Seeking An Extraordinary Life - A Travel Journal

I'm up in just enough time to get my kit together, but in the process I suffer a minor tragedy - I drop my beloved Konika Minolta compact camera on the tiled floor with a resounding crack, and when I pick it back up it won't turn on any more. It's been a reliable companion all the way on this journey so far and I'm sorry to be without it. I resolve to try and get it fixed if the facility presents itself, but in the meantime I'm going to need a new camera reasonably shortly.

So here end the photographs for the time being. They'll resume at a later date.

It brings me back to the same dilemma I've been in before - in a way I'd like to do without the camera altogether; it's always an intrusion when I'm in the moment, having some amazing experience, to have to break off and think whether I should get a picture. And without pictures I'm pushed a lot harder to create a good description and give you folks a flavour of what I'm seeing. But I'd hate to go through everything I'm experiencing out here and not have a photographic record, and words can never quite equal the ability of a picture to take you back somewhere, to a place or a moment. The internal debate ends in a draw as usual.

Hagey drives me to the bus station and there's yet another regretful goodbye. The ride to the central station is quick, the Greyhound remarkably almost on time, and by half past seven we are rolling out of Reno in air-conditioned almost-comfort into the scrub prairie already hazy with morning sunlight. My seatmate is a nice guy and friendly, but turns out to be a bit of a nightmare companion - he spreads his legs out into both footwells, eats almost constantly with loud smacking noises and once he starts talking he absolutely will not stop, repeating each story four or five times with slightly different phrasing while I work through the Five Stages of Polite Discouragement - Interest, Polite Agreement, Nodding While Looking Elsewhere, Grunting While Reading a Book and finally Reading a Book And Making No Response Whatsoever.

I read for roughly an hour at a time until my recent lack of sleep catches up with me and I drift off, sleep for an hour then read again. Outside our mobile cocoon the landscape slowly changes from Nevada scrubland to true desert, to the slowly smoothly folding hills of central Nevada, to yellow prairie, to the startlingly blue-white salt flats of Utah, interspersed with flat mirrored expanses of shallow water with the odd pair of wading birds patrolling.

Salt Lake City, when we reach it, seems blocky and a bit grim - or maybe it's just my assumptions about this most secure stronghold of the Latter Day Saints that invests the skyline with a certain Mormon sternness and lack of joy. The bus station is pretty much all we see anyway - I want to walk up into town but the Greyhound buildings are way outside of the city centre and I only have about an hour.

In the end that's a fortunate decision, because half an hour before leaving a huge muscular police officer with a sweet, slightly dopey lets-make-this-easy-folks grin lines everyone up to make a check of all hand baggage. He gets about four bags down then as far as I can tell he just loses interest, and the only upshot of the process is that everyone gets on the bus early and we leave exactly on time, a first in my Greyhound experience.

By now it's dark, and we slip seamlessly into Greyhound Space. In the dark we pass through Wyoming but all places are the same place in that uniform rhythm of intercity darkness and spotlit concrete, drifting retail ghettos and chains of brakelights.

Labels: greyhound, Nevada, photography, reno, Salt Lake City, Utah

Waking up is a long slow process in the Black Rock International Burner Hostel. First up is Hagey, an early riser, who roams the house from 6am onwards with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, complaining about his aches and pains in a constant lowkey mumble. Over the next four or more hours various rumpled figures emerge from sofas, sleeping bags and beds, the coffeemaker begins to drain and fill and drain again, a low buzz of activity builds around the computers in the study and the table in the kitchen, a few people migrate to the deckchairs in the garden to slowly come to life in the morning sun.

As we are among the first up, I go out for a walk with James, to exercise his dog Chewie and Hagey's dog Limbo. James is a good-looking guy in his twenties or early thirties, with a thick blonde beard, small retangular glasses and a collection of pendants and dogtags which jingle constantly on his bare chest. A friend of his has recently purchased a huge area of land not far from the playa, and they're making plans and taking investment to build a self-contained community there, a centre for environmental education and green technologies.

James explains the plan as we do circuits of the local park and playground, the dogs pulling ahead on their leashes. He's got a slow philosophical way of speaking, often pausing to think of the right word, and his thinking is equally careful and precise. He's worked a lot of different jobs and travelled all over, and he has a very definite philosophy of what is a worthwhile way to use one's time. Like me right now, he's learning to be in the moment, to appreciate the here and now without worrying about the future or being self-conscious and afraid of others' reactions.

When we return to the house we find most of the residents up and about, so I heat up the griddle and after some searching around the unfamiliar kitchen for implements I start work on a batch of scotch pancakes, scaling up my usual recipe to allow for about 15 people. While I feel nervous at first, this being my first time cooking for a large group (and the first time I've really cooked since leaving home), it proves surprisingly easy to scale up the batch size and once I've got the heat of the griddle adjusted I'm turning out pancakes at a steady rate and they're disappearing equally fast.

The household gathers round the table, loading pancakes with "Canadian Bacon" (cheap ham of which all Canadians deny ownership), maple syrup and honey, and with a steady production line going I have time to move back and forth, chat with my fellow Burners and get a couple of plates in myself. It's a thoroughly sociable way to start the day, and appreciation of the pancakes is universal.

I spend the day at the hostel this time, just chatting or working on the blog. Kiwi, Roy and Trent head out in the afternoon to make a trip north, partly to speak to the legendary temple builder David Best. New Burners have arrived - Ina from Canada who's been minding one of the last camps on the playa, and the first group of Department of Public Works staffers, finally exhausted from tearing down the city and cleaning the desert, who've come into town for some R&R.

DPW are a very different breed, and I don't get on with them quite as well as the other Burners. Male or female (and they're fairly evenly mixed), reckless macho determination, bravado and mayhem are their watchwords as opposed to most Burners' more peaceful brand of anarchy, and many of them tend to be very into guns and other weaponry. They do an extraordinary job building and tearing down the city, working in incredible isolation and the hardest conditions, but they're well aware of it and some are inclined to treat regular Burners with derision as tourists.

In the evening the DPW group book rooms at the Peppermill casino hotel for a night of luxury and partying, and invite everyone else in the hostel to join them. I stay, conscious of my early start in the morning to catch the bus (I still haven't received a rideshare offer and I'm assuming Greyhound will end up being mode of transport), and the house gradually empties around me. A few stay till after midnight to relax in the hot tub but eventually move on.

Since the others won't be back till tomorrow this is goodbye for most of the people I've gotten to know here. Gadget is the hardest to say goodbye to - we've been together through the hardest part of this process, and brough each other through the decompression to this oasis. Pickle and Lohr I feel like the best of friends with already, we've spent so much time joking and talking food together. It's amazing how fast you bond with people in this community - even Ina, who arrived only mid-morning, already feels like a close friend, and we say goodbye with regret. Jewel and I have spent hours talking together about my journey and hers, and where she goes from here - there are real tears when we separate.

Finally the house is empty except for myself, Hagey (who is finally getting a good night's sleep) and Georgia who has to be up for work in the morning. I'm quite pleased with the arrangement - I'm ready for a quiet evening in, the DPW's agressive partying style wouldn't suit me and it gives me a chance for a serious photo-uploading session. I get all my photos added to my Photobucket account, needing only to be hooked up to the pages themselves (should have them in place shortly).

