Burning Man 2019 - Metamorphosis

So...

Burning Man...

We grabbed Christian and Greg, bought some groceries, stopped by some thrift stores for tutus and other silly things, grabbed our rental bikes and headed to the playa.

Not sure how we fit everything in and on the Saturn...

The drive in was a breeze. We got to the gate right after the gate opened and were looking for a spot to camp in 2.5 hours (usually it takes 5-6 hours).

By time camp was setup, it was almost sunrise so we road our bikes around the playa to get oriented before it got too crazy. Then the sun came up and we took a well-deserved nap.

And then the burn commenced. Lots of things happened...

Photos from here on out are credited to myself, Camille, Greg and Kevin. Don't ask me which ones are which, I don't know.

This art was one of our favorites. It was filled with rooms with different themes and things to look at and explore. They burned it down Friday night.

Bunch of cool art.

We ended up helping a camp finish the fabrication of their art car. It was a giant bee covered in flowers and LEDs.

El Pulpo Mechanico made a brilliant return to Burning Man after taking a few years off. All of the arms, mouths and eyes move and it shoots fire from basically everywhere.

We snuck into the 747 in the beginning of the week and got to play around in the cockpit. Pretty surreal experience sitting in the pilot's seat.

Lots of swinging and spinning things.

El Pulpo stopped by the bar that we were at. Was nice getting to look at it during the day and admire all of the little details up close.

Our camp at sunset. We made a cozy little place for the week. It stayed surprisingly cool and handled all of the dust storms magnificently. 

Camille always wanted to try riding a mechanical bull. We happened to ride our bikes past a camp that had one! It wasn't operating at the time but they were nice enough to get it going for us. 

The 747 was towed around the playa all week. Kinda crazy seeing an airplane full of dancing people slowly make its way around the desert. 

Camille and I found this really cool piece of art. They had a keyboard in the front where they keys were connected to various windows in the building. When you pressed the keys different windows would shoot fire. 

Camille and I did some roller skating too. She was much better than I.

We were at a wine and cheese event near our camp and some friendly Italians across the street kept bringing over fresh handmade pizzas. I asked them about bringing some cheese from the event back to their camp to make a 4 cheese pizza. They let me make it myself.

It came out pretty good!

A view of part of the city from some scaffolding. 

There was a birthday cake art sculpture that was burned on Thursday night. It came with a fantastic fireworks show!

Then the little western town art burned. It came with a huge turnout of people, very similar to the man burn.

And then the man burned Saturday night.

Afterwards we went back to camp with our friendly Dutch neighbors. We all realized we had tons of booze leftover so we decided to make our own bar to mix fresh drinks for anyone passing by. It was fun to have a little party and give out a bunch of drinks. A perfect way to end the week.

We took a power nap and headed out just after sunrise. Once again getting off the playa was thankfully smooth and easy. We drove straight to Truckee CA to jump in Donner Lake and wash ourselves off followed by some rock scrambling/hiking at Donner Summit.

We camped in some National Forest on the way to Sacramento.

One more little dip before Christian and Greg grabbed their flights home.

Aaand a little bit of beer on the way too.

Then they flew home and Camille and I headed north!

Chicago to Nevada

Holy Moly!

I've neglected the blog as any free time I've had has been spent working and making money. Having a job can really shift priorities. Not sure why I thought it was a good idea to start working again.

I'm going to split up the last month and a half into a few different posts for your sanity as well as mine.

Allow me to be brief.

I last left you in Chicago, IL. From there we headed to Badlands National Park.

My girlfriend is as beautiful as a double rainbow.

A rare selfie moment.

We really wanted to see a herd of buffalo. Didn't happen, but we saw this lonely old guy taking a break in the distance.

Fat prairie dogs!

Then we stopped at Mount Rushmore. Last time I was here I didn't want to pay the $5 entry fee, but I'm glad Camille wanted to see it up close. If anything, just to capture this majestic moment.

A random hail storm blew through. They all look so sad now!

A perspective you don't see too often, Mount Rushmore from a distance.

Then driving around Custer State Park was really nice. It's known for having lots of wildlife, especially the kinds that have gotten used to tourists.

We also visited the Needles and did some hiking in the area.

Then off to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Have always wanted to go there to see it in person and to climb it. This was the first night on our trip that we paid for a campground (because I had a meeting the next day and needed Wifi...). It was a great first choice for a paid campground as it was super open and quiet and provided a great view of the tower.

So the next day we decided to climb a few pitches of one of the most iconic routes on the tower. It was really cool to climb on these huge phonolite columns. We only climbed about a third of the way to the top because I had a meeting at 2, but the views from there were still spectacular.

Then we drove to Ten Sleep, WY to visit Sara. She's been living there for about a month, climbing in the canyon and working at the brewery in town. For a few bucks we were able to park and sleep at the brewery which was in a lovely location next to plenty of red sandstone. And more importantly, for a few bucks more we were able to take hot showers!

And the climbing was really fun. Endless limestone cliffs!

Then we headed towards Colorado. Found some beautiful places along the way!

And some awesome camping spots along the way.

And then Rocky Mountain National Park. There's currently an infestation of bark beetles that are killing lots of the trees which is pretty sad. But we still found some nice areas in the park.

Then we spent some time in Denver, hanging out with Sebastian and helping my old burning man camp load things onto the truck. They graciously let us load all of our water (60 gallons!) and some other camping things onto the truck. Without that I don't know how we would have gotten everything to the burn.

Then Camille and I made our way towards Sacramento to pick up Greg and Christian from the airport. We stopped for one last "bath" in Lake Tahoe. 

And then Burning Man!

To be continued....