Plan Q in Reno: Atlantis Rising

Burning Man had been a rousing success, and lots of fun, but when it was time to pull up stakes from Camp Eurotrash at 6:45 and H and say good-bye to camp mates, our work was hardly over.

We managed to get out on Sunday afternoon, allowing us to beat much of the massive traffic from the "Exodus." We had to wait only an hour a the gate until we were "pulsed" onto the highway. Heading back on Route 447, we stopped twice---once for delicious "Indian tacos" (served by the locals from the Pyramid Lake Reservation), and another time to get the truck washed at one of the impromptu car washes. It felt nice to contribute to the local economy.

Back in Reno, we picked up Red's car from the friend's house where she had left it and then headed to the Atlantis Casino Hotel, where we checked in and took the glass elevator up to the 18th floor. for a couple day's of splendid comfortable rest.

Well, relaxation was the plan at least.

Much of the time during the next morning and afternoon was spent trying to get our dirty and dusty possessions from the rental truck back into Red's Ford Focus.  It felt like the work just never ended.

As the rental deadline approached, it was clear that there would be no time left to clean out the interior of the truck. We would have to bring it back dusty and pay whatever fee they would charge us. When the guy at the rental place came out to inspect it, and after opening the back door, he stated solemnly "that's going to be a hundred dollar cleaning fee."

My relief and resignation upon hearing that caught him off guard. He said almost everyone else argues it over the fee. I told him with a wave of my hand that I was happy to pay for someone else to do it at this point. Because of this, we instantly made friends. He encouraged me to reserve for next  year. Last I checked, he hadn't even charged me the fee (although if he does, I really can't complain).

The next day, Labor Day, we dropped by to see my 89-year-old great-uncle, the former B-17 gunner from World War II and Reno resident since 1956. As we drop up, he was sitting on the front porch, looking so much like my late grandmother, his sister. We sat out there in the late afternoon glow of the holiday. He made sure to sit next to Red. It was great fun.

"You still driving that old BMW?" I told him I was, although it had been in storage since April.

He made a noise of disgust. "You gotta get rid of that thing and get a new car," he told me.

He still has a keen mind and memory. He remembered how last year when I visited him I had cooked up the idea to build an art car with my sculptor friend Howard, along with cooperation from my camp members. I told him it hadn't happened.

"I knew you weren't going to do it," he said, with a smile. 

"Well, some plans are multi-year," I said, somewhat defending myself. "It was worth it to get things started right away. The best time to plan for the next Burning Man is right after the last one finishes, because your mind is so full of ideas."

"That was Plan A," I said. "When all was said and done, I was up to Plan Q, I think. But I never would have gotten there without starting on that first one."

My great-uncle was in good health, although he regretted that his hip pain no longer allowed him to hike as he once did. He mentioned how his own father (my great-grandfather) had lived to 94, and that he himself was hoping not to live that long.  Humorously he had kept the beers I had left there a year ago when I visited him. He insisted that we take them, as he had no need of them.

The next day we made the long drive back to Portland through Klamath Falls, retracing our route over the Cascades and down the Willamette to Eugene. We got into town in the late evening and collapsed from exhaustion.

I told Red that in contrast to last year, when I had spent a week in the hotel in Reno cooking up the extravagant plan for the next Burning Man, that next year I basically wanted to do "exactly the same thing as this year," even including renting the same kind of truck from the same place.

"If it changes from that, so be it, but that's the starting point I'm going with."

As for the theme next, given the uncanny prescience of the Casbah idea from last year, we both agreed after our stay at the Atlantis that something along those lines would make an excellent idea for 2015.

Or perhaps something involving pink bunnies, of course.

Burning Man 2014 (Finale): We Dance Until Dawn at Robot Heart

After the weird fiasco of the downpour and of our being trapped at the Black Rock City, one might be tempted to say that the rest of the week was almost anti-climactic. That might be true if it were anything but Burning Man. Instead, once we got into the groove of things, and could unpack "for reals" (as the kids say). it was just plain lots of fun.

When I came gliding back into camp with the truck, I felt like the Grinch coming back with the presents to Whoville. All was well and good. Out at the airport, I decided to scrap much of my plans for the arrangement of our truck and shelter, and simply backed the truck up into the circle of the shelters of our camp, using it as an elevated and shaded room in which we took refuge. It turned out to be a stroke of genius on my part. Withour Iceland flag up there, we were now part of the Eurotrash circle officially.

"It's the closest part of Europe to North America," as I explained to folks.

Life was good, albeit a bit muddy. In due course, during the rest of the day, Camp Eurotrash filled up with the usual suspects from Aspen, minus a few folks, and with the addition of a few more.

