Burning Man - Part IV

It takes a lot of preparation to take 40 people into the desert for a week. Part of the reason the team meets up in Carson City is to get everything ready. I volunteered to help with the kitchen staff. The couple who was in charge of three meals a day for our team (Watering Eyes and Amphora) did an awesome job getting things ready beforehand and cooking while in the desert.

We stored the cold food in coolers. But some things had to be prepared before going. For example, brownies were made, bacon was cooked, and vegetables were cleaned and packed. I was impressed how organized they were. Not only is there food prep, but the tents have to be checked, cleaned and packed.

With the trailer filled with food, tents, chairs, barbeques, etc., we started our two hour trek from Carson City to Black Rock City (BRC). There is a long road to enter BRC, with these signs that line along the road. (Pictured below)

At the next check point your tickets are checked and then you proceed to the “Welcoming Station.” Greeters welcome you with big hugs and by saying “Welcome home.” If you are a first timer they make you roll around in the dust and ring a bell. (Dr. Phil below at the Welcoming Station.)

Welcoming Station
Dr. Phil rolling around.
Dr. Phil ringing the bell.
You are probably wondering if Momma Bear rolled around in the dirt. The answer to that would be no. It’s not that I’m not a good sport. I have really bad knees. They were swollen and I can’t lie on the ground. It’s too hard to get up. So Momma Bear lied through her teeth and said I was there before. Don’t judge me until you walked a mile with my knees.

The playa is set up with roads that have names and time. Our location was 4:30 and Detroit. The team worked very hard to set up the coffee dome, encounter tent, area where we cook and eat, and the personal tents for the team to sleep in. Tom and I were blessed to sleep in one of the RV’s.

Enjoy the following pictures of the set up.

The RV's.
Encounter Tent being set up.
Overhead shelter for our cooking area and our meals.Coffee dome frame being put in place.


© Nadine Zawacki 2010

Burning Man – Part III

When you drive 44 straight hours, stopping only for gas, food and potty breaks, you realize how tired and dirty you are when you arrive at your designation. So what did I do for all those hours? For the first six hours I braided my hair (pictured above with my hat and shades). I did that for many reasons, but mainly I thought it was the easiest way for my hair to be without it being shampooed for the week we were on the playa.

Part of the Burning Man experience is creativity. People are very creative with what they wear. They color their hair and sometimes their bodies. Our team learned that it’s better not to stick out like a sore thumb when on the playa. So we have fun being creative.

We all have playa names (mine is Momma Bear and Tom is Godfather). Some of the men wear kilts or skirts (pictured below).
I colored Tom's goatee for him as well as his nails. I must say that was a first for me and I got to paint the nails of three other guys. I think I might open up a salon.
One day I had a mask and someone loaned me angel wings.
Here are some of our lovely ladies.
There is much work that goes into preparing for Burning Man. The team leaders work year around to set up for the week we spend in the desert. They make sure that supplies are ordered (food, water, etc). We arrive a few days before setting out for the playa as a team. They prep the tents (individual and encounter tents), prep the food and we participate in a protocol ceremony with our Native American friends. We ask permission to enter their land and receive a blessing from them to do so. We share communion and exchange gifts.

Until the next installment here are a few photos from the protocol ceremony.

Willow and Robb prepare to present our gifts from the team.
Our friends lead us in song.
Godfather and Momma Bear being gifted by our friend Dan.
We share communion together.© Nadine Zawacki 2010

Burning Man - Part II

Getting ready for Burning Man involves lots of prep work. You have to gather supplies (flash lights, hand sanitizer, sleeping bags, etc.). Our journey was to start on a Wednesday and since I would be gone for two weeks there were lots of things to do. Imagine what went through my mind when Tom said, “Hey Babe, do you think we could be ready to leave a day early?” Hmmm. Don’t panic. “Sure, honey no problem.” With Tom’s help we got everything done a day early and set out on our adventure.

