"Camp Aspen Eurotrash"---that's not what the banner officially said, but that's what Okki called it informally, back in Boulder, when he was first selling me on the idea of going last year.
"Everybody in the group is a former ski-bum," he said, referring the group of his friends whom I would be meeting at Black Rock City, if I chose to go.
The camp turned out was a modest little grouping of camp structures---a long Winnebago RV, a couple tents, and a couple canvas hut shelters, one of which displayed the aforementioned banner, designed by one of hte members on their computer and printed at copy store just for the occasion. The design incorporated the Colorado state flag, the Marroon Bells, and a human fetus (the theme of 2012's event was Fertility 2.0).
It the middle was a nylon hade covering over a couple folding tables. One could ride one's bike right off the road into a small makeshift courtyard beside the covered tables, screened from the road by the Winnebago. All in all, outside of the strange banner, it looked like a typical overcrowded redneck family campsite on the Fourth of July at a typical state park.
Okki's description of the group, the members of which would all have embraced the humorous self-deprecating label, was somewhat accurate. Most of them had been in the U.S. quite a while (Okki himself had first come to Colorado in the late 1980s). They were tremendous folk, and it was fun to get to know them. For the first time in a long time, I felt like it was possible not only to make new friends, but to make new good friends.
Besides Tommy and Stefan, there was Kevin, from England. In his mid Fifties, he was one of the passengers in the Winnebago, along with a couple American women from Denver whom the group knew (for much of the time, I had a hard time figuring out who knew whom, and for how long).
Kevin went through much of Burning Man with a silly grin, wearing a top hat, and enjoying the great cornucopia of free-flowing booze. Among other things, Burning Man is a giant free bar---you just have to go the camp that is currently serving. You have to bring a cup of some kind with you--like a red solo cup. It is part of the standard gear that one packs at night in one's bicycle basket. The camp holding the party provides the alcohol, you provide the cup. Leave no trace.
Also in the camp were Adrian and Heike, a husband and wife in their Forties, originally from England and Germany respectively. They were the class of the group. When we went for the evening, usually an hour after sunset, venturing forth in a giant caravan of a dozen blinking bikes, Adrian and Heike were always dressed up just right for the theme of whatever camp we were heading towards, as the main party stop for that night. It's very important at Burning Man to have many variations of cool outfits. It makes it much more fun. Heike often wore feathers as decorations on her skimpy bikinicentric outfits. It was her motif. But I wondered she managed to stay warm out on the playa late at night.
Adrian and Heike had the coolest bicycles too, in terms of decoration. Heike's even had an awning over it, like a proper ladies' carriage. It was easy to find at night in the dark, when we were looking for our bikes in the giant makeshift bicycle parking lot that always formed outside the camps where the parties were in full swing.
Sean and Michelle, also from Aspen, were just as charming a couple, with always the right kinds of clothes, and accessories, although they accomplished this with much less of an upper class flair than Adrian and Heike. Michele was found of wearing sparkling make-up on her cheeks as part of her costume for each evening.
Sean was from Ireland---he looked every bit of it, and spoke in an accent that only someone who has been around a lot of Irish people could understand much of the time. We hit it off right away, and talked at length about our mutual love for Galway and other places in his home country. He was floored that I could speak Irish Gaelic even as well as I did.
Michele was Spanish by ethnicity (I think so, at least, by her last name), but she was really from London and had a lovely Posh-sounding accent. She had once been a ski instructor until she tore up her knee (a common fate for these folk). Now she worked as a massage therapist for a large upscale hotel group and had multiple private clients from the wealthy and powerful set of Aspen.
Sean, on the other hand, was proud to call himself "a true ski bum." Somebody has to uphold the old traditions.
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