Day started beautifully.. after a good night sleep in the camper. cabe got out his two junk mandolins and serenaded us a bit as we drove fluffy to get her inspections.. You normally need to go to the DMV (Department of mutant vehicles) for a separate day driving and night driving permit.. but we’ve been fast tracked as a known car with good standing.. so we got to go just once.
The other certification is with the Fire Arts Safety Team (FAST). thats required for any car or art piece that has fire effects. Our rig is a mediam sized one as they go..I’m always nervous about this inspection because I lead the build on our fire rig..
turned out i didnt need to worry. once again we got a clean bill of health and even some compliments about our setup.. I love hearing that. I even got toe put our permit on the back of the buis.. it s a big deal to me to make this rig safe.
We drove around for a biut.. and watched as the wind picked up.. first soem dust devils.. then a full on sandstorm…
and then.. sand-pocolipse !!!!
I’ve been coming here 7 times abnd have seen my share of sandstorms.. but nothing like this ! We all grabbed whatever shelter we could. we were lucky .. because we had the camper.. We later learend that Max had to shelter out near an art peice eh was helping wiht ..
the air went from dusty.. to grey.. and eventually to orange and.. at one point blood red. We couldn’t see anything further than about 3 feet outside of our windows. We heard on BMIR (Burnign man radio) that the winds was close to 50 mph.. which is near hurricane force.. Actually.. the last tiem I was in winds liek that WAS a huricane in houston when I was young
we heard stuff flying around, we heard a hexayurt explode and saw pieces flying through the sky.
Even though we had the camper windows and vents closed, dust came in through the window seals .. and filled the air with dust and coated everything with a fine layer.
Even our skin was coated.. there’s a picture in here of dianes legs after she took off her socks… it looks like she’s wearing tights.. but its all dust
Eventually the winds died down and we were able to head outside to survey the damage. FLuffy was ok… but our campsite was a mess.. our kitchen shad structure was a mangled mess, the wind actually pent metal tubes and broke metal fittings. there were clothes and tarps all over the place,
Our neigbors at El Pulpo camp also lost their shade area… as we later would learn most shade structures in the entire city were destroyed.. it was a mess
As night fell, Our friends lit up Pulpo and blew soem fire to restore morale
We all planned to meet up at 10 at the generator to begin our mocve to the playa. On the way there we stopped to pick up Ben at his hotel >>. We had justy pulled out of Bens hotel when a distracted driver rear ended us and really messed up the rear bumber and side panels of the camper. His car was miuch worse off. The other driver was very apologetic.. I felt really bad for him.. his father had died the day before and he was really distracted..
we did all the exchange of information,. I called the camper rental folks and helped them start the process for a claim..
what a way to start the day !
we fianlly got to generator and started the process of getting fluffy out the door. Its not as simple as it sounds ..there’s a deep dip on the exit ramp from the generator parking lot that ripped off soem of fluffys clouds and racking last year. THis year we bought
a bunch of 2×4’s and filled in the dip as best we could.
Duane slowly drove over as we all held our breath.. we cleared the dip with about 4 inches to spare .. phewwwww !
THen we were on our way tfor the long slow drive to the playa.. it was about 4 hours drive to teh burnign man access road.. then about 5 hours wait in line to get in.. actually not that bad !
We spent the whole day assmblign and wiring the rest of fluffy..even after 4 years of doing it… its still hard work.
mid morning max came by on his way to the playa with his freinds Autumn and Chris. He’s campign with them during the early poart of the week… he’s helping wiht the pyro on burning a sculpture that that was to have burned in 2023 .. but got rained out..
We’re so excited about being with him and gabe out on the playa
In the afternoon, Ben and I headed out, dropped off our rental car and [icked u[ the cam[er. Its goign to be home for the next week and a half.. It looks like it will be perfect
by about 8PM we had everythign working.. the original plan was to leave at dawn tomorrow.. but everyone was pretty beat… so instead we dcided to meet at 10 and start towards playa from there.. it’s gonna be a long slow drive as fluffy can only do 20-30 mph with her clouds on.. and we anticipate a long line to get in tot eh playa.. even though it’s still build week.
THis morning we all me at the Reno Generator.. maker space to begin assembling Fluffy.. We had to unload the clouds, order them.. then start the process of mounting them on the bus. DIane had the great idea to record the order and position of how the clouds were stacked in the bus to make it easier to repack them.
mounting and wiring the clouds involves lots f lugging and wiring.. but also fun .. sort of
We also got to take breaks to see all the other stuff being prepped for the playa in the Generator.. THere were lots of people working hard.. lots of fun, lots of stress
By the end of the day, we had one whole side of flufy mounted and lit.. good progess.. still much to do !
We headed back to J Sues.. it’s been really nice hangign out with her .