Part of the Burning Man experience is “art cars.” People modify and build these cars to drive around in the desert. As mentioned in the last post Horizon built a giant shopping cart (pictured above). For those inquiring minds, he took a 1980 Chevy C 10 truck, cut the body completely off, shortened the frame to 12 ft. Installed a 1976 power glide transmission, kept the original straight 6 engine and ran all new JEGs parts. The basket was built with steel square tubes from 2" to 1", welded all with a MIG gun outside using argon gas mix, painted with real aluminum foil. He installed an 1/8 diamond aluminum tread plate for the floor, installed a stainless steel 12 ft. steering rod, upgraded springs and shocks, then added 16" alloy low profile tires.

Getting the shopping cart to Black Rock City would take over 44 hours of straight driving. When you’re pulling a giant shopping cart on a trailer you get many looks of awe and wonder from people. Suddenly people slow down in the lane next to you in order to get a good picture. People come up to you when you stop and ask such questions as, “What is that thing? Is that a shopping cart? What does it do?”

A couple of my favorites “We’re going to Costco. Where we come from everyone has one of these.”

One young gal out in the middle of night with a young man wanted to take a picture of the cart with Horizon. She asked (with the cutest little southern accent) “Mr. Inventor Man, can I take a picture of you with that thing. My boyfriend won’t believe me if I tell him about it.” Turning towards the young man she’s with she continued, “That’s not my boyfriend.” Hmmm . . . interesting.

The guys took turns driving and sleeping. They were awesome. It’s not easy driving a van pulling a 2,500 lbs cart. On the trailer Horizon had a generator and various tools incase there were any problems with the cart in the middle of the desert. We found out how much of a “Mr. Inventor Man” Horizon was on the way home when the van’s alternator was failing. He started his generator, ran an extension cord through the back window of the van to the front seat to a battery charger, and the wires went out the window and were attached to the battery itself. We were in the middle of the salt flats in Utah and about 30 miles from a garage. We spent the night and after the garage fixed the van we were on our way.

Additional photos of the cart.

© Nadine Zawacki 2010

Burning Man

For the last two weeks I’ve been on an adventure with Tom. Tom has gone to Burning Man in the past few years twice. Each time my heart wanted to go with him, but I was unable to because of work. This year I was honored to be part of the outreach team (made up of 40 people from the US and Scotland) that went to Burning Man.

What is Burning Man? Here’s a brief description from their website:

People make the journey to the Black Rock Desert for one week out of the year to be part of an experimental community, which challenges its members to express themselves and rely on themselves to a degree that is not normally encountered in one's day-to-day life. There are no rules about how one must behave or express oneself at this event (save the rules that serve to protect the health, safety, and experience of the community at large); rather, it is up to each participant to decide how they will contribute and what they will give to this community. The event takes place on an ancient lakebed, known as the playa. By the time the event is completed and the volunteers leave, sometimes nearly a month after the event has ended, there will be no trace of the city that was, for a short time, the most populous town in the entire county.
Everyone on the playa has “playa” names. It’s part of the experience. Tom is Godfather and I am Momma Bear. So when I talk about the team I will refer to them by their “playa names.”

There are many creative people that come to Burning Man. Some build art installations and others build “art cars” that are driven around on the playa.

About six months ago one of the team members (Horizon) started building this giant shopping cart that you can drive and carry people on the playa. He and his team of helpers did an amazing job.

Horizon lives in Ohio. He needed help driving it from Ohio to Nevada where Burning Man takes place in the middle of the desert in a place called Black Rock City. So Tom and I (even though I didn’t drive) and another man (Dr. Phil) drove straight through, only stopping for gas.

My next post will talk about our adventure to Carson City, where the team meets to prepare before heading to Black Rock City.

I hope you join me as I share my experience through words and pictures.

© Nadine Zawacki 2010

A Fresh Look

I’ve had the same look to my blog for a couple of years now and I wanted something a little different but not completely. I wanted to keep my header. That wasn’t possible so . . .

