This is a long and detailed version of our Burning Man Trip. It’s a dry read, but I wanted it here for Posterity.
Burning Man Report – 2025 My first… and possibly last, Burning Man.
While I’ll probably continue to report small pieces of my experience in Burning Man over the coming weeks, I’ll give you a big download today.
Friday August 22nd, 2025
We were WELL PREPARED. Probably more prepared for an event than I’m have ever been. Felt good. Jennie and I left early in the morning and headed over to Park City to meet with out magical friends Jim and Sarah. At their house we finished tying things down, and set out together in a caravan of two vehicles, my truck towing their trailer packed with supplies, and their vehicle. Everything went well until around Wendover, when my 2005 Ford 350 went into limp mode and the dreaded wrench gear came on. We did lots of research, and finally I called my friend from High School, Jim Burman, who is a wizard when it comes to mechanical stuff like this. He immediately asked if we were towing something heavy… and yes we were, and so he said it was the computer not liking us using the Turbo up steep slopes. After a bit of worry and consternation… we figured out he was right. Stop the truck, which reset things, and then kept the turbo under 20psi, and… it worked. So… we were a bit slower than we wanted to be. Which… was to be a theme…. The rest of the trip was great, Jim and were in the truck, the girls in the other vehicle. We talked about life, the universe, everything, including politics, and then we went into a long piece about what we were grateful for in our lives. I talked so long about gratitude by the end I was truly moved at how blessed my life has been. We sometimes take time to express our gratitude, but I talked for probably over an hour, and it really piled up in a beautiful way. I was really lifted. We stopped at Winnemucca, Wall Mart, got a few last things, everyone was in great spirits, though it was 100 degrees outside! Then we got to Fernly, and drove north on a 2 lane highway toward the Black Rock Desert. The sun was setting and we arrived at the little town of Gerlach as it got dark. I was worried we would set up in the dark, but Jim assured me this was a good thing, as we would set up in the cool, not the heat. I was wrong about setting up in the dark… as you shall soon see. We drove up the road, entered the gravel of Burning Man, and headed toward the gate and security! And then we saw red lights. Tail lights. Tail lights. Tail lights. Hundreds of them. And so began the 7 plus hour crawl wait to get in. I was in high spirits the first 5 hours, just talking with Jim as we stop and go moved forward at a crawl. Burning Man entrance was sadly incompetently undermanned. I started to fade, getting more and more tired, but we finally got to the gate, were diverted to Will Call, then went through security, which was relatively fast. Then onward to greeters, and finally out onto the playa toward our address of 8:15 and G. It is huge, and you drive 5mph out there for safety and dust reasons. We got to our camp… and had to wake people up because to find our camping spot in our little group of friends… it was like 5:00AM. We set up in a fog… and it wasn’t dark. It was morning.
Saturday, August 23rd, 2025
It was rough. I was really tired and didn’t do well. But we finally got a semi camp set up of a Carport with two tents (one a shift pod) on either end. We crawled into the tent and tried to go to sleep. But have you ever been so tired you can’t sleep? That was me. I was delirious. Couldn’t sleep. And then… a couple hours later… the HEAT hit. And there was NO sleeping. We has to get up and set up camp, but I was useless. Luckily, C, a friend of the group, had an RV with an air conditioner in it, and I got to lay in his bed and sleep, true sleep, for 30 minutes. Then the air conditioner went out, but I still got that 30 sweet minutes. So we set up camp and Jim and Sarah are amazing. The camp was beautiful, and Jim went to extra special lengths to tie everything down. He is a genius at this stuff. And Jennie and Sarah were soldiers and just worked their asses off. I… was a zombie, and could barely function. They said lots of times in the lead up, Burning Man will break you, but that it will then bless you. Well… it broke me right out of the gate! I slowly recovered during the day, battling an inner fog while my brain turmoil at not contributing much had me feeling down. I started to feel better in the afternoon though, and then… Burning Man Broke Us Again. What we didn’t know then was that the whole world would hear of our epic dust storm. To me, it was just a storm. I was standing in the car port, while Jennie and Jim went outside to see what it was like. It was raging, and the carport got FILLED with dust. I was there in my dust mask and eye goggles when I heard a CRASH. Then… the roof of our carport tent ripped off and I was staring up into the maelstrom of death. Jim and Jennie crashed in, and we realized we were all good and fucked. There was nothing for it but to head to the truck! I crawled into the tent to grab my keys, then came out, and Jennie just blasted out of the carport structure and I tried to follow her, grabbing her shirt. She just disappeared into the white. I felt like Mark Watney in the book The Martian. At any moment I figured a flying chunk of metal would pierce my chest and kill me. I ran feeling out in the whiteout and did reached her, grabbing her shirt again, but she ran off again. Luckily she got to the truck, on the right (Passenger Side). BTW, I’m hoping Jim is behind me, and for what it’s worth, I have no idea where Sarah is. (Turns out she was behind Jim). We get to the truck… and Jennie, veers off to the left and disappears into the maelstrom. I am stunned, and figure she’s dead. Some part of her brain malfunctioned, and instead of going into the truck, she decided to face the fate of the storm and let Burning Man kill her. There was nothing I could do, so I just ran up to the passenger door, and jumped into the truck. Jim and Sarah followed and we all mourned the loss of Jennie. Then the driver side door opened and Jennie jumped in. For whatever reason, she thought she should got around to the other side to get in. Luckily… she made it. The truck rocked back and forth for about 2 hours. Visibility was ZERO for much of that, time, though it would slow and we could see shapes out in the dust for a while. Lots of stuff flew by. Slowly… slowly, it calmed. And frankly, this was kind of crazy exciting. I mean, this was life or death. How often does that happen in your mundane life? I was very much AWAKE. It was worrisome, but also an incredible experience. Finally… the winds slowed and we got out and assessed the damage. What had happened was Chuck’s Shade Structure and lifted up and flown into our carport tent. That was the crash, and Jim and Jennie were lucky it hadn’t hit them, because if it had, it would have killed them. The huge metal bars were bent. And so… we started to put things back together. I went for a walk in the gloomy dust storm, to get to the porta poties… which I could see far away dimly (as it was clearing). I got there, but on the way back got totally lost. I have a video of me narrating getting lost. Luckily and wandered and found the camp, more by luck than anything. I think this was the night that Sarah made Pho for us, and because our tent was utterly fucked, they let us sleep in their shift pod on the ground. Jim… that night, got a gleam in his eye, and wanted to go out and explore the Playa. I recognized that gleam. I’ve had it before. He was johnsing to go out, and I encouraged him to, but he too was on 2 or 3 hours of sleep, and so he decided not to, and we all slept very well.