Finally I hit the sack around 1am, later than planned but with time to at least get some rest before the bus. The house is quiet around me.

Labels: black rock international burner hostel, burners, Burning Man, Nevada, reno, scotch pancakes

The plan for today is to get to the motel, get our gear cleared out before checkout time, then Gadget will return to the hostel (he's decided to stick around a few more days) and I will get a bus out to a suitable hitch-hiking point and begin heading towards Houston. Frankly Hagey has recommended I come back to the hostel too and use the net to trawl for Burners or others heading that way and willing to provide a lift, but with three days to go I'm feeling really antsy to get moving and I'm afraid of how long it may take to get a lift. I need to be in Houston by Thursday in order to meet my fellow santas Tonya, Kelly and their friends, who are taking me to the Austin City Limits Music Festival at the weekend. With this in mind Hagey drops us to the transit centre early (he's an early riser and has been up for two hours) and we get the bus back to downtown.

We get all our gear packed and out of the motel room just in time as the manager comes knocking to tell us we should be checked out, hand in our keys and move on to Quiznos for breakfast/lunch, in my case a Peppercorn Beef sandwich on a soft toasty white bun, easily one of the best subs I've ever eaten. Once we have a moment I spread out a map of the state which Gadget has given me, and begin planning a hitching strategy, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is going to be a nightmare to hitch. Repeating a mistake I can't seem to stop making, I've drastically mis-estimated the journey time - it's going to take three days to get to Houston even with the best hitching I've had. The roads all go in the wrong directions and I'm going to be really stuck trying to avoid the freeways. In short, it's a pretty near impossible hitch.

Frustrated, I look at my options. Gadget recommends Amtrak, and although initially I balk at the price as I have before, I recall that I did reckon to take Amtrak at least once on my journey and this trip might be a good time to do it. The office is closed for lunch and we wait at the station for half an hour with me getting rather twitchy at the time being lost. When the staffer returns the news is bad - Amtrak from Reno to Houston would have to go via L.A. and would cost over three hundred dollars.

Next option: My old friend Greyhound. We walk out to the station to find that Greyhound to Houston is also very roundabout, will cost $177.00 and take almost two full days. Not appealing. Finally I admit that Hagey was right and I need to try rideshare first. We stop into the cafe and I place entries on Craigslist and the Burning Man forums requesting a rideshare to Houston or somewhere on the way. All there is to do now is wait and return to Hagey's, which is actually a real relief after this stress.

However, on the way out I go to take some cash out of the ATM, and get the response "Temporarily unable to complete transaction". Panic. I walk up the road to a corner shop and try a different machine - same result. We walk back to Virginia and I try a casino ATM on a different network. Same thing. I'm really scared now - could I have miscalculated so badly that I've drained my account already? I would have to be thousands of dollars out...

I walk up to Bank of America, thankfully a lot closer to downtown than banks usually seem to be in North America, and the teller, although unable to check my status with Visa, kindly lets me use their phone to call Barclays' Lost and Stolen Card line - I'm beginning to get an inkling that the same thing has happened as in Niagara Falls. I wait for a full half hour on hold for what should be an emergency service, and begin to suspect that something larger has gone wrong at Barclays, when the teller returns to tell me they can't have me on an international call any longer but if I come back tomorrow I can try again.

Still deeply worried, I walk with Gadget back down towards the transit centre, but remember that in Niagara my card would still work at point-of-sale - this would be a test of whether the same thing has happened again. I stop into a grocery store and buy a few bits, and to my enormous relief find that the card works. We return to the station with just enough cash between us to cover our ride back to Sparks, and James comes to pick us up and bring us home to the BRIBH.

Back at the hostel a shopping trip is being arranged for dinner ingredients - James does most of the cooking and is winding up for a big pasta, salad and stirfry project. I decide that if I'm going to be here another day or two I want to be able to pitch in with a contribution, so I decide to go along to get ingredients and make scotch pancakes for everyone in the morning. It's pretty daunting since I've never cooked for more than four people before but it's an exciting challenge too, and a chance to cook real food for the first time in a long while.

I go along with Lore and Pickle, two guys who've been packing up the city for several days and have just returned. They're fanatical about food too, and they, James and I have a great multiway discussion about the virtues of meat, fast and slow cooking, baking vs cooking and other fun topics. Fully equipped we return for an immensely enjoyable group cooking effort with at least six people at all times chopping vegetables, slinging things in and out of the oven, waving red-hot pans about and generally endangering each others' safety at every turn, accompanied by passionate discussions, mostly around food.

Labels: amtrak, black rock international burner hostel, Burning Man, greyhound, Nevada, reno

Finally Gadget and I decide we're going to make a Burner party happen for ourselves. Going to Electronic Espresso first we post a proposal on the Burning Man forums for a get-together in the evening, with some activities around the casinos - we have a plan for a Burner emotional support service for gamblers, spreading out across the gaming floors, enquiring after people's luck and providing sympathy and small gifts for those not doing so well.

While I'm posting, Santi comes online through Google Chat and I tell him about our plan. He recommends I contact Hagey at the Black Rock International Burner Hostel. It's a hostel slash theme camp - Hagey takes in dozens of international Burners every year, puts them up in his place and ships them out to the playa and back again for the Burning Man week itself. I email him right away and get a response before we leave the cafe - he says to come straight over and join them, they have plenty of food, space to sleep and a whole bunch of Burners still there, and they'd really like to see us.

Gratefully we hop a bus out to the Sparks transit centre on the east side of Reno, and call Hagey for a pickup. In ten minutes a huge truck still covered in caked playa dust rolls up to the corner and we're welcomed aboard with open arms. Hagey is in his late forties or early fifties, big, chunky and with a rough-and-ready attitude mixed with enormous affection and unconditional love for everyone he comes into contact with. He's accompanied by Jewel from Phoenix who's staying with the camp, a sweet lady with a slightly snub nose, red hair and an oddly embarassed-seeming smile who welcomes us as though we're her oldest friends and have been away too long. We're back in the bosom of the Burner community.

We return to the house itself, which is a combination hostel, commune and staging area for vast quantities of heavy equipment, caravans, trailers, amazing sculptures and other paraphernalia of a theme camp. It is full of Burners in a mellow party mood - Roy from Israel, Kiwi, Hagey's right hand man from New Zealand, Trent from Australia, Perky who lives locally, James who's currently between locations but originally from Ohio, and many others. They are universally happy to see us, and we are hugged, questioned and led immediately to the fridge and tables of food and drink left over from Exodus.

Inside the house is amazing, full of sculptures and paintings, musical instruments, carvings, bizarre clothes, overstuffed leather sofas and dogs. We lounge in the garden around the hostel's beautiful sculpted fire-barrel as the sun goes down, music playing in the background, in comfortable social drift. Some of the guys drag out two red and green laser displays and hook them up to one of the several computers inside the house to play off the music, projecting a constantly shifting pattern of light over the tentacled metal tree sculpture in the corner of the garden. We disappear at intervals into the shared kitchen for plates of gorgeous potato salad from a vast bowl in the fridge.

