Burning Man 2015
Sep. 26th, 2015 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparrMy first trip to Burning Man was a matter of convenient timing. I've wanted to go and see what all the fuss is about for a while, but the circumstances have never been quite right to make it affordable and feasible. This year, I had given 3 months' notice to leave my job in Chicago and made plans to take a counterclockwise tour of the US through the fall and winter while seeing the country and visiting old friends. By happy coincidence, this meant I would be driving near or through Nevada in late August, just in time to visit Black Rock City.
I would have my girlfriend, Emma, with me for that leg of the trip. She was interested and eager to go to BM, but less committed than I might have been. We made our plans with a few contingencies, including not finding tickets at all, or just finding one ticket. We were ready to get as far as Reno without tickets, and then just keep driving if we couldn't find any at the last minute. In the end that was unnecessary; I reached out to a few friends of friends and found a pair of tickets relatively easily.
While searching for tickets we also reached out to a few camps, and made vague plans to camp by ourselves. The Firefly camp in which I know the most people was sending a contingent to BM for the first time, so that was our best bet. We also reached out to a couple of other larger camps, with bigger projects that we were interested in working on. Unfortunately none of those larger camps worked out, either because they did not provide infrastructure that we thought would be important to us, or because they did not accept our application to join. We stuck with The Universe, as part of the Boston Hive, and committed to some early arrival and post-departure tasks that would dictate some of the timing of our trip.
Prior to my road trip, which would include Burning Man, I was of many minds on what sort of vehicle to travel in, and how to camp, in general and on the playa. I had a van for the trip, and would have parked that and camped in yurts and tents. However, I ended up finding an ambulance that caught my eye, and that became our road trip vehicle and camping/playa home.
We spent a couple of weeks traveling across the country in a very roundabout fashion, from Chicago to South Dakota to the Grand Canyon to Reno. Those travels, and the ones to follow after BM, are detailed in other posts, as are my ongoing improvements to the ambulance as a travel and living space.
Arriving in Reno four days before the gate was to open, one day before our scheduled early arrival, we did some shopping. We picked up food for ourselves and our camp, some camp infrastructure, lumber for art and functional projects on-playa, and the last few bits of camping and survival gear that we had forgotten to pack or buy in Chicago.
On the way out from Reno to BRC, we ran across some folks who had accidentally dragged a bike a few miles. I gave them some ratchet straps to repair their bike rack. We stopped a couple of times at roadside attractions and for fuel, almost missing what might have been the only gas for 50 miles at one point. We arrived after dark and spent about an hour slowly advancing up through the gate line. Gate and greeting were mostly uneventful, although I did take the opportunity to strap a ladder to the back of the ambulance so I could relax/ride on top for part of the time.
The next few days are a blur of prep and tiredness. I got the ambulance situated. I did some electrical wiring to run our internal devices from the Hive's generator power. I made a couple of Playatech pews from the plywood I'd bought in Reno, using a circular saw and reciprocating multitool in the back of a big moving truck as my impromptu wood shop. We (the camp) deployed a couple of quonset hut style structures made from PVC and tarps, and re-deployed them after a wind/dust storm the day before the gate opened. We assembled some yurts. I assembled the shower, first with just a 48x48x4" platform that led to problems collecting and removing grey water, later with that same platform 15" off the ground and angled for draining into a bucket, and even later with that same platform above an improvised 7x9' evap pond when the Hive's grey water handling reached capacity during the event.
I broke my right small toe on Thursday by kicking a pallet. BRC medical taped it to the next toe and told me to be more careful. On Saturday I developed a scratched cornea (a recurring problem for me) due to not using goggles often enough. I visited the central medical center, which reminded me of M.A.S.H. and was quite cozy, where they flushed my eye with saline and gave me a dressing to cover the eye. I spent most of that day in the dark and quiet trying to let my eye heal. I had to spend a decent amount of the rest of the week without my glasses so that I could wear goggles without fogging them up. Fortunately my eyesight isn't debilitatingly bad without them, but it was annoying.
At this point, I'll say that Burning Man was pretty much what I expected. To everyone who has ever said to me "It's impossible to describe"... You're just bad at describing things. Don't feel bad; I'm not great at describing things either. I knew the weather would be relatively extreme. I expected the size and scope of art that I saw, most of which I'd seen equivalents of in videos of previous years or elsewhere.
A few things did surprise me, which I'll enumerate here:
The fine-ness of the dust was surprising. I've dealt with sand before, and that's mostly what I was expecting. I've seen playa dust on people's gear after they returned, but only ever on gear that was exposed to the desert for a whole week or more, not on things kept inside, covered, etc. While I was asking eplaya about bringing a zorb I learned that the dust is fine enough to stick to surfaces via static, which was new info that I hadn't fully incorporated by the time I got there. Now, having experienced it and had to clean it off all of my things, I'd describe it to someone else as more similar to sanding sawdust than to cutting sawdust. I think that description would pretty accurately convey its properties to anyone who has had to clean a wood shop.
