Deep Playa, La Contessa, Hot Springs
My eyes finally crept open to ty's nudging. Herself only
having slid out of bed,
she felt now was a good a time as any to capture me frolicking in my burn digz.
To wake up in the morning hours of burning man, especially at the beginning is
one of the greatest feelings to hit. Days of play are before you, the mornings
are usually still and quiet, the warmth of the sun welcomes you into as little
clothes as possible. To experience anything but excitement at this moment would
be a waste of an emotion. Although, that last mikes hard lemonade had made it's
way down the passages of my inner sanctum and was requesting to be liberated
once again. So the next feeling was, man I gotta piss. We hadn't exactly set up
camp and our ingenious pee funnel was still among the wreckage of last nights
'get outa my way, I'm sucking a mikes' malfeasance. Me and Ty unanimously voted
on checking out the neighborhood while making a stop at the janes. Dressed in a
leather loin cloth, no shirt, hat and shades, ty in her sarong, hat and shades,
we pedaled our asses out of camp for our first jaunt. Amazing. Incredible.
Fantastic. Every camp a distraction to our destination.
The janes were 3 blocks back and don't ask how far 3 blocks
is in playa world cause with the camps that line the streets, these eyes wouldn't know the difference
considering the plethora of shit to look at. It is a distance though. Ah,
burning man janes.
Not at all like Michigan ones. They don't seem to smell, probably cause
it's windy so often, they don't seem as dirty, probably cause the dust covers
the dirt and just makes it look dusty and they never got really full throughout
the burn. Not a totally unpleasant experience. Although, late at night, you
gotta be packing your own tp.
Once back home, the wind had pick up. In fact, it was
stronger than I had ever remembered it in previous burns. Our morning was spent
constructing our home for the next 7 days. Weighing out the feng shui of
possibilities. Our first design
was scratched for a more cozy array and yet that
too was tossed aside for our final motif.
Breakfast of granola and yogurt was
opted for over our original intent of eggs and bacon due to the intense wind.
Next year, a kitchen tent for sure. A full belly settled into a nap that was
really an escape from the white outs that were now occurring.
These white outs were so fierce, that to stand in the face of one had your bare
skin peppered with playa dust to where it stung in it's attack. Time passed and
then it happened. Our shade structure collapsed.
We donned goggles and dust
masks and headed out of our shelter to deal with the mess. Rubber reinforced
grommets were ripped completely from the tarp and the grommets were still tied
to the poles that held them. The force was unbelievably powerful.
Tables turned
over and the loose odds and ends were scattered as though brushed aside by a
gigantic careless puppy dog tail. It seemed that the last few gusts were the eye
of the storm and the wind died down a bit. We covered our camp with the downed
tarps, to excited by the rush of it all to bother with resetting up camp and
hopped on our bikes to go explore our world. We wanted to head to Gxoui's to
debate whether or not we wanted to move to 2:00. Our current location at 4:00
was prime yet our buds were in bum fuck. We had to see if bum fuck and
buds were more appealing than prime and strangers of a new camp. We were camped
at Camp Carp. The home of La Contessa. And since Geo was involved of getting her
up and running, that in itself could keep us at 4:00.
Our first sighting was Patrick and Rory. I had camped with Patrick for the last 2 years so it was a sad thing to hear he was camping at 7:00. They were just leaving Gxoui's as we were arriving. Our brief stay at Gxoui's nearly convinced us to move after meeting robin, seeing Bill, ogling their fantastic shade structure and magnificent kitchen tent. Heading home, we debated with the choice to move to bum fuck and the outskirts where the ravers lived or stay put. Which brought us to thoughts of moving to 8:30 and Bipolar where Don and Tracy were camped as run off to the mouse trap camp. (this is where the Libra thing comes in. Each one of us were stumped. We were fine where we were at, Gxoui's would be cool, so might the mousetrap. No one could make a decision)
So off to 8:30 and Bipolar to check out their digz and see if we could be swayed.
The wicked wind pushed us when we first left our 4:00 location towards the 2:00 side. Barely a pedal had to occur as the wind at our backs gave us a free ride. But now leaving 2:00 and heading straight across the playa as the crow fly's, the wind became our enemy. Every pedal was hard earned progress to reaching our destination. (with many stops to look at art on the way) And just in case you were wondering, every fucking second of this journey was a blast.
No one was home at the mouse trap, so we headed off to their camp to find our potential campmates. Tracy and Krista were helping David Apocalypse set up his museum. Tracy took us over to her camp and a quick look at their prime spot had us considering to move there. Looking out at the playa from this spot, you could tell that wind started at the 10:00 side and moved over to 2:00. Meaning that by the time it hit our camp at 4:00 it was filled with a whole lotta playa dust. A definite plus to our moving to 8:30. Strangely, this exact spot was where I had camped 2 years ago.
As we left, I took a look around. The energy of this area was really high. Different music was blasting out of every camp. It wasn't exactly fitting my mood. Our 4:00 spot was quiet and had a low key energy. Matching my current feelings.
Back across the playa as the crow fly's again, the wind at our backs, we flew on a pedal free ride home. (many stops to look at art on the way) With grumbling belly's, we decided to first set camp up and then proceeded to eat a little bit of everything we brought. A can of olives, some nasty prepackaged shrimp, chips, salmon, grapes,.... we just ate a little of whatever we pulled out of the bins. Then someone had the suggestion of bacon. A burning man favorite for reason I cant even fathom other then it's some of the tastiest shit out here. Bacon was put off since we exhausted ourselves on eating a bunch of everything and while Geo took down the conduit of our shade structure, me and Ty headed off to center camp for ice.
The first ride to center camp is always a blast. It's like
heading into town.
Center camp has so many things to check out concentrated in a
small area. We did a quick cruise around and then to Camp Arctica where you buy
your ice, 2 block and 3 crushed ices later we were back on the road. Buying ice
is never the end of the actual ice journey. It also requires a rearranging of
the ice chests and draining the ice water for the solar shower.
This just turns into a reminder of what cool shit
you brought to eat. Filet Mingnon, boneless chicken thighs, apples, oranges,
blueberries, .... (the block ice never really seemed to keep things cold. Maybe
it just keeps the cooler at a colder level, but without crushed ice, things got
room temp. Might stay away from the block in the future)
This sent us off to chill for a while. A half hour and we were up
cooking dinner.
Bacon, eggs and potatoes. The final decision was to stay where
we were. Any of the moves would have been ok but the work involved in packing up
conflicted with our lazy, only want to play, level of motivation. The wind was still kicking up and
proved to be a test in patience, but in reality, working against the elements is
always the bonus to this place. It reminded me of the discovery channels
portrayal of life at base camp of Mt. Everest. Everything crazily flapping in
the wind. Having to shout over the sounds of the tent and tarp songs.
Dinner was delicious and was followed by a round of cocktails. The night grew
colder requiring more clothes. I was feeling exhausted and had no desire to
brave the cold winds so I retired to my snug bed and perused the booklet of
events. Our first day came and gone. I lay there awake in the dark. Listening to
the sounds. It was unusually quiet. Most nights
are non stop music blaring from every direction. But I'm guessing this early on
sound systems are not up and running yet as well as this nights wind storm and
cold probably had most going for shelter.
While this rendition of events covers our day, it hardly covers everything we did. There were many stops on our 'from here to there' travels. Ran into many people, saw more shit then I could ever recreate on these pages. In fact, this entire journal is only a small part of what really happened.