What We Saw At Burning Man

Burning Man Chapter 1 Dedicated to Smackey Jack SATURDAY AUGUST 24 2013 6:00am and we're off, Greg was a real taskmaster, but we shoved off, and on time. Since our destination was almost 600 miles away and everything we had read indicated a long wait to get onto the Playa Greg and I decided to stop in Winnemucca, at a motel, then leave around four in the morning hopefully putting us past Gerlach around eight in the morning, prepared to wait most of the day to get in. Greg was remaining optimistic about check-in, but everything we were reading in The Jackrabbit Speaks" was promising incredibly long waits. Unfortunately we were not able to get signed into one of the theme camps early enough, so we'll have to camp in an area set aside for campers who aren't affiliated with any theme camps. Although Jess was upset and disappointed, Greg insisted on going forth with the Hobbit idea anyway taking a more practical approach. All that cammo netting and the fake grass mats and plastic leaves will keep the trailer cooler, we won't have to run the generator so much." Greg also promised to find a spot facing a major street so more people would see our set-up… As we crossed the Utah desert, we reviewed the rules, and what we could expect upon arrival. Greg had packed the truck and trailer so the inspectors wouldn't have to make a mess checking for drugs, guns and fireworks. "Reading between the lines," observed Greg, "There will be a lot of "screw-up's running around all the lights work the trailer lights all work, we'll top off in Winnemucca, and we've got the small cooler in the back seat with water and snacks to munch on while we wait." From what we were reading in the official newsletter, the cops will be out in force looking for any excuse to arrest someone, still, the whole thing sounded like it would be a blast. We finally arrived at our motel in Winnemucca, staying at our favorite…Super 8. Rather than pay for two rooms Greg volunteered to sleep in the trailer, as well as allowing him to keep an eye on things while Jess and I slept in the room. It was quite hot outside, so we all holed up in the room, the place didn't have a pool, which seemed rather odd considering the heat. Greg went ant topped off the truck as well as go over everything before we left in the morning. We walked to a nearby restaurant for supper watched TV fore awhile, then hit the sack early as we wanted to be on the road by 4:30 in the morning. We managed to get off in fine style traveling west on route 49, a two-lane secondary road now handling more traffic that it did in a whole year. From the headlights both in front of us and behind, we weren't he only ones with the same idea. Greg kept to a steady pace, his snowplowing experience driving for UDOT coning in rather handy. However, some i***t in front of us seemed to be traveling too fast for conditions, and probably wasn't watching for loose stock wandering around. Unfortunately, Greg couldn't help it and clipped several jackrabbits as they darted out in front of us. Luck was smiling on us as the i***t in front of us pulled off in Jungo for some reason allowing us to roll on by, but we still had roughly 60 miles or so until Gerlach. The sun was now coming up in the east, casting a beautiful dawn light over the desert. "Are you two still planning on walking around naked," asked Greg. Knowing what he was up to, I replied, "Oh absolutely, did you know Jess and I plan to attend the virgin sacrifice for p***y riot next Thursday?" Greg turned to me, and even though it was dark I could just make out an odd look on his face, meanwhile snickering came from the back seat. After a moment of silence, Greg replied with, "Sorry I asked." It seemed like hours passed, but as we got closer to Gerlach the traffic started bunching up, it was now approaching 8;00 in the morning, by now we were listening to the radio for information, slowly but surely we were creeping up on the apex just before the gate. In the end, we were extremely fortunate in that we only had to wait two hours before we handed over our tickets and had the volunteers inspect our truck and trailer. Greg was smart in arranging everything geared to an easy inspection, we didn't have anything illegal and had our s**t together, in another hour we were directed to our assigned camping area, praise the Lord! We were here." After locating a decent site (pretty open criteria here), we unhooked the truck and began the task of putting up the framework for the cammo net. One of Greg's buddies told him about a huge government surplus salvage yard down near Salt Lake. They went down there one Saturday and picked up a freestanding framework expressly for covering vehicles with cammo netting. It took us around two hours to get everything set up, the netting properly spread, and the fake grass mats properly placed. Greg had previously constructed a wooden framework that anchored