A couple marriages had broken up, as it happens, making life a little bit awkward for some of the participants. But we weathered through it, and all of us had a good time.

The next evening we put on our tutus for Tutu Tuesday. On Wednesday night (White night) we did our usual thing of starting the evening off at the Apres Ski Party hosted by a camp from Vancouver that sets up a real snow machine. I managed to use up a good portion of the costumes I had brought, including the fur vest I had ordered at the last minute, and all the "sheik" adornments I had purchased since last year.

Ironically the Sheik persona I had adopted last year turned out to be weirdly prophetic, given the theme of this year's burn (which was about the ancient Silk Road, and which wasn't decided upon until later). As I told my friend Howard, an artist and veteran Burner, the entire scheme that he and I cooked up for a "Psychedelic Casbah" art car project for my camp was essentially everywhere this year. 

"It was the Land of 10,000 Sheiks," I told him later in an email. "So weird."

But if I had to pick one fashion trend from this week, it was certainly the explosion in the use of Indian war bonnets. They were everywhere. Part of this was because the ban on feathers on the playa had been lifted (previously they had been deemed to likely to become "Moop" (that is, matter out of place, or in other words, litter).

But partly I thought it was a reaction against the hue and cry of poltical correctness (mostly from white folks) who have decided that wearing such things is "cultural appropriation" and therefore outside acceptable behavior. For the sake of some of my readers, I'm going to withhold my opinion on this, but rest assured that I do indeed have one. You can probably guess what my comments might be.

Red certainly had a great time, as I'd hoped she would.  "These people are really professional partiers," she said with awe at one point, looking out over the Aspenites preparing for the evening. Everyone in camp took a liking to here. Like I said, we all had a great time. For me, the best part by far is just getting to see a bunch of folks I've really come to love, none of whom I knew before three years ago. It's funny to think how a shitty software job in Boulder led to all this (that's how I met Okki---we started at the same time).

The whole effort---renting the truck and getting everything out there and back---left me a bit exhausted to be be sure, but there's no way I wouldn't do it again. I'm confident that we represented Iceland well on the playa. Of course we looked for Icelanders there (and I went so far as to mount an Icelandic flag on my bike to attract notice) but found none.  Okki got into the spirit of this quite well, and went so far as to call me his "Icelandic brother."

Quite a hit, especially when I broke out the Brennivin I had stashed in the ice chest (I had ordered it over the Internet from Iceland a month earlier. The name actually means "Burning Wine" in Icelandic, which seemed all to perfect). True to the report, it does actually taste somewhat like liquid rye bread. The Swedes loved it.

Of course we were absolutely delighted about the bizarre coincidence of the threatened eruption of Bárðarbunga, which Red was following very closely. It had cropped up only in the last few weeks. The first lava actually started spewing out on the Thursday of Burning Man. 

If I had to pick one highlight of the week, and I'm sure Red would agree with me on this, I was surely on early Saturday morning. We had gone to bed early and (after what Michele called a "disco nap") we arose under starlight and joined Okki, Stefan, Kevin, Adrian and a few others to head out onto the playa to find the Robot Heart art car, which has in recent years become the focus of the out-on-the-playa dance party in the hours leading up to dawn. Kevin had been doing this for years, so we all followed him out there. It was still dark when we arrived, and we danced there until well past sunrise (there was a great cheer as the sun rose). Red absolutely loved it.

Being that it was quite chilly, I had decided to wear the furry pink rabbit hat that Red had purchased for her garb. This and the other garb I was wearing turned me into a Disco Bunny, as Red called me. I decided that would be by new evolved playa personality, building upon the Sheik from last year.

It turns out that a professional photographer was out there that morning as well, and had stationed himself in the DJ booth of Robot Heart taking pictures of the crowd. He later published his very nice photos (of the entire week) at this site. I recommend them for anyone who wants to see what this year was like (especially the burning of the Embrace sculpture). 

But if you look partway down the page, you'll see this photo of the crowd which I've taken the liberty of duplicating here. Perhaps you can locate a small group of figures in the crowd near the top of the photo, just the left of center. There you'll see a guy wearing a bright pink furry hat (that would be Stefan) and just to left of him is a female figure in a white furry hat (that would be Red), and just to the right of him is a guy wearing a big furry pale pink bunny hood. That would of course be the Disco Bunny. See you next year on the playa!

Burning Man 2014: We Give the Airport an Icelandic Flair

My initial plan upon biking out tot he BRC airport had been to find Tommy and get the truck back (which seemed impossible at this point), and failing that, if possible to bring back a few clothes and supplies. But the latter course of action also seemed untenable, given how hard it was to get there in the mud on Okki's bike.

