David Liberty and I finally arrived Wednesday afternoon. We had missed our rendezvous with Kimberly and the kids at the campground the night before. We tried to locate them at the only other campground in the area the next morning. If we had gone another mile farther we would had found them, But then again we were several hours ahead by now...
Kyia was keeping an eye out for us and flagged us down when we showed up in the neighborhood. Alpo and Kyia had been there since Monday, Wow a whole week at Burning Man, pretty hard core!
Last
year was my first Burning Man. Bob tried to get me to come the year
before but I couldn't get away. I think there were about 4000 that year,
10,000 last year and about 17,000 this year (estimates vary). Bob had asked
me to design a shelter for our camp because they had suffered a little
the year before in the hot sun. So I thought about it and came up with
a simple Quonset hut like thing made out of PVC pipe a plastic tarp and
lots of rope. The cost of one of these sections is about $100. I
take two of these together to make one structure about 40 feet long and
20 feet wide. It's very strong and can withstand gusty winds. Out in the
Black Rock desert short wind storms of 50 mph blow through every now and
then. This is a picture from last year.
So they introduced us to our neighbors and we talked about land
use guidelines and tried to pick a good spot and orientation for the hut
which is what Bob's family likes to call our shelter. After all that we
picked the same basic layout as last year. I keep telling myself that I'm
going to streamline the setup process but by the time I start packing for
BM I've run out of time, funny how that works. After the tedious process
of laying out the stakes and the PVC pipe we were ready for the tarp. The
wind tends to get gusty in the afternoon, we did our best to wait for a
calm spell but when we pulled the tarp over the PVC ribs we were nearly
lifted off the ground by the next gust! I was afraid that the plastic would
get sliced by a re-bar stake or more grommets would be ripped out. So even
though David and Alpo wanted to give it another try, I said we should wait
for sundown and hope for better conditions.
 |
 |
|
| View from the Playa. | Relaxing in the shade. |
Since we didn't have anything better to do David and I went off to look for volunteer opportunities. We're just Deadicated volunteers at heart I guess. The volunteer coordinator remembered me and my structure from last year, he thanked me again for the Christmas tree lights that helped him find his way home each night. This year Christmas tree lights were the in thing.
So
he pointed us in the direction of an art project and we went trundling
off across the Playa. About a half mile later we walked up to the guy in
charge, he greeted us with a big smile and a wave. Hendrik was his name,
All the way from Germany to set up his art project at Burning Man. There
was a giant crate there about 20 feet long and 10 feet wide and helpers
were busy emptying it and sorting all the ribs, bases, and stakes. Hendrik
explained that Ammonites were his thing as an artist, and they had given
him so much inspiration that he wanted to give something back to them.
So he made this giant tent shaped like an Ammonite half buried in the sand.
Then he flew it to the Sahara desert and set it up for all of nature (and
some photographers) to see. It actually withstood 100 mile an hour winds!
The price tag was a little higher than my tent only $40,000. It
all sounded pretty cool so we got busy setting it up... I have to admit
this part isn't very exciting to
describe.
:-) So we picked a good place and started with the big outside end and
set up the ribs one at a time measuring and staking them in as we went.
It was hot it was bright, we squinted and drank lots of water, but it was
fun to watch the 80 foot Ammonite take shape. We got the frame up by sundown
and then it was time to call it a day. I still had our shelter to do. So
David and I said good by and walked the mile back across the mostly empty
desert back to camp. By the way Hendrik's web page is at: http://www.apropo.de/rn/ammonite/main.htm
Ahhh, nice calm air. I got the first half of the shelter set up pretty fast with some help from the Kids, they were great. But it was too dark to do the second half so I decided to wait till morning. The next day I got up at like 5:30 or 6:00 probably to the chagrin of my campmates because I immediately finished pounding in the re-bar stakes for the second half. Funny no one got up to help me... I had to do it all by myself. :-( So it was a race against time I had to get the tarp all tied down before the Sun got too far up there and the wind started blowing. But I made it and around 8:00 or so some of my promised help got up and we finished it. So now we had a good shelter that the Kitchen could go in and it would protect us from the midday Sun.
Kyia
and Kimberly were doing a japanese teahouse this year and they had lots
of fun making and serving all kinds of tea. Their daughters helped too.
Here they are modeling for us.
