, we had to tear down our two canopies, tents, and our failed Shantee and head home hoping that next year we would be able to come back to, a hopefully dry, Creation Fest '07.