It was well past dark before the traffic cop outside the little town of Empire finally waved us through on our traffic pulse. After that we wound our way along the highway, through Gerlach---the last chance of civilization---and out into the desert, which was dark except for the glow of hovering lights above the horizon that marked the location of destination.
We made pretty good time on the entrance road, moving at 10mph in the one of the eight access lines, but then finally hit the end of the line. After that it was stop and go for the next four hours. Okki had the most experience with the wait, and he guessed the wait time almost exactly. When we finally got the gate, the ticket person insisted on our checking the back of our truck for stowaways, as in standard practice. She insisted that as the passenger, Red, must be the one to open the back up. "Trust me, it's faster," the greeter said. It wasn't. Red reported that she had checked inside our 80 gallon cooler for unreported passengers.
Then it was on to the official greeters. In was well into the small hours of the morning by now. We were all dog tired. Ahead of us, Kathy, a Burning Man "virgin," insisted on telling the greeters about this fact, and was mandated to get out of her car and wallow in the playa dust, doing a "dust angel." The thought of it made my skin crawl and told Red flat out to lie and tell them it wasn't her first time. Plenty of time for dust later. Red was happy to comply.
Our little caravan finally made it to the site of 2014 Camp Eurotrash about four in the morning. It was all I could do to stay awake long enough to set up the REI Kingdom 6 tent for the two of us, and then fire up the gas generator to inflate the air mattress inside. As soon as that was open, we collapsed with exhaustion.
But not for long. Sleep is never for long at Burning Man. For one thing, without our shade structure set up, we would fry in the tent come sunrise. Our sleep would be short. But who wants to sleep, really.
When it was light out, and still feeling as if I hadn't slept at all, I crawled out of the tent and saw Okki milling about. He suggested that the two of us go on a stroll to get acquainted with this year's city. I was more than happy to oblige, and very eager to get things going. I was tired, but on a definite high from having conquered the entrance road and successfully arrived at our camp.
We decided to forgo the bikes for now. Ours were still stashed in the truck. Instead we just walked along the quiet streets, still filling up with arrivals. We walked down to the edge of the playa, and around the esplanade to check out some art. The Center Camp was not yet open and operating, but we peeked inside to see some of the art there.
We ran into a Jewish-American virgin from the East Coast was on some kind of substance. He was looking at an art piece near Center Camp and ranting about Palestinians, in some way that spoke of deep conflict and guilt. It was obvious he was overwhelmed by his experience there. He almost tried to write messages on the skulls. Thankfully we didn't have to stop him.
On our way back to camp, we stopped to admire an art piece called Barbie Apocalypse, that featured, among other things, hundreds of Barbies crucified like the scene from the movie Spartacus.
"Wow, that's hard core," said Okki.
All was quiet and serene, except for the raving Jewish guy. The city was still half built and half empty on a Monday morning. It was a perfect start to Burning Man. I didn't even care about the lack of sleep. I was ready to start enjoying myself.
And just at that moment, we started to feel the raindrops...
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