Quite soon we decide, at Hagey's insistence, that we'll stay the night and head back to the motel in the morning to get our gear cleared out before checkout time. The sun goes down and the garden's lit by the fire barrel, the lasers and a soft glow from the windows. We talk into the night and watch the fire, unwinding, feeling a real sense of decompression in the protective company of those who know what we're going through. Inside the computers are constantly busy, playing music and videos.

I spend much of the evening talking to Jewel, who is in many ways where I was at the start of the year. After 22 years as a wife and mother she's come out to see Burning Man, and after being let down by her travelling companion and left without money or facilities she has ended up here at the hostel under Hagey's kindly eye. Now her next step would be to gather some money, return to Phoenix and her two grown children (she's separated from their father)...but she doesn't want to go back. She wants to see the world, and her experiences and the people she's met in the last couple of weeks have given her a craving to have an adventure and expand her horizons.

Despite her fears and the shock of her new and unfamiliar environment she's facing up to the challenge of her situation with excitement and passion, and it's really inspiring to see someone taking those first steps, and in a far more challenging situation than my own - she has no savings or equipment and she's getting ready to strike out and just take what comes. It amazes and inspires me, re-ignites my own enthusiasm for the road, for the life of taking what comes next, considering how much easier I have it by comparison.

The gathering continues till early morning. As the night wears on we drift away one by one to crash out on sofas and armchairs or pads on the floor until the house is quiet and every surface is covered in snoring Burners.

Labels: black rock international burner hostel, Burning Man, decompression, hagey, Nevada, reno, sparks

I start the day with my usual blog update and a Capri toasted sandwich at the cafe until Gadget joins me. In the meantime he's finally found a Burner party - Club Underground is having an After Burn party in the evening which seems very promising. We're buzzed at the chance to get in touch with the community again - we're keeping each others' spirits up but both feeling the effects of decompression. It's the sheer strangeness of the return to the real world after being in an environment where everyone treats each other with respect and unconditional love, gives gifts and looks out for each other. You suddenly realise how hostile and uncaring a lot of people are day-to-day, and it's hard to readjust to. Apparently it's very common and can last a couple of weeks.

We go down to the Melting Pot to pick up some odd bits of flare (I have nothing left whatsoever that glows, a major shortcoming) and gifts, eat dinner at the Nugget again (my first introduction to the incredible Chicken Fried Steak, a whole steak fried in breadcrumbs and smothered in gravy - Reno is not doing much for my healthy eating), go our separate ways to sort out some bits and pieces and meet up again at Club Underground in the evening. Unfortunately the staff won't let Gadget in without his ID (which was lost along with all his other gear) so we're turned away. Annoyingly they first let me in without any ID, merely because I tell them my passport is back at the motel and it's a long walk - Gadget's response "It's the damn accent again!" (he's very slightly jealous of the attention I tend to get). Regardless, it didn't look like the party would be much cop.

Disheartened we go looking for the Hideout again, get lost, finally get directions from a taxi driver whereupon it turns out we're standing two doors down from it, and find it fairly busy but still with no Burners. We spend an hour or so there anyway, playing pool and jawing, before going in search of a rave at a club round the corner which turns out to be full of obnoxious townie 15-year-olds.

Finally we go back to roaming the casinos, but we've exhausted the possibilities of free and non-gambling things to do and we just wander aimlessly, hoping for entertainment. Around midnight we're in Tivoli, the Eldorado's main restaurant, sitting in front of a meal which is one of the worst I've ever been served in a restaurant - everything is either overcooked, dried out, soggy or tasteless. My chopsticks actually have woodworm right through them to the point where they snap when I try to use them. The clue should maybe have been that this place serves Italian, American, Chinese and Mexican all on the same menu. We negotiate our way out of most of the bill and leave hurriedly.

Finally, truly desperate for entertainment, we resort to praying to the God of Fortune fountain which provides some momentary distraction (and strange looks as we kneel on the casino carpet, arms upraised in supplication). Deciding that we need to make a sacrifice we start throwing small coins in, but to no response, so we set some of our jelly fish free in the water and whistle the Born Free theme song. Nothing.

Eventually we wander back down by the river to sulk until we're tired out, then return to the motel. Decompression is a harsh mistress.

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Labels: Born Free, casinos, Chicken Fried Steak, club underground, decompression, horrible food, melting pot, Nevada, reno, the hideout, tivoli

Sorry for the brief break in updates, folks - the last couple of weeks have been pretty messy. Getting back on top of things now, updates should be as usual from here on in.

I wake well-rested, but all of my good mood is gone. It seems that the end of Burning Man has finally come home to me and I feel completely alone, a feeling of desperation and loss I just can't shake. I put in a few hours on the blog which raises my spirits a little, but being reminded of what was only makes me feel more lost afterwards. I go back to the motel, sort through my equipment and try to make some plans and get in a positive mood but I can't seem to recapture that feeling of joyful freedom and play, or even shake the dark cloud that hangs over everything. Everyone I speak to seems either hostile, desparate or doped.

Eventually I walk down by the river, which runs through a really beautiful stretch of parkland laced with little bridges, and walking for ten minutes I see a familiar twirling movement on the other side; someone is spinning poi with a little crowd sitting and watching. Burner crowd for sure. My spirits leaping, I cross the bridge and join them. Actually I'm only half right - most of the group, including the poi spinner, are local kids, although they're all wannabe Burners planning to go next year. However, on the end is Chris, aka Gadget, who is wearing a plaid skirt, still covered in playa dust and has an extravagently fur-covered bike.

I sit down next to him. "Burner?" "Burner!" "Just go back?" "Yeah, like two hours ago. You?" "Monday, late" "How's it going?" "Ah...not so good, mate. It's all over, you know? I just feel really alone, and nobody's hugged me today..." then he just hugs me. We talk and compare notes - it turns out he's been left in the lurch by some campmates who left early with his luggage, ID and money. He has nothing except what he's wearing and carrying, most of which has been gifted to him. He's going to be living on the streets until he can figure some way to get money or get in touch with his friends or family back home in California.

I offer the use of my shower, and we leave the group to walk up to my motel. On the way it occurs to me that I'm in a paid-up two-bed room, and I invite Gadget to share with me until other options come up. It turns out to be a pretty good match-up, and we both find that missing Burn energy and a way out of our doldrums as we compare notes and build off each other's energy and enthusiasm. We have similar interests and obsessions, particularly technology, and we were both Burning Man virgins this year - Gadget was literally dragged out of bed by a friend back in San Francisco knowing nothing about BM and given an extra ticket.

There's a rumour that other Burners will be coming to the square by the river in the evening, maybe with some firespinners, so we get done up in full playa gear, load up on giftable items and head back down there, but it's deserted except for a few skaters. We wait around for a while, but no-one shows up. On asking around we hear that Burners tend to hang out at the Zephyr on south Virginia, but after a long walk we find the bar almost empty. We have a couple of drinks (I'm still on the orange juice) and the staff tell us that the other major Burner hangout is the Hideout off 4th. We get a ride with someone going that way, but find the Hideout also mostly deserted.

The general opinion is that most Burners are still recovering and won't be out tonight, so we dig in at the Hideout, which has a great jukebox and a couple of pool tables at which we enjoy a pleasantly incompetent game. Frankly it's nice just to sit and chat. Unfortunately all the time sitting with drinks going past me on all sides erodes my resolve, and I have just one bottle of Guinness, which turns into another bottle, then a whiskey, and by midnight we're drinking Irish Car Bombs with Katie the bartender. When Katie finally closes up due to lack of business she takes us on with her to a great little brew pub from which we stagger home in the early hours.

