Hello DCR, Sorry you and your Hubby were not able to make it out to Lake Mohave. Ron of the DCV group joined me for the first couple of days. Then another friend Ruth, I met at DCHS years ago joined us with her daughter. The next day my wife and our two daugters came up for the weekend. We had a real nice time, sailing, but mostly doing alot of swimming in the lake waters which were exceedingly pleasant in temperature, felt like swimming in the South Pacific :-) There were thunderstorms around every day though we were never in the middle of any of them. We had a nice private spot tucked back in the trees with lots of shade and good protection from the daily winds that come across the Lake. Our spot was back in a pretty good sized inlet and at night we would get on our rafts and paddle out and travel around to the inlets opening where the winds were usually blowing on into the evening. It was fantastic just laying back on our floats, looking up into the dark sky filled with the abundant stars and the very visible Milky Way that can be see on those clear, desert nights. It quite hot most of the days and very, very humid, like being in Florida in the summer. After a late day sail one day our friend Ruth said she was not feeling well. After Ron and I went out for a late evening raft trip into our little bay, we came back and Ruth indicated that she felt she needed to return to the marina since she was feeling very bad. We took her across and contacted the local paramedics. She was taken to a Las Vegas hospital and stayed there for two days. Apparently her blood chemistry was really off, which could have caused her some serrious problems if we had not taken her back like we did that evening. The high heat and extreme humidity may have had something to do with it. She is well now. The rest of us did fine. On the last evening all of us went up to that cool sand dune you have been to DCR. There were really wonderful thunderstorm clouds around that day and we watched the storms up until sunset while our daughters played in those fine white sands. There are also an amazing amount of interesting rocks around the lake and we did some rock hunting for a while. The fossils of ancient sea life can be found too. My wife found a real nice rock with a shell like fossil but my daugter accidently tossed it out into the desert, oh well :-) Near dark we left the sand dune and made our way back down the lake towards our camp spot while watching a big lightning storm spill out onto Lake Mohave some miles away. We got a great show from Mother Nature that night. I took a number of pictures and they are presently getting developed. After the trip I took care of some things around our homestead here in Apple Valley, and then gathered my things for the trip to Burning Man. The trip up to the Black Rock Desert went well, seemed like a short time in my excitement, even though it took 9 hours to get there. When I arrived on the 27th, in the evening around 9PM it was quite windy with lots of blowing lake dust. I attempted to put up my big tent but finally had to give that up for the evening and retreated into my trucks shell, out of the weather. The next day dawned with calm weather which enabled me to get my tent up and secured. The winds on that vast old Lake Bed came and went during the days of the event. Since all the activity of the people, Art cars, Bicycles etc turn the lake surface into a very fine powder like flour, when the wind blows, there is dust in the air, more or less depending on the winds intensity. As I learned through many conversations, I had experienced basically perfect weather for the 2002 Burning Man, the best for the event ever, as described by many. This year there was more dust storms, white out conditions at times. When it got really dusty I would ride my Playa Cruiser to the up wind side of the these dust storms to wait till things calmed down. My daily routine was to have a good breakfast at camp having some coffee to brighten my eyes :-) Then I would head off to a main place of interaction, The Center Camp, for some more coffee and a couple hours of people watching. There was also intertainment of a vast variety at the Center Camp on a continual basis. Then I would head out into Black Rock City to explore its large expanse of interesting things to see, and a whole host of events and happenings everyday. At times I would have to dodge the latest set of dust clouds that got stirred up from the winds. Saturday, the day they burned The Man ended up being a day of perfect weather. The whole day the activity and energy was like the theme name of this years event, Beyond Belief. Its truly something you have to see to get a full grasp of, even then, you realize your only witnessing just a tiny part of the whole of this event. The Man was on a four story pyramid, The Man standing another four stories higher. The fire when The Man burned was huge! During my visit to Burning Man this year I only took a few pictures since I concentrated my efforts on making a video of the many things I saw. The video provides me a look back to my time at this great event in much more depth than still pictures could. I viewed my video when I got home and am quite pleased with it. I wish there was an easy way to show you all my time at that event with the video. Its not a professional product but does give a good view into many aspects of this event. I do have some trouble holding the video camera steady at points but it would have been too cumbersome to carry a tripod around on my Playa Cruiser. On Sunday after the Big Burn I went out exploring in Black Rock City. I had intended on staying for the nights burn of the Temple Of Honor but was beginning to miss my wife and daughters since I had gone to this event by myself. I did see Frank, who frequents Deep Creek Hot Springs three differant times which was again amazing given that this event, I heard, set a new record attendance of 30,500 people. Late in the day on Sunday I finally decided I would head out, beating the big crowds that would soon be leaving. Just minutes after making my decision, while riding my bike back across the Playa towards my camp site, I saw a big dust storm coming in my direction, the God's had spoken, it was truly time for me to leave :-) This day had been increasingly cloudy and was looking like thunderstorms might be brewing which stir up the winds alot. I got caught by the dust storm before getting back to my truck and rode into the stiff winds and dust, having to stop to put on my dust mask, finding my way throught the streets in dust that got so thick at times I had to stop since I could not see ahead of me. I got back to my truck which was already packed and stuffed my bike into the shell of my truck and headed for the main gate, in the dust and winds. Many other folks also took this dust big dust storm as thier cue to finally leave on that last day of the event. When I got to the surrounding hills where the entrance road finally meets the paved highway I did some of my last video which shows the big dust storm enveloping Black rock city, all you could see was the outer edge of this city, which for a week is the 7th largest city in Nevada. As I drove the many miles home, I wandered back through all of my vivid memories of my experience at Burning Man 2003 :-) DCR, speaking of lightning. Last night there was an extensive thunder storm that I went out to watch which is the storm I believe you speak of above. I went out around 9PM and drove to a point just off HWY 15 between Victorville and Barstow and watched this storm in the distance for about an hour and a half. Given its direction I thought while watching it that you were probably getting heavy rains and quite a show. The Lightning show was stupendous! I had thought I would call you to see if that storm affected you, so you may hear from me by phone soon. More storms are expected today. Well after all of the fun I had over the last few weeks I am currently decompressing, as The Burners would say, and re-adapting to the outside world, its a Deep Dive into Burning Man! The time there is such an intense sensory ride, there's nothing else like it!