Thank you for posting this.

We all know in the grand scheme of things, this is not that big of a deal. But I said "this is going to be the greatest weekend of my life" many times, and I left Watkins broken hearted and defeated. So yea, it hurts.

And many of us couldn't make the best of it. I went solo. I was meeting different groups of people there. Some got in and camped while I was denied at the gate, some hadn't left yet, and some went hours in the opposite direction and I just didn't have more driving in me and couldn't fathom spending more money when no phish was happening. So my "making the best of it" was driving home sad, and staying a night in a hotel alone. For those like me, the last post about a huge group renting a house and having a blast really hurt. I sure would have had a great weekend if I had gone with a crew like that, but I went solo and left with nothing but sadness.

So I feel for you people who went solo to meet people and couldn't, or who just went solo and left solo. We didn't have the memory making that groups had, which makes it even harder. But we'll get through it, and I'm lucky to have the vacation and funds to be able to go to Dicks in 2 weeks and see many of the people I couldn't see this weekend.

I appreciate the comment about a life-long memory too. I now have a new record for most time spent driving in 24 hours, and the miserable chain of events of tons of small things going wrong after the announcement has made for a pretty funny story. I will always remember this weekend.
As you said though, let's hope this is just a huge hole in the road on my phish journey. And I will certainly appreciate every second of the next festival way more than I would have if this disaster hadn't happened. Cheers.