“Dangly Bits” by N&J
Black Rock City (BRC), NV (aug 26/13) – Regarding the departure from Eugene… Left 5 hours late after the scheduled time (5pm). The 5 ton truck tasked to drive had been packed & repacked and was ready to leave. Problem was our fellow BM travelers had not completed loading the kitchen trailer (giant ice maker, convection oven, etc); and ‘Bucket’ (who’s truck would be towing that trailer) did not arrive until very late. Finally had enough hanging around, and pushed off to rendezvous with the others at the schedule stop. Drove to Summer Lake Hot Springs, arriving around 3am: greeted by a chap loosely dressed in a bath robe with his dangly bits, front & centre. Parked & crashed (been going since 8am). OVERSLEPT!!! (now awake, it was 730am), the others were no where to be seen. Thinking they must have drove straight through, J quickly tried out the hot springs (N graciously declined), not ‘hot’ by most standards, but pleasant enough. A quick coffee/tea (or was it beer???) and were again BM bound.
click on pic to enlarge – right/left arrow to scroll thru the gallery
Driving through the arid countryside was lovely, gorgeous vistas abound. Made a water stop at Cedarville CA ($5 filled Gizmo’s water tank). Shared a giant turkey leg, potato salad & (yeah you guessed it) beer, that a local was BBQing at the gas station, a first for N&J. Had to cross numerous mountain passes as the convoy headed east; the truck was so overloaded it slowed to 20-25 mph (Gizmo the VW van felt like a thoroughbred racing up those hills; thanks N for waiting at the top !!!), refueling was constant. As they approached BM decided to ‘error on the side of caution’ and refuel Gizmo while it wasn’t too busy at Gerlach, NV… a very small town 9 miles (15km) from BM. The vehicular onslaught after BM would be insurmountable. Re-stocked the beer inventory (are you detecting a pattern here?!)… and headed to the playa.
As previously mentioned the WiFi connection at Burning Man is spotty at best, when you do finally connect, the speed is, well… slow (2 cans & a tight string come to mind). Getting pics to upload is really difficult if not impossible, don’t even think about video… so they will have to wait until ‘network’ conditions improve, will never complain about Starbucks or McDonald’s internet speed again… ever!!!!