Tales From Burning Man pt. 1: Dust

One of the most exciting times I had after graduation was going to Burning Man with Sparkle.

Back in January, when I had just returned from Australia and I was just about to hit rock bottom with my depression, I was visiting Sparkle on the day Burning Man tickets went on sale. She came home from work that day and told me that she had bought 2 tickets to burning man, and one of them was for me, if I wanted to go. I had been wanting to go to the Burn for years, but have always found some excuse (usually school work or lack of money or both) to not be able to get a ticket and such. Having that ticket there for me made me get my priorities in order about going to the burn that year, no more excuses.

And, it was by far the best thing to do after finishing my Ph.D. I highly recommend it.

After Sparkle arrived in Vegas and we picked up our rental car (a Vibe, which made the rental car guy giggle and was also appropriate for burning man), and we started packing up our stuff to leave the next day. Before the night was over, though, we had to cut up some re-bar for our tent stakes. Hamsterdad had re-bar we could use, we just needed to cut it, and he seemed fairly confident that it was a relatively easy task. But, in fact, it was the opposite of an easy task. It all eventually got cut, but it was not fun.



We made the journey in about 11 and a half hours. When we reached the gates for Black Rock City, the greeters welcomed me at the gate with big hugs and then made me roll around in the playa dust since it would get all over by the end of the week (I had no idea how bad it would get). Then I rang the newcomer bell, it was such fun!

Everyone was saying "Welcome Home!" Since I was (and still am) essentially between homes at the moment, it was good to hear.

We arrived early to Burning Man, and got to see the city and all of the art rise up around us. It was quite a sight. Of course, the man was already up when we arrived.



We spent our first day on the playa setting up our tents and exploring the city. Then, on day 2, the wind arrived, and with it the dust. The morning was relatively calm, and we rode around the city on our bikes, taking a break at center camp. Here is center camp before the storm arrived:



And here it is during the first round of the storm, about 15 minutes later:



It settled slightly, and we were able to trek back to our camp from Center Camp, and spent the rest of the day waiting out the storm in style:



Eventually the sun went down and the wind calmed down, and when I went to my tent to get prepared for a night on the town, I discovered that I had accidentally left my tent door open slightly under the rainfly. So, everything was covered in dust:



We explored the city at night, seeing some awesome art cars, but did not get too adventuresome. Spending the day laying under shade structures in a dust storm is surprisingly exhausting.