Just back from the playa two hours ago

[Bell T.]

And here's the story. Assuming it's okay with the powers and demigods if I describe BRC as it is today.

We just returned from the playa a couple of hours ago. Was it worth losing pretty much a whole day of prep? YESSSSSSSS

Wednesday, August 22, 2007. 11:30 a.m.

We’ve crossed the Sierras and what comes next is a vastness of the most rugged country you’d never want to be lost in. In the distance, white stretches. Below us, treeless crags and strange sulphuric expanses. You’re in the midst of it, it’s everywhere. I ponder the power of the playa and how very deep in the wilderness we really are out there.

The playa from the air: First you see Smoke Creek Desert, which looks like Black Rock only kind of in reverse. Flat to the west. It’s disorienting. After Smoke Creek, you know because you see Empire, then Gerlach. Ahead, tiny dots on the playa show us right where we’re going. From this distance you can see what a small thing the city is in the expanse of white that is Black Rock Desert. We ride along above the railroad tracks and close on it. Even from 3000 feet above, the city is bustling, and at the same time quite empty. Picture a giant outdoor stage missing the seating and dotted with a few intense clusters of activity. We’re here to deliver one Karen Cusolito to her giants.

After a nice light landing (Charley’s such a graceful pilot!) we taxi across slightly bumpy playa to the airport entrance right outside 5:00 and Landfill. First plane to land on the Black Rock City strip this year! Gratifying absence of tarmac. Greeted by Lisa, the airport manager, in pepper gray hair streaked with fuchsia. Goggles, orange vest, clipboard. A gaggle of seriously scruffy guys, various ages, various stages of shirtlessness, too tan, too dusty, too relaxed, like nice mental patients who chuckle to themselves and might try to pet you, mill around the work sheds and take in the new arrivals. Oddly appealing. Some mumbling about strip searches and spankings, then they offer cold water. It’s a dry and dustless 80 degrees. Felt hotter.

The sun is intense, but it is almost cool in the shade, and very clear, considering the 3-day white out they had last weekend which shut down all the construction. Today is calm and clear, a gorgeously deceiving show on the part of the Hualapai Gods. In a few minutes, Dan das Mann rumbles up in a Cushman, and we wait several more minutes while he attaches himself to Karen’s neck, possibly vamping her, I don’t know. He hasn’t seen her in two weeks. Karen hasn’t slept in 48 hours and is remarkably lucid with a bit of wobbling and a delightful silly grin. We pile onto the Cushman and head across the playa to Devil’s Workshop. Shade, couches, and the skeleton of a kitchen, some RVs. Steve23 comes over and greets us, gives us the beautiful invitations to his wedding to be held on the derrick during the event. We wander around there for a bit, then ride out to Crude Awakening where the oil derrick reclines on its side awaiting erection. Or is it resurrection. The figures are in odd positions on the ground, they’re waiting too. We spend a few minutes taking it in and then it’s time to head back.

On the way back out to the plane we pass the Man, stabilized by a crane, over his strange teepee looking platform, headless. We knew him when. Little puffy clouds form, making dense black shadows on the playa. Charley says it’ll make for bumpy air. Massive shape of iron to the left, tentacles wander from it over the playa surface. Center camp has most or all of its shade, the colorful flags are on top. The greeter station’s funny little shed dividers are up. We reach the Bonanza, we want to stay, we have to go. Hugs goodbye and seeya Friday, and we are in the air again. We circle over the city, dip a wing to Dan and Karen in the little Cushman turning onto the Esplanade at camp. The city has its footprint, thirteen circles of streets, strips of portajohns look like train cars. The big things are out there now. Trucks, cranes, giants, aliens. Black Rock City has a zip code.

I remember why I’m doing all this! Home is awakening, the playa is perfect, I’m already amazed. Let’s go. God, let’s go.

bell's ringing. see you there.

[Bob]

The airport manager is Lissa, not Lisa. AKA TigerTiger.

[skygod]

Thanks for the story!
It's like I'm there already.

[Bell T.]

RogerRoger, TigerTiger. So Bob, are you one of the oddly appealing scruffies?

chuckles
okay, back to hefting tarps onto the RV.

[Bob]

No.

[blyslv]

I've heard he's scruffy though.