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Labels: Burning Man, decompression, depression, gadget, Nevada, reno

I sleep long and deep, and wake up with that familiar desert drymouth to jump into another joyful shower (greatest invention of the 20th century, I swear!) before planning my day. First priority: Laundry. I take two loads down the laundry room and in the process meet Paul, a longterm resident here at the Sundance Motel and sort-of parttime handyman.

Paul's a gangling, moustachioed figure in leather jeans and waistcoat, with a tight little braid coming down from under his baseball cap and unbelievably manic energy - he jumps from foot to foot, waves his arms and spins on the spot as he talks. Right now he's cleaning out the corners of the laundry looking for drug paraphernalia and empty bottles left by residents, diving down by each machine, lifting it one-handed to scrape out great clumps of lint and rubbish with his other arm then dropping it to move on to the next. He's already found a crack pipe and two plastic vodka bottles.

Paul's been out to Burning Man two or three times in the past, but he's an original oldtime hippy and derogatory of the new generation of flower children. He is, however, impressed with the huge amounts of drugs and alcohol they're dumping in the motel dumpsters as they rush to unload weight for their return drive home. He tells me about his time on the road with the original love generation, the shock of the original change, kids becoming independent for the first time. In his view the Burner crowd are trying to recapture something they can't understand.

Laundry done I head out to get some work done on the blog. First stop is of course Dreamers for a cup of their incredible chai and a couple of prepaid hour vouchers for their internet machines, but I soon find that I can't access the tools I need and I content myself with answering my mail and ordering some business cards, essential due to the number of people I've been giving my site address out to. Then it's back to good old Electronic Espresso on 2nd.

Typing up my journal from the week turns out to be a surprisingly powerful experience. Mostly updating the blog I find it vaguely interesting to revisit events, but mostly I'm just thinking about how to express myself, what needs changing and how long it's taking out of my day. This time I find myself re-exploring all kinds of states of mind and re-evaluating my experiences as from the outside. All kinds of strange emotional waves come up as I work through the events, positive and negative.

The cafe has an acoustic compilation CD playing in the background, fairly standard coffeeshop music, but about halfway through my session I recognise a tune, and a cover of Redemption Song comes on. I'm instantly transported back to that moment, sitting watching the Temple burn, and I'm completely overcome with tears. I have to disappear into the bathroom until I can get myself back under control.

As I'm getting ready to move out I remember my decision of the previous day and I look up and note down a couple of local yoga centres with beginner classes.

Next lunch. I still haven't tried a real burrito, so I walk down Virginia to Kokopelli's Grill, a really good Mexican restaurant with very economical prices, and have a steak burrito. It's a huge tortilla package, so big I can hardly take a bite out of it, stuffed with juicy steak, black beans and guacamole, and served with a side of crispy tortilla chips.

The afternoon is taken up with a long shopping trip down to the retail ghetto, and by the time I get back to the motel it's almost time to look for the yoga place. I actually get horrendously lost in a relatively small area of town, and I'm still wandering and cursing when the time of the class passes. By bizarre and serendipitous coincidence, however, I happen on another centre - the Yoga Shack - where they have a Candlelight Yoga class starting in fifteen minutes and suitable for beginners.

Inside, the building is built around winding little wood-floored corridors, fronting on a small shop where the attendees of the class are gathering. I meet Jackie who is taking the class, and leave my gear in the locker room way back in the building. The interior of the centre is beautifully decorated in strong simple colours, with patterns of plants and flowers, little siderooms with glowing lamps and ornaments, quirky decorations and tapestries. In short, it's very Burning Man. Serendipity continues.

Six of us lay down our mats in the lovely wood-floored practice room, which is surrounded by candles in glass jars, and Jackie turns on a CD of gentle indian music and begins the class. She talks constantly in a soft murmur, an almost hypnotic series of instructions and calm repetitions as she pads around the room, occasionally stepping in to correct a posture or demonstrate a difficult position.

The breathing and mental work are relatively familiar from martial arts and meditation practices I've done before, but the positions are mostly agonising. I'm expecting something relatively effortless, more about grace than muscle work, but holding the positions with my weight suspended on unfamiliar and under-developed muscles is a seriously strenuous workout and I'm soon burning all over, but feeling tremendously energised too. It's a strange mixture of flowing graceful movement, meditative thinking and strenuous workout, which leaves the mind so overloaded with multiple foci it just goes to another place, and the body glowing with endorphins.

We wind down as the last of the sunlight fades from the windows, moving into lower and more relaxed positions until we reach savasana, lying flat on the back with palms up, eyes closed, breathing evenly, totally at rest. Jackie turns off the CD and we stay there for maybe fifteen minutes in total silence. Then she sings.

Practice done, I roll up my mate and return to the locker room, blown away by the whole experience, feeling energised and totally loose. I spend a little time chatting to Jackie and to Geoff, who was also participating in the class. He got out to the playa himself but was sick the day of the temple burn, and we swap stories of our own experiences there in the softly lit shop until it's time to lock up and leave.

On the way home it's past nine and I'm starving hungry - and what better way to assuage one's hunger than to sample the Nugget Casino's world-renowned Awful-Awful Burger? (Because it's awful big...and awful good!) I order in the narrow, crazily busy diner, crammed into one long low room at the back of the tiny fifty-year-old casino, and in about ten minutes I'm presented with a basket containing a huge half-pound burger and a full pound of crispy fries.

The burger is actually pretty good, thick tasty beef if quite overcooked, with thick slices of onion and tomato on a savoury "onion bun", but when I come to the fries I'm already feeling half-full and the sheer amount of them is daunting and makes me feel quite gross, especially in contrast to the world of soft light and purity I've just come from.

I munch listlessly on a few chips, and then I notice something unusual opposite. A girl in heavily ripped jeans and a bandanna has opened one of the bin cupboards and is rummaging through the contents. At first I think maybe it's a member of staff, at the end of her shift and already changed to go home, until she comes up with a fold of paper containing a pile of discarded fries. Right inside the diner this is some particularly agressive dumpster diving.

Almost immediately the girl is accosted by a male member of diner staff and starts a heartfelt argument pointing out what a waste it is that so many fries get made and just thrown away. The bartender joins the argument and after some debate says she'll talk to the kitchen staff about getting some food for the girl and her friends who are outside, as long as she leaves the bins alone - the manager is threatening to call the police.

The girl's smile of relief and gratitude is angelic. She sits at a table with her packet of fries and is joined by a friend from outside. I give her a thumbs-up from across the diner, then on second thoughts go across to introduce myself and congratulate her on a job well done and on her good fortune.

The girl in the bandanna is Aylie, originally from Vegas but she's been on the streets travelling for many months. She has dirty blond hair under her green bandanna, a ring through her septum and the round, innocent face of a twelve-year-old, although she seems to be closer to 16. Her friend Lauren has long dark hair and a small nose stud, and more of a cynical cast. She's homeless too but comes from Reno originally.

