my plan had been to drive for a few hours until about the washington/oregon border and get a room for the night. i tried to pursue this option but was appalled at the prices i was being quoted. $130 for a night? are you high? it dawned on me for the first time that i was trying to get a last minute room on a friday night in places where getting shitfaced at the hotel was the only form of entertainment. i drove some more and checked out the next place, but it was the same situation. i finally gave up and decided to motor through the night with daimoku and coffee. in retrospect, this was one of my more dumbfuck ideas. “hmmm, let’s see i’ve been up since 6:00 am after a restless sleep, worked a full day, spent the last several hours doing manual labor….i know, let’s just drive the most boring stretch of road full of tweaked semi drivers, without sleep!” i did take a couple of short, uncomfortable naps at rest stops (rest stops are the best thing ever; whoever came up with the idea should have a stamp or something) but all in all i was tired and cranky as the sun came up.
my mood improved when my radio station scanning revealed a lady talking about the spam festival that was happening all day a few towns away. (bring the whole family!) only in america would we have an actual parade celebrating processed meat leftovers. i also felt better when i started seeing fellow burners on the road. this one car was so overloaded with gear, it looked like a dr. seuss cartoon, complete with a tarp, holding on for dear life, flapping a good car length behind them.
but, my mood went the other way when i realized that the rental was leaking coolant. i don’t know about you but i’m not about to take a car leaking coolant into the desert with no services. this meant looking forward to dealing with swapping cars in the bay. as my fatigue increased exponentially, the rest stop naps seeming to just make me more tired, i was getting pretty agro as i finally turned west to meet up with dbug.
i won’t bore you with all of the details on trying to find dbug, who had decided not to be where he said he would be, who had in fact decided to take his vanagan with bad brakes across the bridge into the city so that he couldn’t drive back, who had given me directions that forced me into a good 3 hours of unnecessary bay area mind numbing traffic just to find out i had to go back the way i came to meet up with him. to say that i was in a bad mood as i drove through the city i hadn’t lived in in about 10 years trying to find a fucking payphone, having to piss like a racehorse, with the safety pin in my lame shorts deciding that that very moment was the best time to come undone and stab me in the side…..you get the idea. remember, at this point i hadn’t really slept in about 36 hours. i was ready to skin dbug alive with tweezers and throw him in a blender.
the world changed for the positive once i’d finally caught up with dbug and v. i was about three bowls in when i realized that i was done with driving, that i could finally relax. we hung out at v’s helping him trick out his ride for his burn, though given my state i don’t know that i actually helped much. at some point we ate the most delicious soup i’ve ever tasted and decided not to drive back across the bridge that night. i ended up boondocking, crashing like an elephant in the back of dbug’s vanagan that was parked at a wierd angle. i felt a thousand times better the next morning, human even. sleep is kind of funny that way.
for me, the bay is really the perfect transition zone for burning man. most importantly, it helps me prepare psychologically for the impending week of delightful chaos. sunday was all about getting into true party mode, getting my replacement vehicle (kind of a muscle car mazda, a big step up from the ‘economy’ model i’d been driving), and doing some final equipment prep. i rounded out my clothing needs with some fortuitous trips to a couple of clothing stores on haight. the big find was this pair of green parachutish pants with huge dress-like folds, think of mariachi arms on steroids wrapped around your legs. they are by far the coolest piece of clothing i have ever owned. i also picked up some blacklight false eyelashes, lou reed style, and a couple of tunics. finally, my wardrobe was ready. in the end i had three under-the-bed bus tubs of clothes: one normal for the to and from (to be left in the car), one playa basics (including said parachute pants), and one with all of the accoutrements (junk jewelry, glow sticks, goofy hats, temporary tattoos, hair coloring, etc.)
once the errands were done, we went over to hang out with space kitty in berkeley. she is an accomplished hooper who, like dbug, was skipping this year but helping others prepare. she had had a lot of fun helping her roommate get ready for her virgin burn, which included a bike covered in pez dispensers. space kitty and dbug patiently sat through my many fire hoop questions on fuel, safety, what do i do if i catch on fire, yada yada yada. afterwards, i finally got the opportunity to hoop for a bit, loosening up my tired travel muscles. space kitty told me that burning man was going to be hoop camp for me, that regardless of where i was in basic skills, i’d need to hoop ten times better there. (boy was she right) after a relaxing evening, dbug and i split for his housitting gig for a good night’s sleep. i slept like the dead on the couch, intermittently joined by a three-legged cat.
the next morning, now ready to party my fucking ass off, i bid a grateful adieu to dbug and headed east for my final destination. it was a good 6 hour drive with intermittent traffic. i stopped in reno for gas and grub then headed north, carefully watching my speeds through the podunk towns. the closer i got to the event, the more law enforcement of every ilk i saw, complete with K-9 units. i was chanting very strongly not to be stopped for any reason. wink. wink.
finally, yes, finally, after all of that, i could barely see the man like a triumphal arch in the dusty distance. as i listened to the greeter info i couldn’t stop smiling. when another greeter shouted out ‘welcome home’ i knew she was right. i was finally there. and all i kept thinking about was that i couldn’t wait to get out of my normal clothes.
