Nice day with both boys here.. We got together to call and wish my mom a happy 89th birthday.. Happy birthday Ma..We love you!
Its my baby brothers 62nd birthday.. Happy birthday Billy.. We love you too !
All sorts of love in the air.. as Kevin and Marges rehearsal cookout is tonight.. but not before we had some good hang out time with the boys
Late afternoon we piled in both cars and headed down to the DAR {ark in Addison county.. It was a beautiful night for kevin and margarets rehearsal dinner and (for some) campout
It was getting late so we helped gabe get our ten set up, then Diane and I headed home.
meanwhile on the playa I later learned that a couple chose to get married in front of Fluffy. how cool is that ?
It was so nice to be home with diane to celebrate our anniversary.
This is our 36th.. I am so very grateful that DIane is in my life.. she is my love, my friend.. and on projects like fluffy, my best collaborator.
Our anniversary and burning man often overlap.. in 2016, max, gabe and I did an anniversary toast to diane with the help of the burning man webcam operator motorbike mike. here’s what we did in 2016
Diane .. I love you so much.. thanks for being my Wif’ ! (love your ‘band)
We had a fun day.. hiked duxbury window and feasted on fresh tomato sandwiches.. exactly the day we both wanted !
Later that night we watched the burning man web cam to see if we could find fluffy .. .. We ended up watching it all week.. we saw fluffy a few times.. but not much .. we didn’t really know what was happening out there.. which was both fun and crazy
So nice to be at home with my girl !
I love you Diane !
nite all, nite sam
-me
ps. after the fact I did get some updates from my campmates on what happened this day.. They successfully got fluffy running and got day and night passes from the DMV. I heard our fire device got great reviews from the DMV FAST (Fire Affect Safety Team) coordinators.. they even brought their lead to see our rig. He said the wished everyone did it the way we did.. That was great to hear..
I also learned that there were some problems with the lights on the driver side. I’m still not sure why they didn’t manage to debug them.. I can tell from the pics that it wasn’t hard to fix.. From what I hear though, the lights were fine on the other side and were well received
I left camp about 2:30 AM.. and drove slowly around the radial road “I” towards center camp. (Black Rock City is set up like a clock with radial roads at the 30 (and further out 15 ) minute intervals we were at 9:15 and I) .. It was hard to see since there was a minor sandstorm going. I found the turn off to the access rode and followed the tattered flags to the greeters gate.. It was easy to loose the way as there really is no road to speak of., no other traffic and . and the blowing sand made it easy to loose the flags. Once past the gate it got a little easier.. but the 5 miles ot the highway took me over 30 min. From there the road to Rneo was pretty empty.. I listened to podcasts (wait, wait dont tell me, this american life) to stay awake.
Aroudn 3:30 I got to a n all night carwash in reno.. I spent the next hour cleaning the car inside and out to avoid the mandatory $250 you-trashed-our-rental-car-on-the-desert fee.
By the time i was done it was after 4:30 am.. long after my hotel reservation had been forfeited.. Luckily the nice clerk made me a deal and for a few bucks they let me use a room to shower and get about 45 min of sleep before I had to leave for my 7 AM flight..
I got to the airport tired but clean and saw folks still leaving for the playa .. or lookign for ways to get there.
I got on the the first of 3 flights heading home.. and thats really the last thing I remember until getting to Vermont.. I slept the whole way except for changing flights
diane picked me up just before midnight.. it was SO good to see her.. I really missed her this trip. she’s been such a part of the project.