I join them and with some relief offer my fries for sharing. We munch and talk a little bit, and I learn that the girls are here with quite a large group who are waiting across the road, and they haven't been in Reno long. They've walked a long way today and are preparing to find a park to settle in for the night - tomorrow they're all going swimming in the river.

We're joined by Doug, a tall boy with dark dreadlocks hanging over his eyes, who receives the story of the generous staff with a soft "whoa". Shortly the kitchen staffer returns with two large paper sacks full of packets of fries and boxes of biscuits in gravy, and the bartender with three big containers of icewater. They both bring best wishes and good luck from all the staff.

I help carry the bounty outside where the rest of the group - almost twenty guys and girls between the ages of 16 and 22 - are stood under a hanging basket catching refreshing drips. They are almost all in ripped and modified camouflage gear, with shaved heads and undercuts, piercings and tattoos well-represented. I'm introduced to M.D., a chunky, motherly girl with a tough line to her jaw who seems to keep the rest together as a group, Jason, a skinny lad of around 18 with a mohawk above hairline punk and anarchist tattoos and an open, engaging face, and several of the others.

Jason is from Reno himself and we talk about the city as the chips and biscuits are distributed and ravenously devoured. I offer the suggestion that they look during the day in motel dumpsters, for the huge quantities of good equipment and food being dumped by departing Burners. Finally I say goodbye and return to my motel for sleep.

Labels: awful awful burger, Burning Man, dumpster diving, gold nugget, homeless, Nevada, reno, yoga

Rested and full of energy, Deidre and I prepare to hit the town. The only major objective for the day is getting Deidre's SUV washed for its return to the rental company. I suggest we start out at the Melting Pot, a wonderful Burner-run shop on South Virginia with an amazing selection of clothes, cushions, incense, handcrafted items from all over the world, novelty bits and pieces and every possible variety of playawear.

We pause before leaving for Deidre to load her hair with purple and pink ribbons - she wants to stay looking like a Burner, and she really seems to carry the spirit of the playa with her, the sense of childlike joy, play and self-expression. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and I feel that wild spirit too, making me think about the place we've come from and how it changes you. In some ways I'm only just beginning to feel how it's made me a different person.

We spend a happy hour at the Melting Pot browsing and chatting with the staff, and Deidre acquires a pair of bugeyed sunglasses and a coin-hung bellydancing skirt which jingles whenever she moves, with which she's deliriously happy. Hungry, we ask the staff about good restaurants locally and they point us straight across the street to Thai Chili. It's a little blocky building but inside the walls are hung with beautiful carvings and artwork, and the air is full of the scent of spice and sweet sauces.

One of three tiny Thai waitresses in beautiful printed skirts shows us to our table and serves us bowls of savoury mixed-mushroom and tofu soup, aromatic and rich. For the main course I have the Ruby Pumpkin, a bowl of creamy red curry sauce filled with huge prawns, lumps of tender chicken, crispy vegetables and chunks of yellow and green pumpkin. It comes with a pile of sticky steamed rice to dunk. On the side I have a fresh salad with shredded greens and chunks of tomato, covered in tangy peanut sauce.

Deidre has an amazing platter of mushrooms, grilled beef, baby sweetcorn and thick sheet noodles, and we swap to try everything. It's the best Thai food I've every eaten and a hot contender for one of the top twenty meals of my life.

We stagger forth and go searching for a full service carwash to take ten layers of dust off Deidre's Buick, but find only an automatic one so we spend about an hour scraping dust off all the interior surfaces with Armorall sponges. Satisfied with our fairly half-arsed job we go looking for coffee and spot a cafe called Dreamers right on the river.

We park by the courthouse, which is surrounded by beautiful green lawn and flowerbeds, and on the grass we find a little coterie of Burners, two guys and two girls, exuding playa dust and goodwill and practicing yoga, stretching like multi-coloured cats in the sunshine. They ask us to join them in a group snuggle, and I'm suddenly brought face-to-face with all my remaining self-consciousness welling up, my fear of being committed, part of the group, most of all my fear of imposing on somebody else.

My experiences of the previous week - the togetherness, the welcome I received everywhere, the joy of being unafraid - all come together in one moment, and I see the wall that kept me standing outside all those tents, the ingrained geek-kid fear that I won't be welcome, that I'll be in the way, tolerated at best. I see the wall - and I jump over it. I join the group and we snuggle on the grass in a comfortable line in the middle of Reno, attracting any number of very odd looks from passing tourists and cowboys. "We'll have the whole of Reno snuggling here by the end of the day!" says the dreadlocked guy on the end with joyful determination.

The other four are from Maine and and bracing themselves for the long, long drive back home - they're the first New Englanders that I've run into around Burning Man but they're pure Burners - their first question about our week is a very matter-of-fact "So, did you meet many cuddly people?"

Finally the need for coffee overwhelms us and we say goodbye and move on to Dreamers, which turns out to be a dream in itself. High-ceilinged and pillared, with huge windows looking out across the river, paintings everywhere, a set of shelves full of Nation Geographic and paperbacks and an amazing range of drinks. And they have chai.

The chai is amazing stuff, unbeatable in my limited experience, almost fruity under the rich cinammon and nutmeg, creamy and perfumed. The deep sills of the windows here are padded and loaded with cushions, and we drop our sandals and curl up there for some time, moving only to sample the delights of the cafe's massage chair which delivers a surprisingly agressive pummelling and leaves us both wonderfully relaxed.

I'm still digesting that leap over the fence, that discovery of a place where there is no self-consciousness, only the desire to share a moment with others, to feel love and connection. I find myself totally in the moment, not worrying about the next thing to do or consequences or the past but taking absolute joy in the sunshine, soft cushions, delicious chai, great music, the view, the company of a new friend.

Eventually as the sun sinks lower we return to the grass for Deidre to try out cartwheels in her jingling skirt and we chat with the Maine crowd until they have to leave. An idea has been planted in my mind - I've met a whole bunch of people this week who do yoga and get an enormous amount of satisfaction from it and I've grown really interested. It's a discipline which I must admit for a long time I've lumped in with rather fluffy lifestyles, but now...fluffy seems pretty appealing.

Deidre practices yoga, and happily teaches me a few basic positions. It's fun and refreshing, and I resolve to look for a yoga class while I'm in Reno. By now we're pretty hungry again, so we go just next door to Dreamers, to the Wild River Grille. Again the food is amazing. We split an appetiser of shrimp with mango sauce, massive flavoursome beasts in a perfect crispy crumb, the sauce tangy and zesty.

Then it's a New York strip sirloin each, the long-awaited fulfillment of our desire to eat something that bleeds. I order mine rare and it is exquisite, tender and juicy, with a hint of red in the juices and the outside still brown enough to carry real flavour onto the tongue. It's piled with portobello and shiitake mushrooms and a knob of garlic butter, and served with crunchy steamed broccoli (with a hint of lemon pepper and white wine) and garlicky creamy mashed potatoes.

We wash it all down with Petite Sirah, and I'm once again reminded that despite my instinctive railing against the snobbery of wine culture there really is a difference between a good bottle of wine and my usual two pound ninety-nine Liebfraumilch. This is a multilayered experience even to my rudimentary palate, at first sweet with an almost spicy, exotic edge, then rich and warm with a little bit of smokiness, and finally surprisingly dry on the way down.