The relatively low level and narrow scope of kink education was surprising. I went to more than a few classes and workshops related to rope and kink, to get a feel for them. I've taught/led classes at regional burns that are deeper and broader than what I saw at BM. If I attend again, I think this is somewhere that I could contribute, either on my own or as part of one of the existing kink camps.
The amount of partying on early-arrival Friday and Saturday evening/night were surprising and annoying. I couldn't really say anything negative to my campmates about it because it was obvious that the majority of other people were doing it too, and that it's the norm and expected. People wouldn't be going to the bar camps to party if there wasn't booze and music, and there wouldn't be booze and music if people weren't going to the bar camps to party. The documentation and instructions that I got for early arrival were rather explicitly against this, so I planned to take advantage of those nights for setup and infrastructure, but I might have been the only person who cared. I ended up working those nights by myself.
The difference in documentation and practice regarding grey water spillage was surprising. Prior to the burn, I was under the impression that any spill, however small, was to be avoided. Seeing common practice on the playa, it looked like small spills were frequent (uncaught drips from water dispensers, off counters, etc. dropped ice. spilled drinks. splashed water out of buckets being transported, etc) and I'm told that after the grey water servicing companies depart, many camps actually dig trenches to bury their grey water, breaking two rules at once that I previously thought were both sacrosanct.
The handling of abandoned bikes was surprising, in both directions. There was more bike "theft" on Saturday and Sunday than I expected, while also being more abandoned bikes on Friday and Saturday than I expected. I'll be writing something longer about this on eplaya.
I didn't keep a journal while at the event, so a lot of my acitivities sort of blurred together. I spent nights with Emma or another friend from Chicago who was camping nearby. I went to some kink classes, mentioned above, alone or with Emma or with a pickup partner. I rode some big art cars. I did some, but depressingly little, decorative rope on passers by. I need a sign for that next year, and possibly a booth with shade. I cooked some food for people. I ate a lot of food at other camps. I saw some engineering that I learned from, some amazing, some deplorable.
Departure involved tearing down the camp, which most of the camp helped with. We got everything down eventually and rode off into the morning on Sunday. Exodus was slow but steady, ~3.5 hours to Reno. Along the way we stopped to lend someone a tire iron, someone else jumper cables, and to check on a couple of other folks who ended up not needing help. I picked up 4 hitchhikers from the ride share board, and they mostly slept in the back on the bed and bunk while I drove.
Arrival in Reno involved dropping off our hitchhikers at their hotels, bus terminal, etc. Then we hooked up with some campmates for dinner and split up to do a whole lot of laundry. We spent the night at a casino, I ran some errands the next day, and we eventually left Reno towards Lake Tahoe to decompress with a couple of friends.
This was an enjoyable burn experience for me. Overall, much more so than any single regional burn. I am not sure if I'll be back, because I could spend the same money going to half a dozen regionals, and that might appeal to me more. Time will tell, and future travel coincidences could have a significant impact on that decision.
I would have my girlfriend, Emma, with me for that leg of the trip. She was interested and eager to go to BM, but less committed than I might have been. We made our plans with a few contingencies, including not finding tickets at all, or just finding one ticket. We were ready to get as far as Reno without tickets, and then just keep driving if we couldn't find any at the last minute. In the end that was unnecessary; I reached out to a few friends of friends and found a pair of tickets relatively easily.
While searching for tickets we also reached out to a few camps, and made vague plans to camp by ourselves. The Firefly camp in which I know the most people was sending a contingent to BM for the first time, so that was our best bet. We also reached out to a couple of other larger camps, with bigger projects that we were interested in working on. Unfortunately none of those larger camps worked out, either because they did not provide infrastructure that we thought would be important to us, or because they did not accept our application to join. We stuck with The Universe, as part of the Boston Hive, and committed to some early arrival and post-departure tasks that would dictate some of the timing of our trip.
Prior to my road trip, which would include Burning Man, I was of many minds on what sort of vehicle to travel in, and how to camp, in general and on the playa. I had a van for the trip, and would have parked that and camped in yurts and tents. However, I ended up finding an ambulance that caught my eye, and that became our road trip vehicle and camping/playa home.
We spent a couple of weeks traveling across the country in a very roundabout fashion, from Chicago to South Dakota to the Grand Canyon to Reno. Those travels, and the ones to follow after BM, are detailed in other posts, as are my ongoing improvements to the ambulance as a travel and living space.
Arriving in Reno four days before the gate was to open, one day before our scheduled early arrival, we did some shopping. We picked up food for ourselves and our camp, some camp infrastructure, lumber for art and functional projects on-playa, and the last few bits of camping and survival gear that we had forgotten to pack or buy in Chicago.
On the way out from Reno to BRC, we ran across some folks who had accidentally dragged a bike a few miles. I gave them some ratchet straps to repair their bike rack. We stopped a couple of times at roadside attractions and for fuel, almost missing what might have been the only gas for 50 miles at one point. We arrived after dark and spent about an hour slowly advancing up through the gate line. Gate and greeting were mostly uneventful, although I did take the opportunity to strap a ladder to the back of the ambulance so I could relax/ride on top for part of the time.
