Adventurous Leila

January 10, 2025 through January 14, 2025

Hello everyone! Welcome back. After a long drive, we made it to Palooza! The event doesn’t really have activities planned out like most events do. However, everyone just hosts their own things. Palooza also doesn’t have amenities like other events, but it’s still just as great!

The first day there, it was really late, so we ended up parking in a random spot with our friends and planned to look for a new one when we had daylight. In the morning, we went for a walk with some friends to find a new spot. We were probably out for at least an hour before we found a good spot that everyone could fit in. When we moved and got all set up, I knocked out some chores before hanging out with friends. We spent the day exploring the property and what stands/things people were doing or offering. We ended up coming across an activity board that everyone made, which was cool.

The following morning, I made coffee, did some school and dishes before going out to hang. My two friends and I started to set up a little business we were talking about doing. Our business was called Solar Juice. It was originally my friend’s dad’s side hustle when he was in college, so he had a really nice juicer that he was letting us use to keep the business going. Reed’s dad named the business Solar Juice because he ran his business using solar panels, which was actually perfect since we had panels on the bus—so it made sense! We spent most of the day preparing for Solar Juice. We even made flyers to hand out and put up on the activity board. After getting Solar Juice all setup, we spent the night playing card games and listening to music.

The next day, my friends and I walked around and handed out flyers. We came across a bracelet making stand, so we all made bracelets for each other. There were tons of cool stands, like clothing stands, crystal stands, food stands, knife stands, and tons more. I think my favorite stand was the ice cream and pizza stand. It was super cheap and so good! After spending a few hours handing out flyers, Amaia and I took the little kids around so they could sell their snacks (they were trying to make some money, lol). Later that evening, my friends and I met some other teens and did some karaoke with them before heading to bed.

The next morning, I got up early and helped make juice and pancakes for Solar Juice. We had a little over 15 customers come by and get stuff on the first day—Isn’t that exciting?! We spent a good 3 to 4 hours doing Solar Juice before we decided to clean up and call it a day. When we were all finished cleaning, we went for a long walk in the valley, which was so gorgeous. Later that evening, a group of buses across from us hosted a karaoke night next to the fire. I would have joined, but I was slacking on my school and needed to get caught up. It looked really fun though and my friends told me all about it.

The next couple of days, I got caught up on school, did chores, hung out with friends, did Solar Juice, went for walks, checked out stands, played card games, did karaoke, got ice cream, and tons more. One of the days, someone hosted a kids’ rave that was super fun. All the little kids, teens, and some adults came. The girl that hosted it had a DJ, bubble machines, and tons of different LED whips. She even did the limbo with everybody! My friends and I stayed there and danced for an hour or so before heading back and playing Uno.

We had a great time at Palooza, and I hope you guys enjoyed this blog. But now it’s time for us to make our way to Florida. See ya in my next blog!