Deidre, it should be noted, pays for everything, as she has insisted on doing all day. I stopped protesting when she threatened to fight me for the bill. By the time we're finished it's time for her to leave for the airport. She still has a polystyrene cooler and six plastic bottles of drinking water in the back of the SUV, which she doesn't have time to dump. They're too much for me to carry so to make them crushable we use them to water the flowerbeds of the Courthouse, running back and forth over the grass through pools of light from the spotlights with a certain amount of giggling and expecting to be arrested at any moment. It seems an appropriate act for the week.

We part at last with promises to write, and I drift back into Dreamers for a last cuppa, to laze on the windowsill and write my journal. It feels as though today has been the real realisation, the real learning moment of the whole week, for which the whole of Burning Man has only been setting me up. And Deidre, in her bugeyed shades and musically jingling skirt, brought just enough of the Burn back with us for me to finish the process. Thanks Deidre. Now the challenge is to keep it and live it.

Labels: Burning Man, chai, dreamers, Mashed potato, Nevada, reno, Strip steak, wild river grill

My initial plan is to get in my couple of hours of community cleanup first thing, then walk at least partway out of the playa before it gets too hot (I'll be moving at many times the speed of the queue) and start showing a Reno sign once it gets to real afternoon heat. With this in mind I wake relatively early and head straight down to Centre Camp to sign up at either the V-Spot (the volunteer centre) or Earth Guardians, but find both of them already packed up. Instead I get a spare bag and moop the vacant lot opposite my camp, finding quite a harvest of plastic shreds, wood, cloth and nylon bits.



Another dust storm is rising, creating waves of opacity but not a full white-out - dust storms get more severe here as the city is dismantled and stops providing a partial windbreak, and the long queues of cars kick up a lot of dust even though they're barely moving, breaking up the surface.

By the time I'm done mooping the sun is already blazing and I can't see walking out with all my kit, so instead I return to Centre Camp (still with a sizeable clientele lounging on benches or clustering in little groups around the central floor) for more chai, to read and write until the sun gets lower again. The dust storms continue to rise and we get a few minutes of full white-out, a little dust drifting into the tent itself to settle on the skin and grit on the teeth.

At 2:00 I go back to my tent to get some lunch (I haven't eaten yet) with the intention of starting to pack up about half past three - the heat usually subsides from four onwards. But when I get there the queue of vehicles seems to have disappeared - there are isolated cars and RVs rolling out from 10:00 but no sign of the long silver tail. I can hardly believe it - it seems the Exodus has cleared out completely already.

Of course, had I thought about it further (and had a bit more sleep or not been baking my brain in the sun) I would have realised it was impossible for thousands of vehicles to make it out on a single road in that time, and there are plenty of Burners still to leave. But I'm seized with fear that I'm losing my opportunity for a ride and start packing up in a panic, getting everything together a little after three and humping my gear out to the 10:00 junction with the intention of just getting the first ride I can.

Once there and faced with what is still a pretty good stream of vehicles I relax a little, make myself a Reno sign and start begging. The dust-storm is rising again and I keep my goggles on mostly as the oncoming vehicles and surrounding desert appear and vanish in the clouds of white. I'm there about 15 minutes, getting loads of apologies, thumbs-ups and good wishes from people with already-overloaded vehicles, before Deidre pulls over and calls "I'm going to Reno!" I gather up my gear with relief and clamber in.

Deidre is dark-haired, roundfaced and a bit playa-ruffled, with endless bubbly energy and unstoppable chattiness - she's still bouncing in her seat with happiness over the joys of Burning Man. She works for a solar energy company in Vegas, but in her limited spare time she makes beautiful trancey electronica with her boyfriend - she sings and he assembles the tracks. She plays me a track off her iPod and it's stunning, her vocals high and clear and cold over rhythmic undercurrents of percussion.

We're in Deidre's huge dust-covered Buick SUV, given to her by a lucky break at the rental company when they didn't have the compact she'd booked, and the first things that hits me is the delicious blast of cold air from the A/C vents - to feel cold air again is incredible. We roll on into the dust-storm, and rapidly begin to hit points of common interest and passion - music, politics and philosophy, film and books. Within half an hour we are talking like old friends.

This is fortunate because about twenty minutes later we hit the back end of the Exodus. It hasn't moved far - traffic at the city exit may be moving smoothly but a few miles out on the road is the back end of an extensive tailback. The last estimate from BMIR was a four hour wait, which turns out to be optimistic. We spend well over five hours in an almost continuous dust-storm, moving forward two or three car-lengths every five to ten minutes, in company with five other lanes of cars and trailers.

Every now and then we are passed by other Burners on foot, asking for rides or just looking for news. Mostly all we see is the nearest vehicles, the whiteout is almost continuous now. At other times the storm lifts and we can see the startling expanse of white desert, mountains and pure blue sky on all sides before the curtain drops again. Incredibly, even out here in the wasteland miles from the city, we see occasional lone volunteers out mooping the playa. The process of Leaving No Trace never stops. Here and there are art cars parked the other side of the ropes.

We talk and watch and listen to music, our energy gradually flagging as night falls over the dust and the cars. Finally we reach a point where the lanes merge into four, then three, two and finally one, and now we're moving with relative frequency. Even out here there are volunteers in playa gear, in the dark and the dust, directing traffic, keeping each others energy up with games and shouted messages over the wind.

At last we turn out onto the main road, passing another stopped art car on the corner, and we're rolling freely. Still we're surrounded by Burners, ahead and behind us. The local native communities are on full Burn accomodation now, and every few miles we pass a layby with an Airstream trailer and signs advertising Indian Tacos, and long lines of extravagently-dressed figures outlined against the spotlights.

By now my three hours of sleep have caught up with me, and I'm back in Greyhound Space, half-hypnotised by the lights flickering by, dozing and waking, drifting in and out as we roll through the darkness. We stop at an allnight store for gas and munchies, loading up on crisps and amazing beef jerky. Deidre's been eating vegan for a week and I've been on the fish and rice diet, so we both experience rapture over the red meat, alternating comments like "Mmmm...the flesh of dead animals!" and "I can almost taste the BLOOD!"

It is past midnight when we round a curve and Reno is spread out below us in all its glowing, tacky glory. It looks pretty welcoming. We roam the retail ghetto for a while to find a Wendys and buy huge multilayered burgers (it's an ecstatic experience, but the cheap fast food hits my empty stomach like a bomb and I feel bloated and queasy for an hour), then roll into downtown.

I'm looking to get a motel room for another week to rest and recover before heading east, while Deidre is flying out the following night back to Vegas, and just wants to spend the following day exploring Reno, particularly the university district where she hopes to find some interesting little cafes and shops. She's planning to sleep in the RV, but when we find a good motel it turns out there's only a $20.00 difference between a 1-bed and 2-bed room, so we decide to share for the night.

The room is large, reasonably clean, air-conditioned, has a great little kitchen and the beds are soft. Deidre's out like a light, I manage to last just long enough for a blissful shower with terrifying amounts of dust coming off in layers, then I hit the sack. Sleep is long and deep and peaceful.