I had nothing else to do but wait for the clouds to fully disperse and for the playa to dry out.  So I relaxed in my chair next to the trappings of "Little Iceland" that we had brought: including  our large Icelandic flag hanging inside the truck, the many bottles of Icelandic glacier water acquired at Whole Foods, and the cooler full of Icelandic and other Scandinavian types of booze. At least I had plenty to eat and drink with me. Hopefully Red had found the same back at camp in my absence.

Peeking out at the sky, and wishing for cloudless blue to reappear, I found myself singing an Icelandic children's song I had learned online:

Sól sól skín á mig
ský ský burt með þig
gott er í sólinni að gleðja sig
sól sól skín á mig.

which roughly translates as

Sun, sun shine on me
Cloud, cloud away with thee
Good it is in the sun to cheer oneself up,
Sun, sun shine on me

How long would it take until I could drive the truck? No one knew for certain, of course, and my lack of experience with this situation had me completely at sea. Perhaps I would be stuck there until the next day. But at least I was inside the city, unlike the folks stuck outside the gate on the entrance road.

I had assumed that I needed to find Tommy to get the keys back, but soon discovered that Tommy had left the keys on the front seat of the truck. Thus it occurred to me that the best course of action would be to wait out the mud until it dried, and then drive the truck back myself.

While in my chair, I soon began to be thankful for the entire turn of events. Being removed from camp that way, and being by myself with all our stuff, somehow allowed me a second-chance at entering camp and setting up. I began to re-evaluate my initial plan to set up a monkey with the tarp and pvc I had bought, and to use the truck simply as storage. I thought: "why not use the truck itself as a room?"

I couldn't help but feel that this little adventure was a gift---my first intense strange experience at this year's Burn.

While contemplating all this in forced leisure and laziness, I soon received a few visitors at my lodging, both of them from Airport, which is the name of the official camp that surrounds the airport itself, full of the folks who run and maintain the facility.

The first was a burly guy who introduced himself and told me he was in charge of the radio-controlled aircraft there. He had walked over to tell me, in a somewhat scolding tone, that I was not allowed to drive at that point, since all the the traffic in the city was shut down by official order. I tried to ask about when the traffic would be allowed to move again within the city. He told me straight out that I would know it was OK to drive once the traffic at the entrance gate started moving (one couldn't see this traffic from the airport, but the BRC radio would announce it).

Would they allow traffic within the city before that? I asked him. He brushed off my question and told me that I should read the Burning Man Survival Guide. Of course I had read that, long ago, and I tried to joke that "my copy had been in the truck," but that only made him more brusque, and he scolded me back like I was a virgin needed to be schooled.

Nevertheless, despite his attitude, he invited me to camp at Airport with the rest of the folks there. I told him "my girlfriend is back at my other camp," but he kept repeating his invitation. It seemed they needed more folks out here, and the fact that I had a big new gas generator and spare gasoline sitting on the bed of the truck next to where he was standing might have helped juice the idea.

As he left I asked him if he knew "Scottish Tommy," and he said no. It seemed I was on my own for now.

My second visitor was a thinner and more congenial fellow, who billed himself as Blaze and told me he was the "Mayor of Airport." He had a relaxed feeling of being in charge, so I believed him of course. He essentially repeated the same information as the first fellow (as well as the same invitation to camp), but in a much nicer manner.

I explained to him that it was not my trailer at all, and that I had lent someone my truck. He was sympathetic to my plight. After about another half hour he returned and told me that he had received the official announcement.

He told me, however, that once the traffic started moving that I would need to move the truck and trailer right away, since its current location smack in front of the gate to the airfield was completely unacceptable. For now, however, I had to stay put. He explained that "no one was allowed to move" and that all plane flights in and out of the city were cancelled.

"We've been turning away everyone," he said, somewhat proudly. "Even helicopters and private jets," he said, implying that there were very wealthy people quite angry that they were not allowed to land.

After our pleasant interaction, he returned about half an hour later to announce that he had just heard on the radio the official confirmation that traffic within the city was allowed to move again. On the one hand I rejoiced, but this also meant I needed to move the trailer immediately.

I explained to him that I had never moved such a thing, and I had only rented such a large truck for the first time. He was sympathetic to this as well and told me he would help me. He said we could park the truck on the other side of camp, and that he would do it for me if I wished. I gratefully accepted his offer and gave him the keys.

