Euphoria 2011
Jun. 20th, 2011 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparrI made it home from Euphoria in one piece and want to put everything I can remember down in writing before I forget too much. Sadly I've already lost track of a lot of personal interactions that happened, and failed to swap contact information with a few new folks that I met. Hopefully I'll see them online via other friends' journals and posts and such.
I procrastinated prep and packing so much that when K arrived on Thursday evening I still hadn't even started building the frame for the hot air balloon entrance. She followed me to Freeside and we worked on that for a couple of hours. Then we spent the night packing and organizing all of the camping gear and other miscellaneous items for the trip. Sarena came by to crash for the evening as well.
Friday morning we loaded up the truck with all the heavy gear (balloon, balloon frame, trampoline) then packed all the personal stuff around those items. Alex arrived on time, and Joe was a bit late due to a ticket printing mistake. We finally got out of C7 around 11:30AM. A quick last minute essentials stop at Walmart as well as fueling up put us on the road for the bulk of the trip at 12:15. The truck was behaving poorly as we left Atlanta, and a passing driver told us we had a flat tire, so we ended up stopping near Kennesaw at a tire shop. Adding air to the nearly flat tire revealed that it had a huge leak from a bad patch. I bought a new tire and they had it balanced and mounted in about 20 minutes. Alex and Sarena spent the time showing some poi and hoop tricks to the gaggle of kids hanging out around the shop. The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful, despite the truck continuing to misbehave with steering/weaving problems.
We finally arrived on site around 3:30PM. Checking in and being greeted was quick and fun, leading to swag and some body art for each of us. We drove a big circle around the site to see where friends were camping and scout out camp sites for ourselves as well. In the end we decided to camp in the middle of the Hollow, being the best combination of central location, shade, visibility, and space to spread out. We unloaded most of the truck and deployed the trampoline and Joe's tent, along with a huge pile of all of our other gear.
I left everyone to continue sorting and building our small camp while I drove up to Effigy Hill to deploy the hot air balloon. I picked up Alchemy's Ridiculously Large Tent Stakes from Tunna along the way, then started assembling the various parts of the balloon structure on top of the hill. I did about half of the frame assembly alone, then a few folks wandered by to help. The rest of my campmates also showed up after finishing unpacking our camp. We finished the frame while some more friendly neighbors tried to assemble my PVC sphere idea. Sadly the PVC sphere failed for a few reasons (not rigid enough, too large, not held together well enough), but they were able to get it into a mostly working configuration with the addition of a lot of screws and string. A few folks took turns pounding in the stakes while the rest of us connected the balloon to the frame and moved the sphere inside. All told it took an average of 5 people about 2 hours to set the whole thing up. Before Alchemy I plan to have a stronger and easier to assemble frame built (steel arches).
After the balloon was up and being thoroughly enjoyed by visitors I returned to our camp. The tents were set up and the rest of the gear had formed a large pile. I took our largest tarp and the trampoline spare parts (read: safety net equipment) and built a shade structure over our camp that worked pretty well throughout the weekend for both sun and rain. We rearranged our gear a bit to get things into better organized piles and retrieve some of the more important things like food and water.
Friday evening I spent some time with K, some time with Sarena after she got sick, some time with various friends in nearby camps, and some time walking around exploring by myself. K and I turned in relatively early and I realized I had almost completely neglected to plan for any sleeping equipment on the trip. I brought enough bedding for one person (two pillows, one sleeping bag), not for the three I was mostly responsible for. Sarena, being sick, got the sleeping bag, and K and I made do with a large towel and my tent's rain fly (previously unused thanks to the tarp over the camp).
Saturday morning the sun woke us up bright and early. The weather was nice again and we spent the morning exploring together and apart, as well as hanging out with new and old friends. Some food was had, including ravioli and spaghetti from Joe's stash as well as some of our endless supply of pecan spins. A crowd of helpful hippies carried the trampoline away from our camp toward some morning shade, where it got much more use than out in the bright sunlight. Toward noon the shade finally hit my chosen tree and I could start doing rope suspensions. I spent about two hours tying up old friends, acquaintances, and newcomers. Another friend who had loaned me some of her equipment showed up after a couple of hours and we began taking turns with the suspension point. Sadly she got started just as we were warned of an impending rain storm.
