Getting There

I finally got out of town the Saturday afternoon before the event started. Last year I was ready to go on the previous Wednesday morning. So this was a bit late, and I was driving alone. But I felt good.

It was a beautiful day. I was all by myself. And I was going to Burning Man.

A refrain often repeated amongst certain campmates, when overworked and stressed and drawn down by every detail: We'd suddenly look at each other and grin and say, "Hey! We're going to Burning Man!"

No A/C, no radio, mushy brakes, and an overloaded trailer with tiny wheels

It just doesn't get much better than that

I left about quarter after five and by seven was tooling through Emigrant Gap, where I-80 starts to get scenic, though you can't really tell through a pocket camera hunched over a steering wheel.

Fuzzy bike handlebars like trophy antlers

The lanes split, too, as they are rebuilding the roadbed. This gave me driving lanes with little margin and soft shoulders, which was entertaining on the downhill portions.

High speed plus no trailer brakes equals Yee hah!

On the uphill parts I had to shift down a few gears and decided to drive as close to the tractor trailer behind me as I could.

Hot breath on back of neck

Seven thirty I passed through Truckee, crossed the state line twenty minutes later, ate after dark at a super-air-conditioned Booger King in Sparks, and by eleven was stopped in traffic on the playa along with a few hundred other vehicles with various forms of early arrival pass.

This was taken at midnight

Only I didn't have my early arrival pass. Someone had it -- they just had to get it to me. We sent cryptic messages across an intermittent text-over-voice connection and eventually my barcode was walked to me where I idled, a sheet of paper gifted by a friendly bureaucrat who objected to the other bureaucrats taking away our early arrival passes. I was now officially an employee of Emergency Services, at least so far as the Gate people knew, and was waved through sometime after two, though not before they made sure my truck wasn't hiding stowaways.

I found camp, hugged everyone, had a beer, crashed in a semi-restored forty year old camping trailer, and got a good three or four hours of sleep. Welcome to BRzzzz....