With my help, he circled the truck around and guided the trailer to a spot next to the nearby latrines, in a such a way as to obscure them from the road for visual effect. I sensed he was somewhat disgusted by the situation regarding Tommy's trailer, in particular the lack of certain items needed to secure it decently. As such he put the trailer in such a manner so that the side door was right next to the latrine doors, so that somewhat might go inside the trailer by mistake, he said, somewhat wryly.

As he handed me back the keys, I expressed my deep thanks for his help and told him that I had actually had quite a bit of fun through this entire adventure.

"It usually takes me the entire week to get to this level," I told him.

Burning Man 2014: We Get the Truck Back

And rain it did. The sky grew dark in the middle of the day. It became a torrent on the top of the tent. One would have thought the entire annual rainfall was happening over the course of an hour. It was excellent for sleeping, after a long night. It was certainly cool. But whenever I woke up I would think of the truck, certainly now trapped out wherever it was, in the impassable mud.

When the rain stopped, and the clouds started to fracture enough to let in a bit of light, the playa started drying up quickly enough to allow a bit of walking, albeit with mud. But all our food and water, and our changes of clothes, etc., were out in Black Rock City somewhere. I couldn't help but laugh at myself, and the irony, that after a year's planning, and all the effort, I had wound up with only a tent and an air mattress, the same as last year.

Kevin came back at some point, and said that Tommy was still out at the Airport with the truck. All internal traffic was shut down by order of the DPW.  The Gate was shut down as well, meaning that thousands of folks were trapped out on the entrance road waiting to allowed into the City. I was thankful that my problems seemed small.

By mid afternoon the sun gradually started to dominate the sky again. The playa was now a series of big mushy puddles, but solid ground was reemerging. The downside was that it was getting hot. Red was sitting in her sandals on the air mattress, her feet just inside the tent. Not comfortable, especially on one's first day ever at Burning Man, but she was a trooper about it in the best way.

When another hour went by, without Tommy showing up, I decided I had to take matters into my own hands. Okki lent me his bicycle (since ours were still in the truck), and I started piloting my way towards the 5:00 road, which is the access road to the Black Rock City Airport.

Hardly anyone was moving. Moreover the outer edge of the city was denuded of population as of yet, even on Monday afternoon, since so many folk were stuck at the Gate entrance. The state troopers had been turning people back at Reno and Wadsworth.

Despite being careful, I managed to get plenty of mud on Okki's tires while riding his bike to the airport. I easily found the truck, which was still connected to Tommy's trailer, and parked smack at the gate entrance to the airfield---probably the worst possible place for it to be.

Tommy was nowhere to be seen, neither in the truck, nor the open air tents of the camp around the airport, as well as the giant tent for the waiting lounge.

There was nothing to be done in the meantime. The truck was going nowhere. So I opened up the back of the truck (I had left it completely unlocked), and finding all things in order, I set up the new outdoor folding chair I had bought at Costco and sat down in it inside the truck, looking out over the camp around the airport.

An accidental situation, to be sure. But these kinds of twists and turns, and the exploration of them, I come to realize, are the very reason that I enjoy the whole thing so much.

Burning Man 2014: We Lose the Truck

And the rain did come. Just a few drops at first, on my arms then visible in dark round blotches on the playa floor. It seemed harmless at first. We barely altered our gait. We were only a few blocks on the grid from camp, in any case.

We were naive. My inaugural (over three visits) experience with rain at Burning Man quickly taught us both a hard lesson. Get off the playa quickly when it starts coming down. The dust is insta-mix lake floor mud, from the end of the last Ice Age. Just add water---a little bit of it---and you get sludgy slime that sticks to bottom of your shoes. Back at camp, Ash was doing "moon boots" outside his tent, from just the light sprinkling we had gotten by then. I had not even had a chance to swap to my "playa shoes" that morning, and the ones I had been wearing were now slathered in tan goo.

Thankfully things dry out quickly as well. In mid morning, amid the restructuring of the Camp Eurotrash layout, it was decided that Scottish Tommy (who had come by ultralight) should take his airplane trailer out to the Black Rock City Airport, where his plane was (his trailer had been towed by Kevin). He asked me if he could borrow my truck to do it. It had a tow hitch on it, of course, so I happily said yes and gave him the keys.

Red and I stayed behind in the tent, which was the only thing I had gotten a chance to set up. Tommy left with Kevin with the truck and trailer, and then a little after that, when they were still out at the Airport, the heaves opened up and it really started to pour.

Burning Man 2014: We Look at Crucified Barbies

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...

Burning Man 2014: We Follow the Man in the Kilt

Of course by the time Okki and I embraced in the dirt lot beside the Wal-Mart in Fernley, Burning Man had indeed officially started, but not for us.