The crowd dispersed as we began untying people and packing up our rope. The storm arrived quickly and we ended up carting all of the gear back under our tarp in a rush, leaving with some other folks' equipment and clothes. The worst of the storm lasted about 15 minutes and we had to do some small repairs to the poles holding up our tarp. The heavy rain lasted another 20 minutes or so, and then there was light rain for about an hour. All that time gave us a chance to clean up inside our camp, re-store all of the rope, eat, and chat for a bit. Some friendly nude neighbors came by to tell us that the rain was making for great times at the Strip'n'Slide, which we sadly missed except for during its construction and teardown. Once the rain ended the ground was soggy for a few hours, but otherwise it was back to business as usual with all sorts of shenanigans going on. We moved the trampoline back out when it became obvious that the rest of the afternoon would be cloudy.
Once the trampoline was returned, K and I took a neighbor girl up on a previous discussion for some bondage and tickling. We spread eagled her on the trampoline, which was a first for me and something I look forward to doing again, enough so that I'll consider finding or building a 6-8' trampoline to use as a play surface. We had fun jumping around with her tied to it, and then spent about a half hour extracting some exceptionally loud laughter and screams from her, including some automated stimulation in the form of a self-bouncing ball let loose on her. After a couple of rounds of pretty strenuous activity she was tired out and we settled down to relax on the trampoline for a while.
After hanging around for a while longer and playing on the trampoline in a more mundane fashion we started hearing calls for fire conclave performers to head for the effigy, and later for perimeter volunteers. Prep started a bit earlier than I think it perhaps should have, possibly due to most of the staff being used to the schedule for an October burn, where 8PM is pitch black, as opposed to a June burn, where 9PM is early dusk. We wandered toward the effigy once it got dark and found a large crowd mostly milling about, with scattered groups of folks dancing, playing, eating, etc. I brought along a large foam airplane that had seen much action earlier in the weekend and spent about an hour tossing it over / through / to various folks in the crowd while K did some chatting, hula hooping, and hanging out with other people.
When the conclave started we found a place to sit near the perimeter and watched all the performers pass by. There were some amazing people doing fire fans, hoops, poi, staff, and a few other things. The procession lasted for perhaps 30 minutes and then six torches appeared to light the effigy. The fire took quickly, thanks to some fuel and no thanks to the rain, and proceeded up the height of the structure. After about a minute some ropes inside the structure burned through, causing the leaves of the lotus flower on top to fall down in sequence, dropping further bottles of fuel onto the fire. The non-structural wood burned through in about 10 minutes, and it took another 30 or so for the main structural elements to finally collapse down, with a little help from an anonymous lady on the fire/safety team in a fire suit. The gathering started to disperse into further activities, including a lot of dancing and performing, toward the end of the flaming part of the fire, leaving scattered pockets of onlookers to watch it descend into a large bed of coals. The coals lasted for hours, probably long into the morning.
Toward the end of the effigy burn I ended up in a cuddle pile with some friends and acquaintances, had and overheard some conversations about altered states and consent, and generally had a good time. K and I borrowed bedding from friends and neighbors on the way back to our tent and tucked in early again with our newfound blankets and pillows.
Sunday morning we got off to a leisurely start on tearing down our camp one piece at a time. We managed to give away most of our supply of powerade and pecan spins, and collected all of our trash for the trip home. There were a few moments of confusion as bags and parts for tents were mixed up between us, but all was well in the end. I left everyone else to finish tearing down the camp and trampoline as I went to deal with the hot air balloon. The support sphere had finally collapsed, so I had to erect the entrance again to partially inflate the balloon in order to go in after it. I had a few scary moments when I realized I had been inside the collapsed balloon struggling to tear apart the sphere for more than a few minutes and was perhaps running low on O2 (the balloon is airtight), a worry the sphere had prevented when it was still holding up a nice sized room. I got out while dragging the PVC struts behind me and wrestling with the emergency hatch lines (for the last time, and this time I mean it. those things are getting cut out!). In retrospect, while writing this, I realize that I left the PVC and string sitting on effigy hill when we left the burn. By far my worst MOOP mistake ever, and one I hope not to repeat. K and Joe showed up to help and we rolled the balloon up into the cart, foregoing the bag again because it was soaked from the rain and my poor planning. I had taken enough screws out of the frame to break it back down into the triangles and supports that it arrived as, so we loaded everything back into the truck and headed back to camp.
