Black Rock City Turned Muddy

The weather at Burning Man was amazing the first five days I was there......and then it rained and Black Rock City turned muddy. And when it rains on that fine dry lake bed sand things change. I have been going to Burning Man since 2013 and have not experienced a muddy playa until this year. That mud is thick, sticky and stubborn. I had to pry it off my flip flops with a sharp plastic stick. I made shoes from plastic bags and schlepped around in those, until the plastic ripped and I continued barefoot. Forget about biking in that mud. You live, experience and learn I guess.

It rained from Friday erly afternoon until.......Sunday afternoon if I recall it right. Things kind of shut down for a bit. In the Default World (the world outside Black Rock City) rumors swirled around that people at Burning Man were stuck in the mud, starving, started to eat each other, that there was an Ebola outbreak, that FEMA was going to have to intervene......I do not even know all the crazy stories. All I know is that us Burners were fine. We had food and water and everything we needed. Most, if not all of those rumors were just that, stories with no truth to it. I have noticed throughout the years that people who never even been to Burning Man just love bashing Burning Man. Like WTF? Get a life you miserable narrowminded judgemental morons.
Anyhow......I did not do much for two days besides eat and walk around in the mud. The Man burn and the Temple burn were postponed for a few days. I wanted to see more art, do more and go dancing all night long until sunrise but that did not happen. 
Right before it rained on Friday afternoon, me and Ann did the magic foam wash, I love that place. The people that make that happen do an incredible job. While we were waiting for our turn to foam the weather turned gray and windy and it started to rain. We found a beautiful place to get shelter from the wind and rain and had some tea. Once again the Playa provided, it is a magical place after all. Then we foamed and when we biked back to camp it started raining harder.

And then there was a double rainbow.......and everybody went WOW!

Hello from muddy Black Rock City.

So I did hear that you could not come in to Black Rock City once it started raining and yes they did deny people entry. I also heard that you could not leave and that was not true. You cannot deny people to leave, there was no martial law in effect and yes some people did decide to leave. And I do have to say that I observed some behaviors I did not like from some people. Random people got angry at the people leaving. Not OK in my book. Maybe people had to leave because they had a flight to catch. A pet to pick up. An emergency. Anything. A guy got stuck right behind our camper trailer and me and Ann helped him get his van unstuck so he could leave. Never once did it occur to me to lecture him about leaving. He in fact had a plane to get on to Germany. He drove a two wheel drive van out of Black Rock City to Gerlach in two and a half hours and managed to get on that flight. Good for him! Yes some people that tried leaving got stuck. And from what I heard people helped each other, the way it should be. But some of the reactions from some indignant Burners towards their fellow Burners for choosing to leave were just not right.
Monday during the day me and Ann helped with taking down Center Camp and got to have dinner in the Burning Man comissary afterwards. That was amazing! What a great experience. I watched the Man burn Monday night. We left Black Rock City Tuesday morning. Drove out slowly and Exodus took 3 1/2 hours. Not bad at all! In fact I think it took me seven hours to get out last year during normal conditions. Had we not had a camper trailer to return we would had stayed until Thursday evening.
Some random Burning Man stuff.

Truth.

Something burning, lasers and the moon.

I hope to be back next year......! 💜