At the
moment work is not really necessary due to the fact that it's been
the primary focus of my life for a good portion of 2016. A couple of
months in New Zealand followed by home to work followed by a stint
in Colorado coupled with work followed by a two week excursion to
Burning Man followed by the most focused work stint yet has set me up
pretty well. No mortgage, no car payment, low overhead, and years
without a girlfriend are good for the savings account. I've been on
a roll but by ignoring other interests, talents, and not making room
for spontaneity I feel like I’ve been missing out on other things.
I toy with the idea of pursuing completely different interests, with work not being a high priority for a year, just to see what would happen. But of course that kind of luxury takes money. I like to work but in between travels I have a tendency to allow it to be all too consuming. It's easy to do when you are a motivated individual who is self employed. However, I’m definitely feeling the symptoms of burnout. My neck and shoulders are tight from too much time on the computer.
I really have nothing exciting to
report since my return from New Zealand aside of feeling more or less
normal with no episodes of vertigo for the last few months. Knock on
wood. It's giving me confidence to think about traveling again.
Burning Man is the one thing I attended
at the end of the summer that's worth reporting. It's an art
oriented festival that takes place in the middle of a dry alkaline
desert lake bed in the northwest portion of Nevada. My friend Matt
has gone every year for the last 16 years and usually invites me to
go. I've passed on the invitation with a, “Maybe next year”, but this
year things kind of fell in place so I decided to take him up on the
offer.
Black Rock City is the third largest
city in Nevada during the last week of August and the venue for
Burning Man to take place. The city only exists during the festival.
Streets and plots are laid out to make a very organized large half
circle on a pancake flat alkaline valley with mountains to the East
and West. Within a couple of days the population expands from a small
set up crew to 70,000 people from all over the world but mostly
Californians. The theme is art and creativity with house and trance
music being the main soundtrack. The party starts at midnight on a
Saturday and goes for eight days nonstop amongst too many theme camps
to count.
The city has it's own radio station,
health care system, airport, and peace patrol. Money is useless
unless you’re looking to buy ice or a cold drink at center camp.
Everyone is self-sustained with their own food, water and shelter but
people tend to bring too much so sharing and giving is common. Theme
camps provide, Dj’s, performances of all types, bands, bars, and
limited food service such as grilled cheese sandwiches from 12am to
2am or bacon from 9 am to 11am. Some of the camps can be quite
elaborate with large structures and all kinds of odd décor.
Everything is free with no strings attached. The camp I stayed in had
a margarita machine and a bin of assorted stickers.
The environment is otherworldly, or,
more accurately, out of this worldly. People dress in all sorts of
costumes or nothing at all during the day when it's hot. Goggles and
mask are generally needed in the afternoon when the wind kicks up
large dust storms. At night people tend to glam it up with faux fur,
whispy scarves, and loud hats.
As you might imagine there is a
psychedelic rave drug culture at burning man but it’s not really in
the open. People are low key about it. I never saw anyone doing drugs
in the open. As for alcohol I saw people drinking but a dry alkaline
desert is the perfect environment for a hangover from hell so I
didn’t witness any heavy drinking. I don’t do drugs and nor did I
drink. Frankly, given the atmosphere, I think it’s totally
unnecessary.
So, with a completely sober head I was
one to get up early and go to sleep around 11pm. I slept surprisingly
well despite music, diesel generators, and art cars blowing loud
bursts of flaming propane. Fortunately, I wasn’t too close to any
of it. About the time I was going to sleep most were going out to the
playa which is the vast open land that fills the half circle layout
and beyond. With lights, music, and art cars blowing flames is quite
surreal. 11pm is the time to go out and dance until the sun rises.
Sometime around sunrise I’d get up and catch the tail end of party.
My days were mostly spent riding a bike
all over the place and checking out art installations. I spent one
afternoon roller skating at an open air wood rink with plenty of
roller skates to barrow. I haven’t roller skated since I was a
teenager but picked it up again quickly. A buddy of mine was involved
with a theme came where he was performing a meditative vocal piece
coupled with the sounds of a bee swarm he recorded while up in a tree
in Colorado. It was a huge hit! I helped with some of the set up and
breakdown. I didn’t have any problem staying entertained and/or
busy all of time.
One theme camp is focused around
running and for runners. It’s called Pink Lightning camp. The key
event is a 3 loop 50k race that attracts about 200 people. I had no
desire to run the 50k but was impressed by the variety of people who
participated. I spectated and was perfectly fine with that. It was
the first time I ever witnessed a naked man totally covered in gold
paint run 31 miles. A couple of days later they hosted a 5k so I
decided to give it a go. I was the first guy over 40 and apparently
won a pair of socks but never got them. With entry being free it was
kind of hard to pass up on the 5k.
My accommodation during the event was
my buddy Matt’s minivan. It’s was packed going out with his yurt
and supplies but once he set up next to another yurt, that housed a
topless nun, the van was more or less empty. I was then able to make
it quite comfortable. The main thing was being able to get out of the
dust and wind which is a constant problem. The wind is less
problematic at night. The van also provided some barrier from sound
which became more of an issue at night.
Eight days at Burning Man passed
quickly. The art, creative atmosphere, organization, and
infrastructure are quite impressive. Everything seems to work quite
well and people as a whole appear to be well behaved. Some aspects of
burning man are a bit over the top, to say the least, and there is an
adult them to much of what goes on. Morals are little relative and I
actually found some camps like the “Orgy Dome” to be disturbing. I thought the name was a joke at first but it wasn't.
Fortunately, what I consider the dark aspects of Burning Man,
drugs and promiscuity, are easy enough to avoid. However, Burning Man is not a place for kids in my opinion.
Probably the most challenging part of
Burning Man was leaving. We left later in the afternoon on Monday
hoping to be behind the exiting masses but instead it took around 8
or 9 hours to travel the 3 or 4 miles back to pavement. They only
allow so many cars out per hour because the paved road is only 2
lane. It was nearly sunrise by time we made it to our hotel in Carson
City.
The next day we got a late start out of
Carson City and went up to South Lake Tahoe to camp for a night. The
next day we drove down to Mammoth Lakes, Ca and camped a night at
Devils Postpile National Monument. The following day we drove
straight through back to Houston. I would have like to have spent
some time in the Sierra but we both needed to get back home. I was
impressed with Matt's Astrovan. It has over 270,000 miles with most
all of it's original factory parts. We made it out and back ok but
the vehicle's loose handling I can't say it was the safest ride....
Burning Man is not really my thing but very interesting. For me it was more of an
experience than a real vacation but I am glad I went. Ultimately I had a good time. Will I attend
again in the future? Maybe...
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