The trip to Burning Man

This photo says it all for me. Our faces are clear and somber and the snail is a little shaky.

It’s now 4am on Sunday (our plan was to leave on Sat. am) we are loaded and have manage to add some of the little things that later in the trip we will all be glad we took the extra time to do. The upgrades include: the palanquin, a chain to keep the door in the open position while driving, a 1 watt radio station, stairs/ladder to get into the palanquin, a rear view mirror, 500watt Navy spot light, a dash compass, and the Sound of the Golden Mean. The car looks great, drives amazingly well, and everything seems to work. Most of us have not slept more than a few hours for the past 2-3 days and we have just finished a 18 hour work day.

Off we go with high hopes of reaching our camp late Sunday am.

A few miles into our trip and the rear tire on the van blows and throws rubber all over the freeway. Our only spare fits the front, so we change the front tire, place it on the rear only to discover the other rear is flat too. We manage to drive a 100 feet more before gravity takes over. AAA arrives just after dawn to tow us to a station. It’s Sunday and the only tire store that will be open is Firestone and they don’t open for 2 more hours!

Firestone was not helpfull and honestly rude about our now tire less van on their door step. I did get a chance to use their bathroom and make a call to West Oakland’s J&O tires.

James hooked us up with a new set of Firestone tires (the ones Firestone said they were out of), and did it in style, completed by hand, and heavy Metal rock (full blast) right in front of Firestone and Sears at 10am. The flag on his truck was a reminder of the real “Spirit of America”. Security made a few stops by to see how long we planned to camp there, and we assured them we would be gone by weeks end. Yes we were home!

One more stop in Reno. Right in front of the worst section of cement lined hwy the van blew another tire. Lauren saved the day, using all of her race experience, and steered a front tire blow out though an exit. More rubber flew, this time right into our windshield. The second we stop Kyrsten was on the phone with Pep Boys arranging tires, Christopher was unloading the spare and I had the front tire off. We were a well oiled crew. The adrenaline was still flowing when we hit the road and headed for Pep Boys. 5pm

With 4 new tires we finally pull off the freeway at Fernely to get gas.

We arrived at Gerlach at 9pm, 17 hours on the road! We loaded up Christopher’s trailer, got water and dropped the snail at our friend Don’s house for the night. We thought the next part of getting though the gate into Burning Man would be easy. Turns out that the passes we and most of DMV got, had no bar code on them. We were sent though the line 3 times. Each time being told that what ever the last person said was wrong, and what does this mark on your window mean? We resorted to Jedi mind tricks and started telling everyone the mark meant we could get in. It worked! and after 4 hours, with a early arrival pass, and our 2 year old (she had the best mind control tricks), we got in. 21 hours door to door.