On learning I failed to get Glastonbury tickets my colleague said ‘ahh forget Glastonbury’. Lets go to go ‘ Burning Man’. I was totally grabbed by this wild idea but unsure if it was a wind up. I sounded her out when we were next on shift together.
It appears the festival started in 1986 as a beach bonfire near San Francisco. However it moved to its current location in 1991.
The immersive art event is now held in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. In this arid expanse which is both remote & dusty participants focus on radical self expression, art & community.
Burning Man is probably not for the faint hearted. Nevertheless it attracts around 80.000 people who ‘build’ a community for the week.
The Playa is the dry lake bed where the ‘city’ is constructed. The Man is an effigy which is burnt at the end of the festival.
There are 10 guiding principles that include :
- Radical Inclusion
- Gifting
- Decommodification
- Radical Self-reliance
- Radical Self-expression
No Joke
Turns out she wasn’t joking. This triggered a set of actions in motion that resulted in the booking of a motorhome & flights.
Ahgast at the prospect of shelling out $1600 upfront for tickets. We decided to play the official ‘lottery system’ where they would be around $500.
Given the event is in Nevada it seemed sort of appropriate to take a gamble. Sadly we played & lost due impart to a shaky internet connection.
The link below is a short clip of us approaching Pyramid Lake. Black Rock is the other side of the mountains that you can see. This would be the closest we got to Burning Man territory.
Undeterred we decided that as we had got that far it seemed a shame to abandon the mission completely.
So with Plan A dead in the water so to speak we needed an alternative. Armed with my faithful Google maps I scuttled back to the virtual drawing board & came up with Plan B.
A Road Trip is Born
Colleagues at work watched & listened somewhat agog at the unfolding plans. Possibly a little sceptical that we would actually carry them out.
Running the almost inevitable gauntlet Thema & Louise gibes. We just smiled enigmatically & firmed up the details of our impending odyssey.
Given we had never been on vacation together to other sit appeared a mad thing to do. We had signed ourselves up for the best part of 3 weeks in a camper van. Still we were game to give it a go.
Turns out we were really on the same page for road tripping. As we made our way airport we found much to chat and laugh about. All of which set the tone for the whole journey.