Time began running short (on my get-to-work-on-time schedule) as we were finishing packing the truck. We hastily shoved everything together, had a few false starts with the tie down ropes and straps, and finally got it all under control. We spent a few minutes saying goodbye to people, dropping off found objects and ikea furniture for last camp to burn, and then we were headed off site around 2:30PM. We had pre-planned a stop for some real food on the way out, and I remembered a conveniently placed Subway about 5 minutes from the event site. We ate a tasty but hasty lunch and got back on the road around 3PM. The truck wanted to weave on the trip home again, despite the tires appearing to not have deflated at all since Friday. I'll be addressing those problems in the near future, if I can't sell the truck regardless of them. The drive home was mostly uneventful as well, with one stop to check the status of the load and tires. We pulled up to C7 at 4:40PM and everyone went their separate ways. I made it to work with a minute to spare after switching to the scooter for my commute, Joe was headed home with his expensive items but not some of his still-packed camping gear, and K went to nap. I spent the evening at work battling my fatigue, then went home and collapsed.
A retrospective budget that I put together for a post yesterday is as follows:
reusable items:
$200 trampoline
$100 balloon frame components
$ 85 camping accessories
$ 20 clothes
----
$405
expended items:
$ 90 event tickes
$ 16 four dozen dozen pecan spins, mostly gifted
$ 33 camping necessities
$ 12 batteries
$ 35 balloon frame components
$ 25 camping chairs, gifted
$ 20 Ikea end tables, 2 gifted, 2 to be burnt
$ 20 toys, used and gifted
$ 40 gas
----
$291
The end.
I procrastinated prep and packing so much that when K arrived on Thursday evening I still hadn't even started building the frame for the hot air balloon entrance. She followed me to Freeside and we worked on that for a couple of hours. Then we spent the night packing and organizing all of the camping gear and other miscellaneous items for the trip. Sarena came by to crash for the evening as well.
Friday morning we loaded up the truck with all the heavy gear (balloon, balloon frame, trampoline) then packed all the personal stuff around those items. Alex arrived on time, and Joe was a bit late due to a ticket printing mistake. We finally got out of C7 around 11:30AM. A quick last minute essentials stop at Walmart as well as fueling up put us on the road for the bulk of the trip at 12:15. The truck was behaving poorly as we left Atlanta, and a passing driver told us we had a flat tire, so we ended up stopping near Kennesaw at a tire shop. Adding air to the nearly flat tire revealed that it had a huge leak from a bad patch. I bought a new tire and they had it balanced and mounted in about 20 minutes. Alex and Sarena spent the time showing some poi and hoop tricks to the gaggle of kids hanging out around the shop. The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful, despite the truck continuing to misbehave with steering/weaving problems.
We finally arrived on site around 3:30PM. Checking in and being greeted was quick and fun, leading to swag and some body art for each of us. We drove a big circle around the site to see where friends were camping and scout out camp sites for ourselves as well. In the end we decided to camp in the middle of the Hollow, being the best combination of central location, shade, visibility, and space to spread out. We unloaded most of the truck and deployed the trampoline and Joe's tent, along with a huge pile of all of our other gear.
