It’s September 3rd. Approximately 3:30 a.m. Standing over me, in a beautiful two bedroom apartment, lit with candles smelling of pumpkin, is my (even more beautiful) best friend, Carrie, who is poking my shoulder repeatedly. Barely awake and severely confused, I realized why she was poking me and I immediately got up. Hurriedly, I put on my traditional airport outfit: Leggings, a t-shirt, and a baggy flannel shirt adorned around my waist. As Carrie readied herself for our newest exploration across state lines, I waited in the family room to sort out my things. One backpack, some cash, “the Pharos fit”, my phone, and a phone charger. That’s all I needed. Carrie finished getting ready and off we went. We were off to catch a 6 a.m. flight from the Lovefield Airport in Dallas to Los Angeles, the highly known and talked about, LAX. (By the way, I highly recommend flying with Virgin America—purple lights, good vibes, as well as a super catchy and informative video as the flight takes off.)
Landing in LAX was surreal. I had never been on the west coast before. New territory had never felt so amazing. I was excited. I had so many expectations for what was in reality a terrible airport, though. Everyone talks about LAX and the people that frequent it. Even Miley Cyrus wrote a song mentioning herself hopping off of a plane at LAX with a dream and her cardigan. The terminal I came into was old and worn down of its youth. The floors and chairs were crowded with sleeping people, families, young travelers, and old folks; the walls and stores stocked full of pillows, snacks, blankets, and magazines. Upon walking outside, the terrible smell of smog flew up my nostrils. Los Angeles was not what I thought it was originally, but I don’t have time to contemplate broken expectations. Carrie and I needed to get to our next destination via Lyft.
Off we went, straight to our first stop of the day: Santa Monica Beach. After coffee and cookies, we rushed to our next destination: A train station (which we were almost late to) that left us at another station so we could ride a shuttle bus to the Palm Springs airport. After we arrived at Palm Springs, we had so much time to blow (four hours to be exact), so we went shopping at a nearby mall, where I changed into “my Pharos fit”—blue, boho pattered flare leggings, a black cami crop top, and my signature hairstyle: a bun. After shopping for a bit, off we left for the next place.
We waited for our shuttle car at the airport to the promise land. I was laying in the grass, contemplating the day. It was approximately 5pm as the wind blew over my body. As the grass I laid on tickled my arm, I thought of all the things I had experienced up until that point. The phone rings. It’s the shuttle car driver. He’s here to take us to our final stop of the night. We’re off to Joshua Tree. The ride there was surreal. The steep mountains of rocks and sand filled the landscape, nothing but winding roads told the way to the promise land. I dozed off a few times out of exhaustion; I’d been in LA since 8 am that morning full of nonstop movement and barely one full meal, but I kept on trucking.
I woke up 30 seconds short of a left turn into the Joshua Tree retreat grounds, with a large, white, spherical dome calling my name off in the distance.
My chacos filled with sand as I walked through its tiny brown grains. I weaved between small bushes and desert plants to get through security and check-in. Time to explore the camp grounds.
Everyone was dressed in wavelength color, which was assigned blue through the pharos.earth app. There were bright blue lights all around the camp grounds leading up to the dome and through the app, I navigated with Carrie to all the little spots and secret hideouts. We hung out around the outside theater where the first few episodes of Atlanta were going to premiere before and after the show. As the seconds flew by, we decided it was a good time to start standing in line to enter the dome -- it was getting pretty long after all.
While in line, staff started taking our phones and putting them in unopenable pouches. We were not allowed to take pictures or record video during the whole concert. I was amazed and happy. I go to so many concerts, varying in size from very small to very large and finally, an artist has implemented a no-phones-allowed show. I won’t have to stare at someone in front of me waving their phone in my face. Everyone can just simply vibe.
Carrie and I finally get to the front of the line. After a second security check, we’re off into a revolving door on the side of the dome. Inside, there are special effects lights showcasing realistic stars floating down the sides of the dome.