Sunday, August 24th, 2025
We got up, and rebuilt the camp. The carport tent and our tent were filled with thick layers of playa dust. The kitchen, everything was dust. We took it apart, and we cleaned it, and rebuilt it. Took most of the day. I was feeling better, and helped with everything. Jim also decided to structurally tie things down even stronger, and he was more already ahead of 99% of the other people. We watched the weather and then learned… rain was coming. And rain in the afternoon and into the evening did come. Lots of it. A couple years ago they had a Rain Apocalypse which really slowed things down… and this wasn’t as bad as that… but it shut the night down. No going out. And… it turned into a delightful night. We gathered with other friends in Jim and Sarah’s shift pod, and talked into the night, while listening to the radio reports. We did suffer some leakage into our Carport tent, and that turned into a mud bath INSIDE… so that was a thing, but by the time the rain stopped, we were able to leave the shift pod, and enter our own tent, and sleep. Overall Sunday was pleasant: A massive rebuild… and a delightful evening inside with friends while it rained outside.
Monday, August 25th, 2025
I got up early in the morning, and found that the playa had hardened enough for a trip to the Porta Poties. I got there, in the cool morning, and decided to just keep going. I had wanted to wander, to be by myself, and this was my time. I walked down 8:00 street to the center, and then crossed the big empty space to the center of the Playa, where stood THE MAN. The massive wooden structure the build and then burn at the end of the event. I didn’t have my phone, so it was just a long long solitary hike. It was quiet. It was just me. It wasn’t any fireworks, it was just a solitary moment of life. I enjoyed it. When I got back a couple hours later, it was Rebuild Number 2! Had to tear things apart and clean the mud. But… we also for the first time, got on our bikes, as the desert hardened, and Jennie, Jim, and I went for a long bike ride. It was hot by then, but that was okay, we had our waters, and hats and sunscreen. We drove around, I took them to The Man, and then we went back to camp. Later, Jennie and I went out on a solo ride, and this was really great. Just during the day, though clouds WERE coming, perhaps it would rain again? We got back, and yes another rainstorm. BUT… I had faith this time. This time we were really battened down and I just kept telling everyone the storm WOULD pass and we WOULD out on the Playa. And… I was right. The rain passed, the ground hardened, and get costumed up and lit up our bikes and we rode! We saw art cars, art installations, and lots of people. Great music, a cool adventure, though it was muted with sensibility and the fact that we had to get up early in the morning and pack to go home. You see due to work considerations, we always knew we were leaving Tuesday morning. The delightful night ended back at camp… where… a trio of huge busses, like tour busses, pulled up next to our camp and at 2:00AM set up a DJ booth with huge speakers and began the loudest you can’t sleep through this no matter what groovy music….
Tuesday, August 26th, 2025.
Certainly we were frazzled from the last night’s loud music, but, we rallied and got up and packed. Luckily it was cool, high clouds, and so we had a good breakfast of granola and yogurt and then we packed up and… headed out. It was the right time. We felt it, and though we hadn’t had much ‘Burning Man Playa Experience’ we felt aligned. In fact… We are aligned. We were supposed to go. That never felt off. And we were supposed to come home. We are where we are supposed to be. The combination of Masculine and Feminine energies were everywhere, as was the power of human resilience in the face of the power of mother nature. We talked a lot on the ride home, and for the last 3 hours DJ Jennie took over the music and was hitting us with a string of hits that lifted my spirits as I drove. We got home at 11:00PM, exhausted, and contemplative. Why had we gone? What had we gained? What had we given? Jim and Sarah are the two best hosts on the planet. And we were filled with continual gratitude and joy with them. I’ll probably write separate post about them. And I know they were disappointed we didn’t have the experience they wanted us to have. We had faith in them, and we had curiosity. And we got an experience unlike anything we expected. Jim reported we were wise to leave as torrential rain hit them again Tuesday night and they had to shelter in place again. And rains hit again Wednesday. Hopefully… they got out onto the play Wednesday night and are now enjoying the relatively nice weather promised for the rest of the burn. They have saying at Burning Man: Fuck Your Burn. It means a lot of things to a lot of people, but essentially it means: You get the burn you need, not the burn you want. Well… we didn’t get what we wanted, and I’m not sure we needed what we got. But… we are humans, and we are uniquely designed to overcome, improvise, and adapt. We are able to take tough things and grow from them, learn from them, and expand from them. So we are still sorting the why of it all. Tough but good. I learned a lot. I have an intuition I may go back. Better armed and ready, though we were amazingly prepared, for what it was worth. It was a test of skill, heart, and spirit. Something good in there. Still finding it. And one thing is for sure: I’m deeply grateful for my friends, and deeply grateful and even happy I got this adventure with Jennie! We do cool things together, and I feel we are bonded stronger now then even before.