The gates had opened officially at 10 AM---an unprecedented early start for recent years at least. Okki had wanted to shoot for being at the gates then, of course, but their stopover in Evanston had put them behind schedule. I think it's insane to drive straight through anyway, so I was glad they had stopped. It had made our morning in Reno more relaxed, among other things.

We would get there when we got there. There was no rush. After one last raid on Wal-Mart, including a stop in the little liquor store in the front (Nevada is nice for this kind of stocking up), we made our way to a local Black Bear Diner where we gorged one last time on the bounty of civilization. The portions will so ample, none of us could finish the whole plates. The service was very nice.

Kathy had come with them. I had met her in Boulder last New Year's Eve at Ash's place. She was driving her own Prius (Okki and Ash were trading off the driving of Ash's hallowed minivan). Kathy's little car was packed with her own things.

After our last meal, we formed a mini caravan with yours truly in the lead, cutting under the interstate on the two-lane blacktop into the little town of Wadsworth, where the cops sit and wait for anyone to break the speed limits. There is even a 15 mph school zone. I had told them we would drive one mph under the limit at all times, and we made it through without issue. Likewise in the little Indian town of Nixon, just north of there on the Pyramid Lake reservation, we eased passed the patrol car that is always parked right by the bridge over the Truckee, and also on the south edge of town, near the civic center building that would, after the Burn, become temporary car wash service, one quite lucrative for the locals this time of year.

North of there is open country. One gets an awesome view of the lake itself for a few miles, climbing up out of the marshy delta of the Truckee onto the hillside. Then the road cuts over to the other side of mountains in to the parched valley of the dry bed of ancient Lake Winnemucca, like its extant sister Pyramid, a remnant of the giant Lake Lahontan that covered much of northern Nevada at the end of the last Ice Age.

The road there is straight as it goes up and down low hills, past Indian taco stands every few miles. We were making good time towards sunset, but then the traffic came to a sudden stop in the middle of nowhere. According to Okki, they were pulsing the traffic into Gerlach this year. We waited quite a while there, moving ahead slowly in staggering pulses. In the van in front of us, a man in a kilt would sortie at each stop. We would consider it to be an official "stoppage" whenever he finally got out to explore the countryside around the line of cars in the desert.

The Real Start of Burning Man 2104

Of course it was not really the start of Burning Man, at least the official event. As it happens, three full days of stressful hate awaited us in Reno for our last stage of preparations. Much of the stress was simply the uncertainty of being able to pull off the plan---picking up the rental truck, and then doing so much last-minute acquisitions at the big box retails of greater Reno, the things we couldn't yet acquire without the truck in hand.

Driving it around Reno was no piece of cake. It was my first time at the wheel of such a large vehicle. Changing lanes in busy traffic was often a matter of pure faith. But we managed to make it through out list, culminating in a last-minute visit to the Costco just next to our motel (quite near the place I stayed in near the airport while recovering from last year's event).

Finally after dropping off Red's car the last evening, we checked out and climbed up onto the freeway in the truck and started heading eastward on I-80. In a forty minutes we were parked in the small dirt lot along the road, next to the giant Wal-Mart supercenter in the little town of Fernley, along the Interstate. It's the last output of civilization to some respect. It even has a Starbucks where I had previously worked, two years ago.

After making one last visit into the Wal-Mart, I had the back door of the truck open, and had sat in a folding chair. It was a good place to get away from the sun. A couple other RVs were parked nearby, obviously heading to the same place as us.

While we waited there, I took the opportunity to use a couple bungee balls to affix the large nylon Iceland flag up just inside the back of the truck. I also put up the old mangled string of little plastic Swedish flags that I had used for several events running now.

It was barely ten minutes after I had finished hanging them, and while sitting in the chair inside the truck and looking out at traffic, that a pair of familiar figures rounded the back of the truck and came into view.

"Good day good day," said a familiar voice, in a convoluted Swedish-Finnish accent.

It was Okki, wearing dark shades, and next to him---Ash. They had just arrived from their own long trek westward on the Interstate across Nevada. They had stayed the night before at a Motel 6 in Evanston, Wyoming after leaving Boulder in the afternoon.

We had arranged our meeting place in Fernley via text. In fact my text message box was swamped with multiple group messages from numbers in the Aspen 970 area code, belonging to people I may or may not know, updated various other group members as to their whereabouts on the way to the event.

One was even coming by ultralight aircraft. We had spotted another group member in Winnemucca before flying onward to land in a ranch field near the little desert town of Empire, about seventy miles north of where we were in Fernley.

"What the hey," said Okki. "This is going to be the best burn ever,"

Now Burning Man really had begun.