Burning Man: Part II - First half of Tuesday

We slept fairly well Monday night after all of the travelling that we did.  However, as we expected, we woke up to the sound of dance music at 8am from the camp a few hundred feet away.  It was still a fine way to wake up. After eating breakfast, Jaime headed out to explore Black Rock City (the name of the community formed at Burning Man which we were now living in).  I stayed behind to finish setting up camp and putting our artful 'tree' together.  On Monday night we just parked the car and setup the tent.  Tuesday morning I covered the car and tent with two attached 12ft x 15ft painter's drop cloths and formed a small shaded area underneath.  The goal was that the car would block most of the wind and the cloths would provide additional shade and protection from the dust.  I also built a small tree using coat hangers and pipe cleaners with an old car rim as the base.  The tree is also attached to the one of the wooden posts supporting the canopy.  On top of the tree I used about 10 solar garden lights to illuminate the area at night.  It worked fairly well and everything stood up to the wind.  The whole cover is tied down to ten 12-inch nails that I hammered into the ground.  In the picture below, you can see phase II; having people paint on the drop cloth to decorate it.  A large party of people painted it later (I'll have photos of that).

It was a modest camp but it worked.  I headed out around 1pm to check out the art as soon as I was done setting up.  The artwork was incredible.  These artists clearly put a lot of thought, time, energy, money, and even sophisticated engineering into these works.  The size of the central art space was immense.  It was a circle with about a one-mile diameter so it took a long time to ride around and there was a lot of art.  I didn't get photos of all of the art but these were the photos that I took during the day.  I'll have some nighttime photos and video that I took on later days.  I'll also be posting links to videos that other people took with much better equipment than what I had.

...A tree made out of animal bones.  Naturally, it has to be on wheels so that its easier to install the artwork.

This sculpture has two rings in the middle that spun in opposing directions.  People were frequently standing on one of the rings and trying to ride it all the way upside-down and around or climbing to the top of the sculpture.  The art was there for people to enjoy it in any way that they preferred.

...A totem pole made out of old oil cans.  This was internally illuminated at night.

This tree was close to forty feet tall and they were still building it when I took this picture.  At night, all of the pieces that were hanging down from the main branches had colored lights that looked as if color was dripping down towards the ground... no, I was not on any drugs if that's what you are thinking!

In addition to this sculpture, you can look off in the background and start to get a sense of how much spare there was for artwork.  I was slowly riding my bike towards the massive temple in the background.

Here you can see the Burning Man shrouded in a dust storm.  It was windy that day and lots of dust periodically filled the air.

...A large bundle of wheat?

...The word "LOVE" in large letters so you can climb on it.

At last, I arrived at the massive, four story, "Temple of Transition."  This is a temporary structure that was burned during the final evening of Burning Man.

The blowing dust always gave an artsy and surreal effect to almost anything out there, especially the temple.

Here I am in front of it.  You can see that I wore ski goggles and a neckerchief to keep out the dust.

It was an incredible structure to see in the middle of a desert.  Within the main chamber at the bottom of the central tower, a large number of bells, gongs, and symbols were being played automatically to create some sort of Buddhist-style prayer song.  You can see one of the gongs in the upper left of the photo below.  People would sit, meditate, sleep, do yoga, and hug in that middle chamber.

It was very peaceful there and the music was almost hypnotizing.  Sorry that I took the video on its side but here is a quick recording of what it sounded like...

I continued my ride to the Pink Heart Camp a short ride away from the temple.  Pink Heart was naturally, entirely pink. There were very comfortable pink furry chairs and couches but the key reason I went there was I discovered that they served Coconut Ice Cream with dried goji berries at 2pm everyday until they ran out.  It was some of the best ice cream and I had ever had.

In Burning Man, people give different things at each camp.  Some provided food like watermelon, lemonade and cookies, snow cones, and others provided classes on massage, meditation, or other random non-traditional courses on philosophy or belief.  Some camps were like schools with presentations by scholars on various subjects.  Others were somewhat booze focused and I was fine with that too.  I loved going to the camp that served bacon and bloody mary's at 11AM everyday, mainly for the bacon.  There was no money exchanged, just good conversation and good company with random strangers.  Despite everything being free, everyone seemed to pitch in to make things happen rather than exploiting or taking advantage.  There was a real feeling of community at Burning Man.  Everyone was very inviting and you could talk to anyone.  Riding my bike or walking down the street, people would always beckon you to join them at their camp and sit for a while and talk or share some food or drink with you.  I made sure to share whatever I had with people when they were at my camp as well.  There was no judgement and people would just accept you for being you.  I had never heard so much polite language with the words you should hear all the time like "please", "thank you," and "your welcome."  It was a welcome break from regular society.  Everyone was walking or biking.  There were no cell phones, laptops, internet, or money.  All you had with you was your ID (so bartenders knew if you were 21), an open-mind, and a good attitude.

Tomorrow I will continue our tour of the artwork and video footage and talk about some of the events that I went to.  Thanks for reading and I hope you have enjoyed it thus far!

Blogging Man... as in my blog is online and I'm going to Burning Man.

Welcome all of you to my blog!  For a long time, I had thought about starting a blog so more people can share in my travels, live vicariously through my experiences (I've had serious requests for this!), and learn more about the development and planning projects that I visit.  Of course, you will still have to tolerate a few bad jokes, puns, and other forms of witty banter but I'll make it worth your while to put up with all of that garbage.

During the next two to three weeks, I will blog about my trip to and from California and my experiences at Burning Man out in the middle of the Black Rock desert two hours north of Reno, Nevada.  My friend Jamie will be accompanying me as we seek out some friends and soon to be friends among the sold out 50,000 attendees who will make up the bustling, temporary metropolis of Black Rock City (BRC).  Since we will be out in the middle of the desert and do not have high-powered equipment that can tap into military satellites or Ted Turner's pinky finger, I will not be able to post anything during the event itself.  This means that from August 29th until September 5th, there won't be any new posts.  Expect a lot of material showing up after September 6th including lots of photos and videos.

The next excursion that you will have to look forward to is a trip to southern Germany.  I will be spending three days in Munich with my roommate Doug (Oktoberfest will be going on), a few days in Freiburg to check out the "best planned city in the world" according to some, and Ingolstadt and Erlangen where I will hopefully get tours of each city from their respective former mayors.  I'm still making arrangements to meet up with the former mayors but I do have my flight booked and a few nights reserved at a hotel in Munich.  I'll have more to write about that trip as we get closer to the middle of September.

For those of you who are not familiar with my current situation, about four days ago I finished my last day working for the Planning Division and Community Development Department at the City of Westminster, Colorado.  For four years, nine months, and twelves days, I did what I could to answer the public's questions and help people get through the planning process.  My coworkers were great (I'm just saying that since many of them are reading this. HA HA!) and I met a lot of interesting people during my tenure.  After all of that time, I had an opportunity to move on and try something new.  Now, I'll be doing some travelling, attempt to work in planning in other capacities such as consulting, and spending a lot of time doing research and writing on urban planning and other related subjects.  No, I did not win the lottery nor do I have a pallet of gold bricks in my garage.  I made a decision to plan ahead for a clean break and now was the best time for me to do it.

I hope I've given all of you enough of a teaser that you will check back later.  Also, I will backfill some material (please, no engineering jokes about what kind of retaining wall I will use) from my three week road trip from July because I have a lot of video and photos from that.  Thank you all for checking out my blog and I'll write as often as I can.  Cheers!