The next few days are a blur of prep and tiredness. I got the ambulance situated. I did some electrical wiring to run our internal devices from the Hive's generator power. I made a couple of Playatech pews from the plywood I'd bought in Reno, using a circular saw and reciprocating multitool in the back of a big moving truck as my impromptu wood shop. We (the camp) deployed a couple of quonset hut style structures made from PVC and tarps, and re-deployed them after a wind/dust storm the day before the gate opened. We assembled some yurts. I assembled the shower, first with just a 48x48x4" platform that led to problems collecting and removing grey water, later with that same platform 15" off the ground and angled for draining into a bucket, and even later with that same platform above an improvised 7x9' evap pond when the Hive's grey water handling reached capacity during the event.
I broke my right small toe on Thursday by kicking a pallet. BRC medical taped it to the next toe and told me to be more careful. On Saturday I developed a scratched cornea (a recurring problem for me) due to not using goggles often enough. I visited the central medical center, which reminded me of M.A.S.H. and was quite cozy, where they flushed my eye with saline and gave me a dressing to cover the eye. I spent most of that day in the dark and quiet trying to let my eye heal. I had to spend a decent amount of the rest of the week without my glasses so that I could wear goggles without fogging them up. Fortunately my eyesight isn't debilitatingly bad without them, but it was annoying.
At this point, I'll say that Burning Man was pretty much what I expected. To everyone who has ever said to me "It's impossible to describe"... You're just bad at describing things. Don't feel bad; I'm not great at describing things either. I knew the weather would be relatively extreme. I expected the size and scope of art that I saw, most of which I'd seen equivalents of in videos of previous years or elsewhere.
A few things did surprise me, which I'll enumerate here:
The fine-ness of the dust was surprising. I've dealt with sand before, and that's mostly what I was expecting. I've seen playa dust on people's gear after they returned, but only ever on gear that was exposed to the desert for a whole week or more, not on things kept inside, covered, etc. While I was asking eplaya about bringing a zorb I learned that the dust is fine enough to stick to surfaces via static, which was new info that I hadn't fully incorporated by the time I got there. Now, having experienced it and had to clean it off all of my things, I'd describe it to someone else as more similar to sanding sawdust than to cutting sawdust. I think that description would pretty accurately convey its properties to anyone who has had to clean a wood shop.
The relatively low level and narrow scope of kink education was surprising. I went to more than a few classes and workshops related to rope and kink, to get a feel for them. I've taught/led classes at regional burns that are deeper and broader than what I saw at BM. If I attend again, I think this is somewhere that I could contribute, either on my own or as part of one of the existing kink camps.
The amount of partying on early-arrival Friday and Saturday evening/night were surprising and annoying. I couldn't really say anything negative to my campmates about it because it was obvious that the majority of other people were doing it too, and that it's the norm and expected. People wouldn't be going to the bar camps to party if there wasn't booze and music, and there wouldn't be booze and music if people weren't going to the bar camps to party. The documentation and instructions that I got for early arrival were rather explicitly against this, so I planned to take advantage of those nights for setup and infrastructure, but I might have been the only person who cared. I ended up working those nights by myself.
The difference in documentation and practice regarding grey water spillage was surprising. Prior to the burn, I was under the impression that any spill, however small, was to be avoided. Seeing common practice on the playa, it looked like small spills were frequent (uncaught drips from water dispensers, off counters, etc. dropped ice. spilled drinks. splashed water out of buckets being transported, etc) and I'm told that after the grey water servicing companies depart, many camps actually dig trenches to bury their grey water, breaking two rules at once that I previously thought were both sacrosanct.
The handling of abandoned bikes was surprising, in both directions. There was more bike "theft" on Saturday and Sunday than I expected, while also being more abandoned bikes on Friday and Saturday than I expected. I'll be writing something longer about this on eplaya.
I didn't keep a journal while at the event, so a lot of my acitivities sort of blurred together. I spent nights with Emma or another friend from Chicago who was camping nearby. I went to some kink classes, mentioned above, alone or with Emma or with a pickup partner. I rode some big art cars. I did some, but depressingly little, decorative rope on passers by. I need a sign for that next year, and possibly a booth with shade. I cooked some food for people. I ate a lot of food at other camps. I saw some engineering that I learned from, some amazing, some deplorable.
Departure involved tearing down the camp, which most of the camp helped with. We got everything down eventually and rode off into the morning on Sunday. Exodus was slow but steady, ~3.5 hours to Reno. Along the way we stopped to lend someone a tire iron, someone else jumper cables, and to check on a couple of other folks who ended up not needing help. I picked up 4 hitchhikers from the ride share board, and they mostly slept in the back on the bed and bunk while I drove.
Arrival in Reno involved dropping off our hitchhikers at their hotels, bus terminal, etc. Then we hooked up with some campmates for dinner and split up to do a whole lot of laundry. We spent the night at a casino, I ran some errands the next day, and we eventually left Reno towards Lake Tahoe to decompress with a couple of friends.
This was an enjoyable burn experience for me. Overall, much more so than any single regional burn. I am not sure if I'll be back, because I could spend the same money going to half a dozen regionals, and that might appeal to me more. Time will tell, and future travel coincidences could have a significant impact on that decision.