Tuesday at BRC

1/9/09 Great morning! Cool with no wind. Dragged the bike out of the truck but was unable to find the tools to assemble it. I realized that it was as clean as it was ever going to be and I’ll have to totally bag it up before I put back in the truck. Bikes here generally begin to all look the same- playa beige. Finger tightened the bike together and rode the “Esplanade” (Inner ring) to the DIY bike repair shop. They guy who loaned me a crescent wrench was stunned that I had disassembled the bike and carried it in the truck cab. “Awesome, man! Burn on!!” (I found the tools later in the day…) I rode out on the playa to take pictures and got caught in a huge wind storm. Could not see a thing for 10 minutes. I found that I can wear my goggles over my glasses if I want to be in tremendous facial pain. I gave up taking photos because eventually I could not see straight. Rode back home with interesting double vision and took a “nap” after lunch and awoke to discover that my campsite is no longer in rural BRC. I’m now surrounded by friendly folks in tents, RV’s home-made tarps, contraptions and shelters of all kinds. Although geodesic domes are everywhere, the coolest things I’ve seen are “yurts” made of 4’x8’ hunks of foil covered insulation held together with duct tape. Some even have real doors and double hung windows!! Sat outside and read a book and talked to a zillion passers by about the T@B, tarp and, of all things, where I got my ‘cool’ tent poles.(!) A new naked neighbor lady and her two small naked children made the rounds around the local camp area saying ‘hi’ to everyone. Her little boy tried to make off with my rebar (playa tent stake) protectors made of old swim noodles. Lady: “Tommy, don’t play with the man’s noodles (giggle, giggle)— Tammy you have to wear your hat or you’ll get sunburned…” (!!) Came in for supper and discovered that all my photos from the morning were shot on the wrong setting and will have to be redone. Went out tonight on the bike in full flashing EL-wire splendor and took some shots. I think I’m going to have to redo some of these too. The automatic setting on the camera just isn’t smart enough for the playa. Tonight I saw people riding huge, saddled mechanical rats, an awesome metal crawling machine that I’d seen in web movies from past years, a whole 2-storey house rolled by with people eating dinner in the dining room, shady things going on behind the curtains upstairs and folks dancing on both the front and back porches- all at @5Mph with music blasting. I nearly got run over by a replica of St. Basil’s Church (the one in Moscow’s Red Square) just before I rolled into my campsite for the night. I’ll finish this, ‘pound down’ another cup of water, (This is like being in Aspen 30 years ago- I drank over a gallon of water/juice/beer and have only visited the potty twice… I know, TMI) take a ‘baby wipe bath’ and hit the sack. It’s 1:30AM and I can hear the drums crescendo at center camp- fireworks now, and lasers too. Burn on!!