First Day - settling in

Gate to get in
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After a night on the bus, we were awoken by surreal music, purposely loud to wake us up for sunrise and our approach to Black Rock City. Amazing to say - mountains, sand, a gate and then camp grounds and art cars and the Green Tortoise camp. Kitchen structure amazing, parachute canopy lounge, welcoming. We set up camp and headed to the kitchen for breakfast burritos.

After breakfast, we jumped on our bikes and went off to explore. The city is set up like a semi circle with "The Playa" in the middle, vast and amazing (forgive me if I use the same adjectives - you can just insert the word amazing before anything I mention, as well as unbelieveable, inspiring or just plain crazy). Art installations are scattered out with the main camp "Center Camp" in front of the playa. The only things you can purchase anywhere are ice and coffee, although Green Tortoise provides a cheap shuttle to the nearby city of Gerlach for supplies. We looked for a few friends at other camps and basically rode our bikes for hours and hours. I haven't gotten that much excercise in awhile. It was hot, but being on the bike made it bearable. After dinner at our camp, we went back out on our bikes. I was amazed by all of the lights and people and energy of the city. It's hard to explain - photos only give you a glimpse.

Jess and her bike
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Our favorite thing which made me laugh somehow everytime was a line of fire that would shoot up loud and bright, separated by a few feet one after the other. We were standing in kind of a doorway and hung out there for an hour before i realized that perhaps it's not a good idea to inhale the fumes. A funny moment was when I tried to find words to describe Burning Man (which is hard to do). I said to Jess that it's like a huge playground for grown ups. She said "don't cheapen it Jenica, it's about the art." looking at her in her glow bracelets, costume jewelery, and red wig,etc, I started to laugh and said "oh really, look at you." It is about a lot of things and that's what is so great about it.

Fun in the desert
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We rode our bikes out to "the waffle" a huge art installation made of tiny pieces of wood (will insert more information later) which was lit up green at night and turned into a sort of club. We stayed in there for a little bit before making our way back to camp. At 2am, we were one of the only ones asleep.