I left everyone to continue sorting and building our small camp while I drove up to Effigy Hill to deploy the hot air balloon. I picked up Alchemy's Ridiculously Large Tent Stakes from Tunna along the way, then started assembling the various parts of the balloon structure on top of the hill. I did about half of the frame assembly alone, then a few folks wandered by to help. The rest of my campmates also showed up after finishing unpacking our camp. We finished the frame while some more friendly neighbors tried to assemble my PVC sphere idea. Sadly the PVC sphere failed for a few reasons (not rigid enough, too large, not held together well enough), but they were able to get it into a mostly working configuration with the addition of a lot of screws and string. A few folks took turns pounding in the stakes while the rest of us connected the balloon to the frame and moved the sphere inside. All told it took an average of 5 people about 2 hours to set the whole thing up. Before Alchemy I plan to have a stronger and easier to assemble frame built (steel arches).
After the balloon was up and being thoroughly enjoyed by visitors I returned to our camp. The tents were set up and the rest of the gear had formed a large pile. I took our largest tarp and the trampoline spare parts (read: safety net equipment) and built a shade structure over our camp that worked pretty well throughout the weekend for both sun and rain. We rearranged our gear a bit to get things into better organized piles and retrieve some of the more important things like food and water.
Friday evening I spent some time with K, some time with Sarena after she got sick, some time with various friends in nearby camps, and some time walking around exploring by myself. K and I turned in relatively early and I realized I had almost completely neglected to plan for any sleeping equipment on the trip. I brought enough bedding for one person (two pillows, one sleeping bag), not for the three I was mostly responsible for. Sarena, being sick, got the sleeping bag, and K and I made do with a large towel and my tent's rain fly (previously unused thanks to the tarp over the camp).
Saturday morning the sun woke us up bright and early. The weather was nice again and we spent the morning exploring together and apart, as well as hanging out with new and old friends. Some food was had, including ravioli and spaghetti from Joe's stash as well as some of our endless supply of pecan spins. A crowd of helpful hippies carried the trampoline away from our camp toward some morning shade, where it got much more use than out in the bright sunlight. Toward noon the shade finally hit my chosen tree and I could start doing rope suspensions. I spent about two hours tying up old friends, acquaintances, and newcomers. Another friend who had loaned me some of her equipment showed up after a couple of hours and we began taking turns with the suspension point. Sadly she got started just as we were warned of an impending rain storm.
The crowd dispersed as we began untying people and packing up our rope. The storm arrived quickly and we ended up carting all of the gear back under our tarp in a rush, leaving with some other folks' equipment and clothes. The worst of the storm lasted about 15 minutes and we had to do some small repairs to the poles holding up our tarp. The heavy rain lasted another 20 minutes or so, and then there was light rain for about an hour. All that time gave us a chance to clean up inside our camp, re-store all of the rope, eat, and chat for a bit. Some friendly nude neighbors came by to tell us that the rain was making for great times at the Strip'n'Slide, which we sadly missed except for during its construction and teardown. Once the rain ended the ground was soggy for a few hours, but otherwise it was back to business as usual with all sorts of shenanigans going on. We moved the trampoline back out when it became obvious that the rest of the afternoon would be cloudy.
Once the trampoline was returned, K and I took a neighbor girl up on a previous discussion for some bondage and tickling. We spread eagled her on the trampoline, which was a first for me and something I look forward to doing again, enough so that I'll consider finding or building a 6-8' trampoline to use as a play surface. We had fun jumping around with her tied to it, and then spent about a half hour extracting some exceptionally loud laughter and screams from her, including some automated stimulation in the form of a self-bouncing ball let loose on her. After a couple of rounds of pretty strenuous activity she was tired out and we settled down to relax on the trampoline for a while.
After hanging around for a while longer and playing on the trampoline in a more mundane fashion we started hearing calls for fire conclave performers to head for the effigy, and later for perimeter volunteers. Prep started a bit earlier than I think it perhaps should have, possibly due to most of the staff being used to the schedule for an October burn, where 8PM is pitch black, as opposed to a June burn, where 9PM is early dusk. We wandered toward the effigy once it got dark and found a large crowd mostly milling about, with scattered groups of folks dancing, playing, eating, etc. I brought along a large foam airplane that had seen much action earlier in the weekend and spent about an hour tossing it over / through / to various folks in the crowd while K did some chatting, hula hooping, and hanging out with other people.
