This entry explores our experience of having an Airstream at Burning Man: the what, the how and the why. For more about Burning Man as a whole, look at my Burning Man 2011 album.
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| The sign says "Rites of Passage" - the theme for 2011 |
We arrived in the morning, having spent the night outside Sparks. Bart's volunteer Ranger job secured us early admission passes so we weren't stuck in the usual traffic jams at the gate. This picture was taken from a van that we used to pull a trailer with the two mutant vehicles, Roboshaw and Zombie Bait.
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| Airstreamers gathered from around the West. |
As the "Airstreameri and Geologists" theme camp, we were assigned a large area with plenty of space for those trailers that had signed up, as well as for a few more Airstreams that found us early in the week. Space assignment varies from year to year. Some years we have needed a careful layout plan and a shoehorn.
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| Perry gives a geology le |
Theme camps are given reserved space because they provide services or entertainment that helps make Burning Man the vibrant, lively place that it is. Nothing is sold by participants. What we give makes everyone's experience better. We organized a few events for our camp.
Perry gave an open lecture about the geology of the Black Rock desert area, where Burning Man takes place.
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| Flamingo and hedgehog croquet, a la Alice in Wonderland. |
We put our pink flamingos to good use as mallets to hit plastic hedgehogs in a game of croquet that echoed the one played in Wonderland by Alice. The Queen of Hearts would probably have had our heads, but she wasn't there.
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| Playa postcards |
Two Airstreamers prepared and brought postal supplies. There is an official U.S. Post Office at Burning Man. Stamps come from community donations in order to keep the service free to users. Our Airstreamers brought stamps for mailing, as well as rubber stamps and cards for making your own postcard. The rubber stamps were also found to be useful as temporary tattoos.
Another family of Airstreamers brought a cotton candy machine and a wonderful set of circus themed painted panels to add to the festivity. They let Brian try his hand at twirling his own cotton candy. It's harder than it looks.
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| The Pickle has space for clothing storage. |
The Tin Pickle provided sleeping space for our family of four, plus clothing and costume storage and, joy of joys, an inside shower. Bart's water meter below the shower head helped us all limit our showers to 2 gallons or less. Waste water must be evaporated or trucked out. We did a bit of both, since the weather wasn't hot enough for ideal evaporation and our sump pump in the evap pond died midweek.
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| Dressed for a night even |
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| Airstreamers' potluck |
In a place that can be reminiscent of herding cats in a hurricane (not that I've ever done that, mind you), we managed to gather nearly all of us together for a potluck one night. It was a great time of connecting with new and old friends. Burning Man is different for everyone who goes, and Airstreams are a different experience for each owner. We all came together with a feeling of cameraderie that lingers long afterward.
wow, looks like a fun place to be. Did folks bring generators?
ReplyDeleteSome people did. Bart put solar panels on the Pickle, so we have plenty of juice for lights, etc. We covered the windows with Reflectix to keep the heat out. It kept the place comfortable enough for sleeping until around noon. Then we'd let it cool off at night before going to sleep.
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