By Friday we were pretty grungy, it was a little more then even I was comfortable with! :-} So we could hardly wait till it was time to go to the hot springs that afternoon. After a couple of tries at locating the Playa exit [N40 45.6600 W119 09.4726] on the other side (in our rush to leave I had missed some of last years waypoints when I was uploading them back into my GPS). We arrived at Bordello hot springs [N40 44.7626 W119 10.2663], so we all took off our clothes and jumped in... It was Great! Ahhhh.... :-)
We had lots of fun, Armrita, Bob's daughter was flinging mud at me and pulling my hair (she can be a pest!) Naiya did some cool flips into the water and her black straight hair made her look a little like Zina the warrior princess. So we called her Naiya warrior princess.
So we met some folks at the hot springs whose car was stuck and Naiya and I decided to go help them. So I gave Bob some waypoints he needed to get back home, (He has a GPS too :-) and he and everyone else took off for camp. We met a ranger on our way from the springs and when he heard the guys story, he said "Nice go-en." but said he would come by to see if he could help.
When we got to this couples stuck truck, we first found another car full of girls (well, three anyway) that was stuck nearby. So we worked on their car first because it was a little Geo Metro. We dug and pushed and dug and spun the wheels and finally we got it out. As we did this we had fun teasing Naiya being the warrior princes because of her take charge kind of attitude. :-)
So then we all went on to rescue the truck, the girls wanted to help too. The ranger showed up and we all worked for an hour or more and then the truck was close enough to the ranger's truck (do you think he was going to drive out on that gooey stuff? No way!) so he could pull it with his winch. Then at last the truck was free BUT the ranger's truck was stuck! *Groan* so we used his winch again between the two trucks to pull the ranger's truck out and finally everyone was free! I think Naiya and I spent about six hours out there helping people.
So on our way back she said, "Hmmm being a ranger out here might be
fun..." I said, "That sounds like a TV show, something like Doctari. (a
veterinarian in the African bush) I know! you could call it Naiya of the
Playa!" She liked that a lot, and that's what we call her today. ;-)
 |
 |
|
| Strange things happen to vehicles out here. | Future Primitive |
Sunday night is the climax when they burn the man. Thousands and thousands of people are there in a giant circle waiting for them to light him off. Naiya and I were off across the Playa. By this time there was quite a crowd surrounding the man at a safe distance of about 100 feet. Close by was the Gyrotron, a kinda harness on Gimbal mounts so that one can be strapped in and spun in all directions at once. The operator was giving a fella the works, I said "Look out he's gona blow!" I think a couple of folks stepped back. We saw Bob and the kids there.
We made our way around the perimeter until we were facing the Man. We found some nice folks near the front that let Naiya see, I stood a couple of people behind her and took pictures. I got one of him all lit up before the burn, arms stretched up toward the sky. As we waited people chanted "Burn, Burn, Burn." or something like that. Then, there was a flash and a fireball appeared in front of the platform. I could make out arms and legs within the raging flames as the fire ball bounded up to the top of the platform, and began to thrash around! Then it paused, faced the crowd, feet apart, arms up, like a smaller Burning Man except it was a man and he really was burning. The crowd cheered! it was an amazing moment! I hope my pictures turn out! Then he touched the mans feet and lit him off.
We were walking by the bonfire that was all that was left of the man on our way to or from a drum circle. There were people dancing around it the fire was still very big, about 10 foot flames, the pile was about 20 feet in diameter. Naiya and I were walking arms around our waists When... there was this Incredible Eruption, KAAAA----PHOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!! the Gground Shhooke our Rib Cages Rattled, the compression wave Blew our hair Back, Sparks Spewed 60 feet into the starry sky and a Monumental Fire Ball 40 feet in diameter lit up the Playa! A wave moved through the bonfire lifting the debris in slow motion pushing it outward like driftwood caught in an ectoplastic flow.
What an adrenaline rush! That was one of the loudest sounds I ever heard. People were whooping and yelling, but no one got hurt. the bonfire only moved outwards about 3 or 4 feet in radius! The sparks were still coming down but that was fine. Naiya and I thought boy those guys are pretty hot if they can engineer a time delayed explosion without anyone getting hurt! How did they do that?
Well any that's most of my summer story ;-) Sorry I don't have more of my film developed but check into my web page in a month or so and I have more pictures scanned in. Let me know how your all doen!