When the conclave started we found a place to sit near the perimeter and watched all the performers pass by. There were some amazing people doing fire fans, hoops, poi, staff, and a few other things. The procession lasted for perhaps 30 minutes and then six torches appeared to light the effigy. The fire took quickly, thanks to some fuel and no thanks to the rain, and proceeded up the height of the structure. After about a minute some ropes inside the structure burned through, causing the leaves of the lotus flower on top to fall down in sequence, dropping further bottles of fuel onto the fire. The non-structural wood burned through in about 10 minutes, and it took another 30 or so for the main structural elements to finally collapse down, with a little help from an anonymous lady on the fire/safety team in a fire suit. The gathering started to disperse into further activities, including a lot of dancing and performing, toward the end of the flaming part of the fire, leaving scattered pockets of onlookers to watch it descend into a large bed of coals. The coals lasted for hours, probably long into the morning.
Toward the end of the effigy burn I ended up in a cuddle pile with some friends and acquaintances, had and overheard some conversations about altered states and consent, and generally had a good time. K and I borrowed bedding from friends and neighbors on the way back to our tent and tucked in early again with our newfound blankets and pillows.
Sunday morning we got off to a leisurely start on tearing down our camp one piece at a time. We managed to give away most of our supply of powerade and pecan spins, and collected all of our trash for the trip home. There were a few moments of confusion as bags and parts for tents were mixed up between us, but all was well in the end. I left everyone else to finish tearing down the camp and trampoline as I went to deal with the hot air balloon. The support sphere had finally collapsed, so I had to erect the entrance again to partially inflate the balloon in order to go in after it. I had a few scary moments when I realized I had been inside the collapsed balloon struggling to tear apart the sphere for more than a few minutes and was perhaps running low on O2 (the balloon is airtight), a worry the sphere had prevented when it was still holding up a nice sized room. I got out while dragging the PVC struts behind me and wrestling with the emergency hatch lines (for the last time, and this time I mean it. those things are getting cut out!). In retrospect, while writing this, I realize that I left the PVC and string sitting on effigy hill when we left the burn. By far my worst MOOP mistake ever, and one I hope not to repeat. K and Joe showed up to help and we rolled the balloon up into the cart, foregoing the bag again because it was soaked from the rain and my poor planning. I had taken enough screws out of the frame to break it back down into the triangles and supports that it arrived as, so we loaded everything back into the truck and headed back to camp.
Time began running short (on my get-to-work-on-time schedule) as we were finishing packing the truck. We hastily shoved everything together, had a few false starts with the tie down ropes and straps, and finally got it all under control. We spent a few minutes saying goodbye to people, dropping off found objects and ikea furniture for last camp to burn, and then we were headed off site around 2:30PM. We had pre-planned a stop for some real food on the way out, and I remembered a conveniently placed Subway about 5 minutes from the event site. We ate a tasty but hasty lunch and got back on the road around 3PM. The truck wanted to weave on the trip home again, despite the tires appearing to not have deflated at all since Friday. I'll be addressing those problems in the near future, if I can't sell the truck regardless of them. The drive home was mostly uneventful as well, with one stop to check the status of the load and tires. We pulled up to C7 at 4:40PM and everyone went their separate ways. I made it to work with a minute to spare after switching to the scooter for my commute, Joe was headed home with his expensive items but not some of his still-packed camping gear, and K went to nap. I spent the evening at work battling my fatigue, then went home and collapsed.
A retrospective budget that I put together for a post yesterday is as follows:
reusable items:
$200 trampoline
$100 balloon frame components
$ 85 camping accessories
$ 20 clothes
----
$405
expended items:
$ 90 event tickes
$ 16 four dozen dozen pecan spins, mostly gifted
$ 33 camping necessities
$ 12 batteries
$ 35 balloon frame components
$ 25 camping chairs, gifted
$ 20 Ikea end tables, 2 gifted, 2 to be burnt
$ 20 toys, used and gifted
$ 40 gas
----
$291
The end.