Boise Music Festival.

yep. We stood in the hot sun eating junk food, 1/2 mile from the main stage to hear Bret Micheals and the Backstreet Boys.   To hear them.  We saw nothing but good mullets, bad drunks, and perhaps a glimpse at Bret Micheal's cowboy hat.  (Thank you to People magazine, otherwise I wouldn't have known anything about him.  Izaak thought that he was a wrestler.) 

But really, you don't go to these things for the music...you go for the collective mood, the food, the atmosphere, the je n'sai quoi of excited masses of people. 

This festival was chaotic, with more anarchy than sterile organization.  The barricade meant to usher people through selective entrances were hurdled and otherwise ignored.  Elliot and I entered a spot where a vendor dismantled a section to get his wares through. 

Alcohol was only being sold to people with over 21 bracelets.  BUT nobody was checking bags or coolers.  There was a guy holding a paper sign at one entrance that said "do not bring alcohol past this point".  People just walked past him with cans of PBR.

We fed off the excitement in the air.  Elliot gorged on cotton candy, like a good little girl. 

We did feel like bad parents for the exposure to Backstreet Boys, and for getting home at 11pm, and for having to bath our daughter because she smelled like cigarette smoke. 

But.  Over breakfast this morning - we got to hear the all about it from her point of view.  And we knew it was worth it.  Even her watching a man get arrested policeman help a man get a bandaid on. 

Yep.  She saw that, too.