to the metal framework for the netting. This acted as the doorframe, with a round door made from light plywood and painted to look old and worn. The netting was stapled to the wooden frame and once we were done it really looked interesting, and we started getting complements for our "Hobbit House." Everything was anchored down with stakes and since there was an area between the trailer and the netting, the sun's heat was dissipated. Each of us had a bicycle, Justin letting Jessica borrow his mountain bike, while Greg picked up a couple from a guy who fixed up bikes from ones he found in peoples trash or police auctions. After lunch, we changed into what would be practically our "uniforms" for the next week, Jess and I wore short-short cut-off jeans switching between tee shirts or a bikini top. Jess wore a pair of cowboy boots while I dragged out my old TAC boots from the Marine Corps, which were well suited to this environment. Greg wore what he'd been promising ever since the decision was made to come here, and that was a shemagh, actually one that he wore in Afghanistan. It was an Arab head covering that protected your head from the heat as well as offering dust protection. He also wore a keffiyeh, which was a decorative rope circlet around the head covering keeping it in place. Changing off between tinted dust goggles and sunglasses, he wore a beat up pair of cut-offs made from an old set of desert MARPAT fatigues. Jess and I started with cowboy hats and sunglasses, but as the week progressed, we started getting dust storms that tested our netting and framework. At this point, I gave in and started wearing a hijab, which was the woman's version of the shemagh, along with dust goggles I had from the 'Stan. Jess tried to stick with her hat and a dust mask, but in the end gave in and fashioned a hijab from some material she traded for. Therefore, once everything was squared away we all went off in our own directions, Greg went to check out where he could volunteer his carpenter skills, Jess and I went off in search of adventure. Jess and I were immediately struck by the immensity of it all. We'd seen the You-Tube videos, and the birds-eye views of Black Rock city we could see why bicycles were so important. At first, we just rode around our immediate area establishing landmarks and where we were in relation to everything else, then as we got more confident, we expanded our travel. One thing became immediately apparent, I hadn't ridden a damn bicycle in a very long time, and although pedaling it wasn't that hard, getting your body back to doing something it hasn't done in a long time wasn't easy, my legs and hips were still sore for days after we had left. Jessica had expressed interest in getting involved in street theatre so we kept an eye out for a theme camp dedicated to that endeavor. I had an app on my I-phone providing a large map as well as listings for the various camps so that certainly made things easier. As we rode around I started noticing an awful lot of camps devoted to drinking, how they could just give away all that booze intrigued me, gin was cheap and tonic…Well, that could be easily watered down, but still it could to be rather expensive. One of the places we stopped billed itself as some sort of s****l wellness clinic, I wasn't quite sure what they were up to other than offers of booze for Jess and I as well as a lot of leering at both of us as well as suggestive remarks to Jessica that even made her nervous. Suffice to say, we didn't stick around. We came across a Barbie death camp and wine bistro where I was offered a small cup of wine, and we sat in an over-stuffed sofa and chatted with a couple of lesbians. Moving on, we started hearing some very funky music coming from a camp that seemed to be offering nothing but dancing. The beat was enticing, so we stopped, and soon Jess and I were really getting down. Both of us started getting a little carried away, but it couldn't be helped, we stuck around for almost an hour. The last place we stopped should have been the first; it was the Black Rock Academy offering an immersion program for first timers. For the next hour and a half, Jess and I learned all sorts of interesting things became aware of events and programs as well as chatting with some very interesting people. We talked with a couple not unlike Krin and Terry who were from Las Vegas who were on their sixth time here offering us some insider tips that were to come in very useful. Among some of the things we talked about were spotting the various "characters" and those with "hidden" agendas especially in Jessica's case being a teenager susceptible to "come-on's" and "innocent" offers. It was dark when we returned to our camp almost missing it but spotting the big green mound from another street. There was a note from Greg stating that he wouldn't be back until later, finding work at the gate helping with the check-in's. He