Labels: Black Rock City, Burning Man, Dust storm, exodus, moop, Nevada, reno, Reno Nevada

My last day before Burning Man, and excitement and fear are beginning to rise in equal part. I spend most of the day on more packing and planning, and I finally get together my rations for the week. I've had all kinds of radical plans for food, but in the end I settle on a simple, relatively light and at least moderately nutritious diet - a Clif bar (nuts and all kinds of nutritious stuff with vitamins and minerals) per day for an easy breakfast, a packet of Top Ramen per day (quick, easy lunches), a bag of rice and tins of tuna and sardines in tomato sauce to mix with it, a tin of Chef Boyardee Beef-a-roni and a tin of mixed veg, plus a tub of Vienna Sausages.

I fill both water carriers and check whether I can carry them along with my rucksack (answer: only just), write out my secrets and throw out everything I possibly can to save weight. Then I set out to enjoy my last evening of comfort for some time: beers, crisps, cupcakes, a microwave barbecue rib hoagie and way too much TV.

Labels: Burning Man, camping, Nevada, reno

Morning spent preparing kit, throwing out everything possible and figuring out ways to compact what's left, and trying to plan how I'm going to lay out my shelter. Think I'm pretty much just going to peg down the edges firmly then use my lightweight poles to prop it up for a bit of sitting or sleeping space when I need them, let it lay flat over my kit (and more windproof) when I'm not in it. From all accounts I'm not going to be spending much time in it anyway. I've got a silver insulated blanket to use as a reflective outer layer over most of it, should help make a slightly better heat barrier.

In the afternoon more shopping, picking up a few missing bits of supplies, energy bars, and finally a replacement hat - can't find a Panama anywhere in town but I pick up a rather smart canvas fedora which will match well with my suit and provides a nice bit of shade (it also has reinforced holes for a strap, essential on the playa due to high winds). In the name of space and weight I finally unload my Fuji SLR camera - it's been pretty much inevitable for the last month, I'm really not using it and it's bulky, heavy and costly to lug around. I get a reasonable price for it in a pawn shop which helps offset my new purchases.

I finally decide what I'm going to give away at BM - all my other ideas have either fizzled or become irrelevent as my journey and myself have changed. I get some really nice vellum paper and little envelopes, and plan to write down secrets (probably seven, one for each day of the event) that I've never told anyone, to give away to seven people who I get to know in the week. Shall see how it turns out. If the opportunity arises of course I'll be helping out my neighbours and theme camps with some practical stuff as well.

Labels: Burning Man, camping, Nevada, reno

More time on the the blog in the morning, and in the afternoon I take a long walk south to the main retail district on Plumb to visit REI, the nearest big camping supply store I can see in the Yellow Pages (this subsequently turns out to be misleading - Twin City Surplus is nearer and cheaper, but so it goes).

I pick up a bunch of additional bits I need, including lightweight poles for the tarp tent, a folding bucket, extra sand pegs, and most importantly a pair of 5-gallon collapsible water carriers. As with everything else, each person must bring their own water to Burning Man. The standard calculation including washing and rehydrating food is 1.5 gallons per person a day. I'm taking No-Rinse body cleaners, saving a bit of water, so I'm going to take a little less than 10 gallons for the week.

Labels: burning man, camping, Nevada, reno, supplies

I start out early with the intention of getting the blog up to date, and spend about five hours working on it, taking a substantial bite out of the job. When I can't take it any more I go exploring the casinos.



Nothing much else to report for the day - a couple more hours on the blog is all. Not doing much here, people, just relaxing and recovering! Events will resume shortly.

Labels: casinos, Nevada, reno

The night is pretty rough - it seems that with some proper rest and real food my body starts properly fighting the infection. The fever comes back and I hack and sneeze my way through the night. But when the sun finally rises the battle seems to have turned - I feel rested, most of my aches and pains have faded and my head is clear.

I make a quick trip out for food, and on finding that walking feels pretty good I scarf breakfast and head out again for a longer shopping trip to get a shirt, phone card, ziploc bags and various other needs from the local grocery stores, one of which actually has a row of fruit machines by the windows. I rest for most of the afternoon, working on the journal and reading, then head out again for a wander up and down Virginia Street, Reno's main drag. The array of fake gold and glitter, neon, mirrors and multicoloured signs is dazzling in its tackiness.

I see a pawnshop advertising firearms, and stop in to stand gaping at the array of weaponry in the glass cases and racks. There's what looks like an AK-47 in pride of place behind the counter, alongside countless rifles and shotguns, and under the counter are a terrifying range of handguns from little .22 pistols to a pair of enormous Desert Eagles, a handgun so ridiculously oversized it takes a strong man to hold it up for any length of time.

Nothing much else to report, just a quiet evening in with the TV. Blissss...

Labels: casinos, guns, motel, Nevada, pawnshop, reno, rest

Sacramento terminus is full of life and some noteably L.A. personalities queueing up for their bus, although no L.A. "accessories" - weapons are forbidden on Greyhound and I'm stopped by a very polite, apologetic and heavily armed police officer who walks me to the Shipping office and requires me to have my swiss army knife sent to Reno separately at a cost of $5.00.

I ask if I can just check it in with my luggage under his supervision, and he says "Well sir, the trouble is that you could do that, but then you could just get to the next stop, ask the driver if you can get something from your luggage, get your knife and stab the guy next to you who's snoring too loud, you know?" I make a mental note: Do not snore in the vicinity of Americans. Five minutes later I recall the 6-inch hunting knife in the side pocket of my rucksack, and hope we don't get a luggage search.

It's the last stretch, from Sacramento to Reno, and I am feeling a bit more rested and human. The countryside from California into Nevada is beautiful under the morning sun, palm trees and pines giving way to cactus and rolling desert hills. Finally we enter Reno at half past 12, having been driving by casino billboards for the last hour.



Reno's not a big city and over it tower the gargantuan casinos - the Eldorado, Virginian, Silver Legacy and their fellows. We stop at the Sands and at Circus Circus, and the serious gamblers hop out in their pristine stetsons and button-down shirts, eager to make the most of every minute.
We turn a couple of streets down and unload at the depot, and I'm filled with a wave of relief - it's so close now, that sparkling wave of hot water, that soft bed, clothes that aren't fused to my skin, the happy communal atmosphere of a hostel kitchen.

All the phones in the depot are missing their phonebooks, so I borrow one from the desk and find...no hostels. I check my Hostelling International book...nothing. I ask the officer in the tiny station sheriff's office - nope, no youth hostels in Reno. I'm dumbstruck, despairing and resigned to pushing my budget well into the danger zone by paying motel room fees for a whole week, but as it turns out things aren't so bad. The motels around downtown are very cheap (mainly because most of downtown consists of motels), and if I book for a week I'll actually pay roughly what I would for a hostel bed, plus having a whole room and bathroom to myself. It's a blessing in disguise.

I find the Castaway Inn two streets over on 2nd, and stand euphoric and swaying gently while Charity, a small skinny woman with an expression which seems sour but hides a wealth of gentleness and concern for her residents, goes through the paperwork and hands me my key.

My room is small but comfortable, with a fridge, kitchenette and a brand new microwave, a TV (with cable!) and a neat and clean little bathroom. Charity also fetches me a hotplate from the office should I want to cook. The shower and bed are straight out of my dreams, but what i haven't anticipated is the relief and comfort of having a little bit of space of my own after so long in shared rooms, restaurants and public areas.

