It was our first night out on the Playa after spending nearly a week getting Temple Guardians camp up and running, when we saw what appeared to be a traffic jam — albeit, a very colorful one — along the Esplanade. Once our eyes and brains had adjusted to Black Rock City phenomena we realized that it wasn’t heavy traffic we were seeing, but a long line of art cars waiting for their stamp of approval from the DMV (Department of Mutant Vehicles). We had never noticed a line with so many cars in previous Burns, and we were stunned by all of the creativity in one spot. The effort people put into designing and building art cars is extraordinary.

Art cars lined up for DMV licensing

We’ve often thought about building an art car and bringing it to Black Rock City, but have never had the commitment or skill to do so. Still, I can’t imagine anything more fun than riding around the Playa, picking up Burners along the way, melding into the array of Burning Man activities, and making indelible memories. But it’s not easy to do. Burning Man sets a high bar for approval of art cars. Check out this link for more about the requirements.

Art cars purportedly began with the Cupcakes – motorized, round confections that zipped around the Playa. These one-person mobile snacks return every year even as most art cars have morphed into elaborate designs with room for passengers. My first year at Burning Man (2005), the most memorable art car was a gigantic flower built on a cherry picker. The blossom moved up and down and reached out toward people in an inviting, albeit scary, way. I’ll never forget that flower. It symbolized the size, scope and creativity of art at Burning Man, and it inspired me to return year after year.

Another art car played a major role during my second year on the Playa. We were telling a couple we met at Elders’ Camp about the wedding we would be holding in a few days to celebrate our 40th anniversary, and they offered to take us on their art car. It was a solar-powered trike with a gigantic toilet at the center. You had to climb up to and through the toilet to board the car, and we laughed our heads off about riding to our wedding in a mobile commode.

Art car picking us up at our RV

Happy couple aboard their wedding chariot

Some of our favorite art cars over the years have included a gold duck apparently built on a large truck chassis. It required spotters walking in front to help the driver avoid obstacles – including people. This year we were entranced by a mobile bear that kept changing colors. We’ve always loved the rolling Boom Box, and this year we also saw a roaming Rockola jukebox. The last two were blasting music from speaker displays that might have been found at an arena rock show. Wherever these art cars stopped, a crowd of dancers gathered and a party commenced.

Our favorite art installation this year was the lighted tree in deep playa. It continually changed, rotating through the four seasons – the deep green of summer, the multiple colors of autumn, winter’s frost, and spring’s light greens. We sat mesmerized in front of it along with hundreds of other Burners who couldn’t get enough of this homage to nature.

Burning Man is endlessly stimulating. We had forgotten, after a two-year absence, how much we had missed the intensely creative environment of the Playa. It always inspires us, urging us to keep moving forward, no matter what our age.

Returning to Burning Man after a two-year absence was reminiscent of to our first-time experience. The visceral excitement upon reaching the Playa, the sense of awe from gazing across the brightly lit Esplanade at night, the greetings with hugs rather than handshakes by friends new and old. It was a thrill to be back.

2017 was also exciting because we were participating in a new camp – Temple Guardians – and we were appointed camp grandparents. Well, not exactly. Lashes was appointed mayor of the camp and we both had a multitude of responsibilities from readying our plot of playa for camping to taking everything down at the end. In fact, at a little more than two weeks, this year wound up being our longest stay on Playa.

When we arrived six days prior to the official start of the festival, Black Rock City was more raw and undeveloped than we had ever seen it. It was challenging to find the site of our camp because most of the road signs had not yet been erected and we arrived in the early morning darkness. Once we figured out exactly where we were located (which turned out to be literally inches away from where we parked and fell into bed), we realized the extent of our responsibilities. There was practically nothing at the site of our camp. One structure at the front was partially built by the Department of Public Works, but it was the training area for the Guardians and had very little to do with the camp. There was also a container with what we hoped would be the camp’s necessities.

It took us a few minutes to figure out how to get the door open, but once we did we found ourselves facing a Pandora’s box of “stuff” – some useful and some not. After digging through the seemingly random contents, we located piece parts of our camp including a huge shade structure that would cover the entire tent camping area, a much smaller “kitchen” and a yurt that would become part of our common space.

This training location at the front of Temple Guardian Camp was the only existing structure when we arrived

We jumped into action, erecting some Temple Guardian flags and banners and setting up benches in the training area, then we were stumped. There were hundreds of seemingly random metal and canvas parts in the container but no instructions to follow. We were clueless about how to put together the critical structures and began wondering why we said “yes” to this job.

Suddenly, as often happens at Burning Man, an answer appeared in the form our new friend Casey, who was a Guardian volunteer and had been involved in taking down the camp the previous year. He made sense out of the pile of parts, then showed us how to put them together. At first, it was just Casey and me doing the building while Lashes plotted out placements and created a map of where people would go. Soon, campers with early entry passes began trickling in and each one joined the build team. Together, we managed to pull the camp together before the bulk of campers arrived. Meanwhile, Lashes drew the placement map on a whiteboard and set it near the camp entrance on the Esplanade. Then we located a light so the board could be illuminated at night.

Camp “kitchen,” our first completed structure

By opening day, our camp looked organized and neat – almost as if we knew what we were doing. We were not only thrilled with the results, we were also amazed at our good luck. As campers arrived, they took their assigned spots and settled in, never realizing how close we came to a disastrous start.

I’ll begin to describe some of this year’s art and other Burning Man adventures in my next post.