So, I've been through the desert on a horse with no name...
I went to Burning Man last week in fulfillment of the dream of a lifetime. I've been wanting to go to this festival for 12 years now. It was also my first camping experience EVER. Wow, huh?
If you don't know about Burning Man, my explanation will not suffice. If you know about it and haven't yet been, my description will do you no good. Sorry.
Essentially, I lived in the Black Rock desert of Nevada for 7 days with 50,000 other wild artists/dreamers/mystics/djs/dancers/hoopers/poets/chefs/craftspeople/engineers. It was transformative. I have been transformed. I don't know yet what I am NOW, but I am not the same person I was before Burning Man.
We had a hell of a time getting OUT of the desert, and that is a story that bears repeating in this public space:
So, I went to Burning Man with a new friend I met in Vancouver at the IDEC- Stacey. Stacey and I drove her parents truck from Sacremento in a caravan that grew to be 4 cars long of friends and friends-of-friends and LOTS OF STUFF! We got out to the desert and her friends built this awesome dome for all of us to stay in (actually, only 4 slept in the dome, it could have housed more...many preferred an individual tent, and still others built different structures... ALL TOLD, Salmon Camp included nearly 25 people! Some of them I never even met!).
Saturday, the dome came down, and the dome-owners prepared to leave just after the man burned. I stayed in a friend's space, as did Stacey... the next day, we helped others breakdown their camps, and then decided it was time to go (roughly 7pm) so we hop in the truck, and try to head out. JUST GETTING IN to Burning Man took 2 hours sitting in a long line of cars, and we knew that the exodus would be at least as bad, but... we were really optomistic!
THEN- the truck sputtered and died and wouldn't restart.
Yeah.
THEN- a dust storm showed up.
Y-e-e-a-a-h.
And, of course, we got a LOT of advice as to what might be wrong, tried all kinds of things (from putting water in the battery to pounding lightly on the starter).
We had a BRC ranger give Stacey a lift back to Center Camp to try to contact a tow, or someone who could call a tow, and the advice she got was this: flag down a ride to Gerlach (closest thing resembling a town... about 5-10 miles away) and call there for a tow to pick us up, take us back to our car, and tow us out. I aggressively stalked RVs until one stopped and picked us up. THEN we got to sit in the camper (no heat) while the dust storm became a rainstorm outside, crawling mercilessly to the main road. We spent a cold, cramped night in the RV until morning in Gerlach.
Ate breakfast (revelation! toast is GOOOOD.) and called AAA, and then amused ourselves waving at cars and talking about life for 6 hours until the tow truck came.
Y-E-A-H! Back to the desert. Back to the exit line- at least this time it only took about an hour and a half instead of 3 like the night before... and then ALL THE WAY TO RENO... where I am now, writing this post.
Yeah.
Well, I survived! I'm flying to LA tomorrow... looking for something, maybe I'll find it.
Pictures WILL be up at some point, but I may not post for a week or so.