Not only was I amazed at the stars, but the size of the dome. Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino, is a multi-talented man -- artist, writer, comedian (I could go on for days if you let me) -- however, the inside of this dome was fairly small compared to what one would normally think for a widely-known artist’s show. I expected an over the top, very large standing space. What I got was an intimate, maybe 400 to 500 people in one very unique music venue and I couldn’t be more speechless when it finally hit me. This show was for the few who wanted to experience a spiritual place, a spiritual album -- full of jazz, reggae, and soul -- one completely different from anything ever made or played before. No one could do that on a large scale. This show was special. He wanted his fans to feel special with this intimate experience. This show was only meant for the eyes of the few and I was privileged enough to see it all live.
After a long hour of waiting, the nine ‘o clock show finally started. Let this moment go down in history. The man himself came out in all neon tribal body paint, a neon yellow tribal skirt, and beautifully flowing bright locks, floor length.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the music -- that’s what you’ll get to find out when the album finally drops, but the one about California is probably the grooviest thing my ears have ever had the pleasure of hearing.
After the show, our shuttle car dropped us off back at the Palm Springs airport. It’s about 11:45pm, maybe a little past midnight? The streets are dead and haunted with silence. Carrie and I are the only two gals for miles, just sitting on a bench outside of the airport.
We have no idea how we’re getting back to Los Angeles. Our flight from LAX back to Dallas boards at 10:40am and leaves by 11am and we’re two hours outside of LA, stranded in the deserts of Palm Springs. We had been functioning off of Lyft and shuttle busses or cars but hadn’t had any clue how we were going to find a bus, car, or train back to the destination where we needed to be at within the next 10 hours. Cancelling our flights was no option: 400 dollars for a last minute change to fly out of Palm Springs instead of LAX was so much money for this broke college student, so we called a Lyft out of hopelessness. The clock was ticking; it was almost 1am.
Our Lyft driver was a really nice lady. Carrie and I hopped in hoping for the best. We closed our doors and our Lyft driver’s car sat in the middle of the road for a minute while she asked us some questions. She was confused about why we set our location to go to the LAX airport. She explained to us that LAX was a very far distance for her to travel because she would not get home after dropping us off until 5 a.m. We explained that we had no other options since we did not have the money to switch our flights and the shuttle bus back to LA would not come in time for us to make our LAX flights.
We were going to be so screwed if she said no, but she said yes.
All three of us were talking in the car for about 40 minutes before I finally passed out. When I woke up, we were parked in front of our airport terminal. I couldn’t thank her enough. After 24 hours of craziness -- nothing but travel, good music, good vibes, and a minor anxiety attack thinking I was going to be stranded in California -- I wanted nothing more to just go home and relax.
It was probably around 2:45 or 3am when we entered those cold doors into the open space of the airport. LAX doesn’t officially open until around 4:30am unfortunately, so Carrie and I slept in the main concourse area chairs until we were allowed into the terminals upstairs. Collectively, between short car naps and just then, I had probably slept less than four hours and I swear they aim to freeze people to death at LAX. It was difficult to get to sleep. It was freezing in the main concourse and all I had was my flannel as my makeshift blanket. Even after we went through TSA security and hung out at our terminal, it was like Antarctica. Unfortunately, none of the stores were open at 5 a.m., so we couldn’t buy jackets or a blanket. We slept on and off on the floors and in the chairs of Terminal 3 of LAX near a phone charging station for maybe three hours before one store opened around 8 a.m. so we could buy (pretty expensive but totally worth it) blankets.
Out of nowhere, people started evacuating the airport. I was so fed up with movement, I didn't even want to follow everyone out. There was apparently a security breach through TSA. Someone told me that some guy had a gun in his carry on and when TSA found it, he ran through the rest of the security process into the airport and they didn’t find him for a little bit, so they were making everyone leave the terminals and reenter through security. Ridiculous, but I understand. Fortunately for Carrie and I, we were some of the first people to get out of the terminal, so we were the first to get back into the terminal after the TSA check.
We got on our flight and ended up leaving half of the people who were supposed to be on our flight as well back at the airport because they didn’t make it through the TSA check in a reasonable amount of time.
Finally, on our way home. It felt so great. I slept SO much. We landed and walked so fast to the car reminiscing about the past 24 hours of crazy nonsense and great vibes. We were so glad to be back in Dallas on our way to our comfortable beds, even though I missed those airport chairs just a bit.
