Hello Jobe, MojaveGreen, and the rest of you DCHS Springers. I left Burning Man around 6PM Sept 4, and drove 80 miles or so down to Fernely at Interstate 80 where I got a room for the night. After my 7 days on the dusty Playa, doing my " wet wash cloth " showers, that hotel shower was quite refreshing :-) Drove back home from Fernely today in a little over 7 hours, arriving at 4PM. It was another memorable experience at Burning Man this year. Actually ran across two seperate people I had meet at DCHS before. One who's name is Robin, who checks in on the DCHS Forum regularly and was staying with the " Saline Valley Crew " over at AEZ ( the alternative energy zone ) camp, and another guy Greg I hadn't seen in many years down at the springs. Ran into each one, twice, which is a longshot, considering the 30,000 plus people who go to Burning Man. Interestingly enough talked at length ( about Peak Oil and the 9-11 lies ) with Greg while watching the burning of the man, the big event on Saturday night. The burn night is mezmerizing in its scope, colors, and sound, and huge beyond description. When I arrived at the event on Monday, the beginning of last week, it was just about dark, with an enormous dust storm brewing at the big line at the entrance. Took a while to get into Black Rock City with the " white out " conditions. Then on Wednsday, after a clear, warm and relatively calm day, as I was sitting at my favorite haunt, the Center Camp, I looked out from under the tent structure towards The Man and there was this Monsterous dust devil, really like a mini tornado it was so huge. Never seen any dust devils out there anything close to that big. It wound around Black Rock City and finally came through Center Camp with a rush of winds and dust, then moved on. Then around 5PM, this cool super strong wind came in from the east, bringing with it great amounts of thick dust, and basically brought everthing to a standstill for a couple of hours. Even the long lines of people driving there vehicles into Burning Man were stopped during this time, since you couldn't see to drive. I just wrapped up in my surrongs, with my dust mask and swim goggles on, and watched the interesting images of folks trying to find there way around in all that dust. Heard it was the biggest dust event in 9 years at Burning Man, lucky me :-) Well after that the weather was utterly splendid, and the night of the Big Burn, was exceptionally warm, to the delight of all naked Burners, like me :-) Jobe, not sure what you were referring to as me taking my " remote " ? So far on my Burning Man adventures, I have always left my " TV Remote " at home :-) I took 5 rolls of 35mm film, did some video, and some digital camera shots too. I'll put up some photos at Wizard's pictures when I get a chance. My scanner is down write now so I'll have to get that fixed to get the 35mm pics into the computer. My wife clipped out an article for me to read in last Saturday's Daily Press about Burning Man, on page B8, with a photo that looks from Center Camp, down the street called Six Oclock, with The Man on the Hope and Fear ( this years theme ) structure below him, and of course, its dusty :-) I went up on the top platform just below The Man on Friday night, which provides a fantastic view of all the night time activities within the Explanade ( center ring of the city ) and stayed till the closed down the structure around 11:30PM Friday night, so they could get things prepared for the Saturday Burn. I spent many long hours enjoying the delights, sights, and sounds at Center Camp. One stage there features lots of music and other strange and wonderful entertainments. Another stage within this structure features people speaking on all sorts of subjects, peoms, philosophy, crazy rantings, you name it :-) Drum circles form there most times of the day, with people dancing to the rythms produced. The central part of Center Camp is a big open ring where peformances, excercise of all varieties, various twirling and juggling, and alot of other striking things go on all the time. So Center Camp is literally a Whirlwind of Fun for me, and such a rewarding environment, where I like to just sit quietly, watch, and think of many things :-) Just in front of Center Camp this year there where these three very large metal sculptures, made of all these various shapes of metal put together in the form of three women, one praying on her knees, one standing tall with her hands reached up to the skies, and the last on its knees, with hands a face pressed to the earth. At night the hands of the tall one were always lit with fire, providing an inspiring image burned in my memory, that will always remind me of my ephemeral adventure at Burning Man 2006!
