Night on the Playa

Between the art cars, luminous art work and pimped out bikes, the other worldly feel of Burning man shifts into 5th gear as the sun goes down. A luminous carnival of bizarre sights, attractions, art car parades and aliens taking strolls. A well lit bike is a necessity – as there is major bike traffic and most streets are not lit well.
















My friend Pavel also took some great night shots you can see here on Flikr

Karma
Chet versus Tom

I am famous in my circle for my “propriety field” Some is partially deliberate. Some is just karma. Past visits to places noted to debauchery and such have suffered the chilling winds of my presence as people suddenly lose interest in whatever they should [ not ] have been doing. And don’t even THINK about any kind of gambling or casino stuff. One of my travel mates, Chet and I discussed this topic this morning. Chet has the opposite field as I have seen in people before. Strange bizarre events and behavior seem to just unfold in front of him like a picnic blanket buffet. So I speculated how our two fields would work in front of each other.

Salt Lake Utah / Long[er] Day

It was a good thing it was dark when we arrived last night. As it turns out – the “road” up to the campsite was bordered by sheer cliffs. A vertigo heaven.







































We did a small backtrack on 80 – to check out a public beach area of the Salt Lake. Ashley and Chet from Pavel's group decided they rally wanted to try swimming in it and managed to wade out a good quarter mile to a spot where they could swim.



After getting back on the road and a stop at Bonneville flats, we started the long ascent into Nevada. We stopped at Elco Nevada to hit the grocery store And get water for Pavels group. Water is heavy. So after locating a water tap behind a gas station, The group carefully filled a 55 gallon drum [ with the odor of Dr. Pepper ] sitting in Pavel’s van. Due to weight concerns, Rachael and Ashley rode in my van along with some equipment as we climbed three more mountain passes around 11:30 pm Sunday night. Our final stretch on route 80 took us into Fernley Nevada. The last two of hours of the highway stretch was tough. the 13 hour driving days caught up with me and I really started to loose it. So I gunned the van and pulled ahead of the group to get into Fernly and get out of the car. I really think I lost a marble or two in front of everyone. I thought if I saw another destination listed as “only” another 369 miles, I was going to royally lose it. After a break at the gas station, The festival was only 80 miles away, so the group figured we would push on and make a late night entrance. So we headed to Gerlach up a narrow 2 way rural road for 77 miles. 77 miles. I can drive to Buffalo in a shorter distance. On a back road full of cows. Of course, the festival opened the gates At 12:00am – So traffic on the 77 miles was tight. And also full of idiots. We pulled up to a 3 mile [?] line outside of town of people waiting to get into the festival. SO after finally getting into the festival And then going to Will Call to get our tickets [ 2 hours] we finally entered the gates at sunrise.