My wonderful hubby helped with the new header. He did such a great job. I love the way it looks. He kept what I liked about the header but made it look fresher. Thank you so much honey.

I hope you guys enjoy the new look.

I leave you with this little joke Uncle Al sent to my hubby. I'm not sure where it's from so if you heard of it, I'd love to give credit to the author.

A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that her name is Patricia Whack.

"Miss Whack, I'd like to get a $30,000 loan to take a holiday."

Patty looks at the frog in disbelief and asks his name. The frog says his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it's okay, he knows the bank manager.

Patty explains that he will need to secure the loan with some collateral.

The frog says, "Sure. I have this," and produces a tiny porcelain elephant, about an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed.

Very confused, Patty explains that she'll have to consult with the bank manager and disappears into a back office.

She finds the manager and says, "There's a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000, and he wants to use this as collateral."

She holds up the tiny pink elephant. "I mean, what in the world is this?"

The bank manager looks back at her and says...

"It's a knickknack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man's a Rolling Stone."

(You're singing it, aren't you? Yeah, I know you are........)

© Nadine Zawacki 2010

A Hatnappers Tale

I know that you will find this hard to believe but there’s a hatnapper holding Tom’s Giant’s hat captive. I received another call from the hatnapper today demanding payment or else the leather hat swims with the fishes in his pool. Cruel isn’t? What makes this story even more disturbing is I know who is torturing the hat. He is a family member. His demands are steep . . . an entire dollar. How can a brother be so cruel? Growing up with him, I should have seen it coming.

My brother, who is ten years older, loved practical jokes. When I was younger he made our basement into a mini house of horrors and charged me and my friends a nickel to scare us. The crazy thing was that we paid him, but then again I was only seven.

If you want to read about what he did to my braids then click here.

When Tom and I were dating, Tom worked with him. Tom had the habit of falling asleep in the truck on long rides. My brother hated that. They had a customer who was located in Huntington. That was at least an hour or so away without traffic. Tom fell asleep on the way and my brother took oily, left-over pizza paper (I know gross right. They didn’t clean out the truck from their lunch the day before.) and placed it where the family jewels are. Then he lit it. That’s right you read correctly. He lit it. There was lots of smoke and my brother had to open a window and look out to see where he was going because of the smoke. He then yelled, “Fire!” which woke Tom up. No damage done, but Tom never did fall asleep in the car again. Sometimes he wakes up though yelling, “Put it out! Put it out! – only kidding.

I would have to say as he gotten older, he has mellowed some. Now he’s just a hatnapper. I’ve already forgiven him, but I’m still not paying the ransom.

I love you Frenchie. You always make me smile.

© Nadine Zawacki 2010

Broken Flip Flops

I was running around doing errands when suddenly one of my flip flops broke. Lucky for me I was in Wally World. Sure I could have just bought another pair, but these were my favorite pair of flip flops.

Did you ever try to walk with a broken flip flop? The only way to do it is to drag your foot and have your toes grab on to the two straps that are left. I dragged my foot until I found the aisle with the safety pins and my flop was saved. I guess I could have taken my flop off but have you seen the floors at Wally World?

It got me to thinking. A flip flop has three straps and it is impossible to walk with them if one of the straps is broken. A comfortable pair of flip flops is priceless. You can walk and walk and your feet feel free and cool. I hate wearing shoes on my feet. I like being bare foot the best and flip flops are the closest thing to that for me.

While I was struggling to walk with my broken flip flops, I thought what if God represented the flip flop? The three straps could be the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When one is missing from my life how could I walk? I guess I would drag myself along and maybe use a “safety” until I could get it back in working order. So what’s my safety? It seems it differs from time to time. Sometimes it’s prayer. Sometimes it’s sharing life with a friend. Sometimes it’s worship. Life is much easier when I have my God flip flops on and none of the straps are broken. I walk better. I’m not dragging my foot around. I’m really comfortable.

© Nadine Zawacki 2010