We had to get up early Sunday morning for strike, which is something that they take very seriously at Pink Heart. We put on our grubby work clothes and jumped right in to dis-assembling the Pink Lounge with a bunch of people. I spent a bunch of time pulling down and un-knotting pink fabric that had been draped in various places around the shade structure, and then I helped Terri clean out the freezer that had held the ice cream while we gave it away. That was a disgusting and difficult cleaning job considering that it was covered in melted ice cream that had combined with dust and dried, and we couldn’t just hose it out. After that I mooped (picked up any and all bits and pieces of things that didn’t belong on the playa) and wiped and schlepped and generally tried to make myself useful wherever it was needed, until finally most everything was gone and it was time for Josh and I to turn our attention to breaking down our own stuff and mooping our own camp.
It had been our intention to do all the breakdown and then just leave our yurt and bed up so that we could stay to watch the Temple burn that night, and get a few hours of sleep before leaving BRC early Monday morning. But as we neared completion on our own teardown and packing, we both realized that we were kind of done and decided to just pack everything and leave during the burn. We didn’t want to repeat the experience we had had the previous year where we had to wait for 8 hours to get out of the city, and when we checked the radio it was saying that there was hardly any wait, so it seemed like a good time to go, even though it was getting kind of late. We said farewell to our friends that were still there, and got in the car and headed out around 9pm.
We had pretty smooth sailing out of the city, only stopping for about an hour at the end of the gate line. When we finally hit pavement we were hungry and had to pee, so we stopped off in one of the small towns along the way at a roadside stand to have Indian tacos (which are really more like thick frybread with lettuce, tomato and meat on top). The food was hot and tasty and we chatted with a few other burners who had also stopped, so overall it turned out to be a good transitional experience that I would do again next time (I don’t know why we never tried it before, eagerness to get in and out I guess). We stopped again at Love’s for gas and texted our friends and family that we’d gotten out safely, and then pretty much had a straight shot home in the dark without any incidents of note. By the time we got close to home Josh was super tired and we were a little worried about falling asleep at the wheel but we pushed on through and made it home around 5am. Everyone was still asleep at our house so we had a quick shower (oh bliss!) and crawled into our quiet, soft bed (oh super bliss!) for a few hours.
And now, as per custom, it’s time for the bullet list summary of lessons learned and final thoughts about this year’s burn:
- We’re kind of getting this burner prep thing down. We have most of our equipment and survival strategies down, so we can focus on improving our experience instead of “oh god what’s going to happen and how do I do this and is everything going to be ok”. That’s really reassuring.
- Rain and other uncontrollable weather events are not as scary or difficult to deal with as you think. But it does help to be as prepared as possible.
- When you bring love with you, you find love everywhere.
- You don’t always get the burn you want, but you get the burn you need. Clearly Josh and I needed to spend some heart time together.
- Camping with a group of people committed to being as mature, responsible, real and loving as possible while at the same time sucking all the marrow out of life is definitely my favorite way to do Burning Man.
- Giving people something delicious is really, really satisfying.
- Self-love is good too. Drink, eat, sleep, and sit on your butt if you need to...forget about FOMO.
- Naps are key. Finding (or making) a space that’s comfortable enough for daytime naps will save your butt.
- I like making costume pieces, especially the fabric mosaic kind of stuff I’ve done the last two years. I want to do more of this.
- Hugs are awesome. More hugs are clearly the answer to personal, familial and world peace.
- It takes courage to sacrifice something—anything—to a volcano.
- Change the mirror, change the perspective.
- I just have to keep on shining that awesome Supernova light, and not let fear or judgments block the light for too long (if at all).
- Trampolines are awesome....in small doses.
- Indian tacos are tasty. Try again next year.
[Full Set of Caravansary Pictures on Flickr]