soon arrived "home" and since we were all pretty beat settled on sandwiches and some soup for supper. We sat and discussed our day for an hour, or so, by then Jess had climbed into the bunk over the table and had fallen asleep. I covered her up and kissed her cheek then joined Greg in the bedroom, where we fell asleep in each others arms… Jessica was still asleep when Greg and I got up the next morning, only waking when she smelled the coffee boiling. Greg was soon out the door on his way back out to help at the gate. Before he left however he did an imitation of an imam calling the faithful to prayer wearing his shemagh. Jess and I each took quick showers then sat down and decided where we would go today. Throwing caution to the wind we stopped at Black Rock Body and Paint, where each of us had our boobs painted up, Jessica was a bit taken aback by the fact that I let her get painted as well, but by now, both of us were really starting to get into the spirit of the thing and felt like "letting it all hang out." When they got done, each of us had intricate murals painted on our chests and stomachs that made it hard to actually see our "bewbies," Jessica even had her face painted to resemble a cat including the whiskers, causing both of us to giggle as we left. I had told Jess that I was thinking of going "topless" for a bit but this was certainly a clever way to do it. About this time, the wind started to blow up covering us with choking dust and diminishing our body art somewhat, but if these dust storms were to continue, we were going to have to do something. Jessica and I put a lot of miles on our bikes that second day making a lot of stops at camps where the music was good and happy people were dancing. The fact that both of us were topless but in a way were not only added to the excitement and interest. Naturally, the guys all wanted to get close in and get a better look at us. Jessica seemed a little bothered by it but ended up taking her cue from me. Call me an irresponsible "mom" but both of us agreed that we were going for broke and as they told us at the academy, "get right in there and participate don't be shy, assert yourself, so that's what we were doing. There were certainly a lot of camps serving alcohol, some I might have visited had I been by myself or with Greg. Since I was trying to set a good example, we steered clear of these places, besides that there seemed to be quite a number of people hanging around them with drinking problems, and I certainly didn't need Jessica getting involved in something like that. When the wind wasn't blowing so hard, we would check out the various pieces of art stationed around Black Rock city. Jessica liked a metal sculpture of a coyote, both of us liked the sculpture of the nude woman called "Truth is Beauty," and I liked one that was done by Texas CORE. Before I continue with my narrative, I have to stop and point out just how f*****g HOT! It was out there. Like everybody else on the playa, we were drinking copious amounts of water. "I haven't drunk this much water since I was in Afghanistan," I said to Jessica. Since we were now extremely dirty and sweating, or body paint was a mess. We then returned to our "Hobbit house" and took very brief showers washing off the body paint. Jess hated to give up her "cat face" but it couldn't be helped. Putting on our bikini tops we returned to the "fight" as the afternoon progressed it only seemed to get hotter, so we called it a day, and returned to our camp. Greg returned around an hour later telling us all about "Thunder dome" and Barter town from the Mad Max movie. "I'm free tomorrow, and I would love to see this," he said, "But we'll have to get "in costume." Before we left I accused Greg of bringing everything but the kitchen sink case in point, motorcycle leathers. On a whim, he had tossed in all sorts of worn out biker leather and encouraged me to do the same. Kathy had a bunch of worn out stuff she let me borrow, even a vest that fit Jess. Since the snaps were all broken I punched holes where the snaps had been and ran a leather shoelace through them creating a leather camisole, wearing nothing underneath I opened the vest up just enough to spark interest. I had also dyed an old sheet black so I cut two sections from it and made impromptu hijab's one for both Jess and I. Jess wore a leather bikini top with a worn pair if black denim cut-offs along with her cowboy boots. Finishing off our "ensembles" both of us wore black "Bobster" goggles. After we tried everything on and getting the "right" look it was outside to lounge in our camp chairs, enjoy a beer and watch the world go by. Although Jess was under 21 and I was taking a risk I allowed her one beer, "Just keep it hidden when you're not actually drinking it," I told her. So the three of us sat outside our "Hobbit house" and enjoyed the cooling evening air, that's when "Smacky Jack" came into our lives.