We’ve had a great day today, albeit a very busy one. As I write this blog post, it’s 9 p.m. and we’re still busy on camp build activity. In fact, we were too tied up in the camp to even wander out to the Playa. Nonetheless, I could see lots of new art coming up from our view on the Esplanade.

The temperature has been surprisingly cool. Gerlach is not expected to hit 90 for the next week, and while it’s still hot in the sun-drenched playa, it’s much more comfortable than last year. Evenings turn chilly and nights are downright cold. Night temperatures will be in the upper 40s throughout the Burn.

The first few tents have moved into the shade structure.

We hit some milestones today, placing our first tents under the shade structure. But tonight we had a major event with the installation of our new, lighted Temple Guardians portal. This year marks the first time that people can easily find TG headquarters and the training area. Lashes worked with builder and artist Jad Strutzel (playa name: Portal) to create the new portal and we were completely bowled over with the results.

Artist/builder Jad working on his TG portal; Lashes supervises

Part 1 of our new lighted portal. The side panels will go in a little later tonight.

We hear good things about progress on the Temple, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see it for ourselves. We’ll report on that and other developments in the next post.