After that it's a series of peak moments - a blissful shower I stay in till I'm thoroughly wrinkled, soft towels, my clothes coming out of the Castaway's coin-op laundry crisp and fresh and warm, the smell and sizzle of rice and beans cooking on the hotplate, lounging on the bed (in my kilt for maximum comfort) with a bottle of Dead Guy Ale. At nine Mythbusters comes on the Discovery Channel, and the memories of a cold desparate night in Richland start to fade.

Labels: bus, California, castaway inn, exhaustion, greyhound, Nevada, reno, Sacramento

I ramble out of Denny's at just after five, beginning to hallucinate little moving creatures at the edges of my vision but still upright, and with just enough energy to get me to the bus station and hop two Transit services to the Greyhound terminus in nearby Pasco. At some point during the night common sense has finally overwhelmed my pseudo-religious fervour, and I've decided to break the glass on the emergency plan I conceived in Tacoma - Greyhound direct to Reno.

I'll have no trouble finding a good cheap youth hostel in such a large and traveller-oriented city, put up for a week, recover a bit of budget, sleep, rest, heal, regain my sanity and be ready for Burning Man. I feel I've had a pretty good taste of the Northwest anyway.

I arrive at around 7, with an hour to go before the ticket office opens, so I take my time in the restrooms getting as clean as possible (which mostly means scrubbing my face and head and pumping trusty Tag spray deodourant everywhere else), then buy my ticket. The cost is $82.00, and since my roughly eight-hour journey from Niagara Falls to Sudbury cost $96.00 I reckon I'll be in Reno by 9pm at the latest, enjoying that long-awaited shower.

Of course, I've forgotten that buses in Canada cost a hell of a lot more for the same distance. My journey to Reno turns out to be a 23-hour run, leaving at 1410 and arriving just after 1300 the following day. Well, at least I'll be in a reclining seat. A lot of people have told me it's almost impossible to sleep on Greyhound, but I think I'm in a suitable physical state to prove them wrong.

I find a bench, prop myself up on the softer parts of my rucksack and catch a couple of hours of kip right there, but when I wake up something strikes me. I've got a 23 hour bus ride...and maybe 20 pages of Danse Macabre left to read with no backup. Emergency. I run to the phones and find two secondhand bookshops, both back in Richland. I have three hours till my coach leaves, but a journey requiring two roughly 30-minute connecting bus rides each way is an uncertain one.

I leave my gear in the care of the Greyhound ticket staff (all hail the Greyhound staff!) and jog back over the road to the bus stop. Two buses later I step off into Richland bus terminus again and run five blocks on what's left of my legs to the nearer of the two bookshops. As I cross the parking lot to the front door I suddenly realise that I'm passing a familiar Denny's on the corner of the lot. I've come full circle.

Equipped with the comforting weight of Clive Barker's "Everville" and feeling pretty revitalised by the excitement and having a destination lined up, I get back to the Greyhound station with time to spare. We load up and start the first leg of our journey - to Portland, Oregon in about four hours.

Greyhound travel long-distance is pretty peculiar even when you're not sleep-deprived and insane. You're crammed into a small space with a large number of perfect strangers. You will talk to a few and get to know them properly, but those you don't say two words to become, through sheer longterm exposure, weirdly familiar anyway.

Your experiences are tightly intertwined - the endless wait for the next stop so you can smoke or just stretch your legs, the prayer at each change of passengers that this time you'll get the coveted position of a seat to yourself, and the associated prayer that you won't get seated next to someone drunk, high, insane or massively overweight.

It's not really a bonding process, because you don't really learn to like each other. It bypasses friendship and makes you more like a dysfunctional extended family with deeply held festering resentments (he held the bus up at the last stop for an extra minute, she's playing her Walkman too loud, can't they ever shut that baby up?).

Actually, I get pretty lucky for seatmates on the first stretch - I'm seated next to Chris and across the aisle from Farid. Chris is Asian-american, with a shaved head and a permanent expression of almost-angry determination which seems to imply that he's made a big and difficult decision and he's sticking with it. That turns out to be exactly right - he's left his home and is travelling to Portland to start a new life.

He doesn't know anyone in Portland, he has no job lined up, nowhere to stay, he's just going to see what he finds. In many ways his journey is just like mine, but while I'm just visiting this is his whole life he's changing for good. It's exciting and inspiring.

Farid, on the other hand, is a born world traveller, one of those guys who's been touched by the road. He's half-Indian, in his early twenties by my guess, has big eyes which glow with energy and a mighty hawklike nose built to lead armies into battle. He has a permanent expression of combined peace, joy and mischief which Gandhi might have worn after a successful panty raid.

He's a philosopher and a scholar, with a reading list which makes me rather self-conscious about my history of pulp horror and cheap adventure books. And most bizarrely of all he's from my hometown, Bedford, although his family moved when he was very young. He's been back since, though, and we compare notes on the town with real pleasure. My time to talk with both these guys is too short, and we part with regret in Portland as they go their own ways to find somewhere to stay.

I join the alarmingly large and growing queue for the bus on to Sacramento, standing next to a thin, intense woman with long dark hair, wearing a blue raincoat. She's complaining about the security staff, "They searched me, you know, and they took my Mace. They just took it. But I fooled them, oh I fooled them good, I wrapped my scissor up in a piece of newspaper, they never found that". I pray we aren't seated together.

By the time our gate opens the line runs right across the concourse and it's clearly impossible for all of us to fit on one vehicle. There is some apparently panicky conferring between staff at the gate and when we file out into the bay half of us are diverted to a second bus. The logistics seem to take a long time to sort out, because we are almost an hour late when we finally leave.

This time I am seated in the midst of a young hispanic family - mum and dad, older daughter and a baby boy - going home to Medford, OR. I'm sat with the dad, a jovial, chunky guy with a goatee and a baseball cap who spends most of the first leg of the journey holding the baby and trying to teach him to flip off other vehicles. It turns out to be a pretty good arrangement actually, they're not really up for chatting much and the baby is quiet and well-behaved.

I get on with reading and once it gets dark I kick the seat back and nap for maybe an hour at a time, drifting partially awake to drink copious amounts of water, cough and sneeze and munch on my remaining DQ chicken (probably by now mildly hazardous after 24 hours at room temperature - I throw the rest away after it starts giving me stomach cramps).

Greyhound by night is the most bizarre experience of all. Once it gets late the driver turns off all the interior lights, leaving only the odd small pool of illumination from a reading light. Outside all is darkness, with only the red taillights of other cars keeping pace and the white headlights and orange streetlights which pass by on both sides. The bus is sealed and air-conditioned, so no sound or temperature penetrates.

You roll on through this cushioned, quiet darkness, and when you stop it's at a series of near-identical spotlit concrete spaces, each one a pool of artificial light in the endless black. The only people you see are your fellow-travellers and truckstop staff, who seem dazed and ghostly themselves under the striplights. It's like travelling on another level of reality - an endless continuum of darkness just the other side of the world we know.

Finally dawn breaks over tall palm trees, and we drift back into the real world as we are rolling into the outskirts of Sacramento, California dead on time. Somewhere back there in the darkness our driver worked dark magic and got us our lost hour back.

Labels: bus, greyhound, reno, richland, sick, washington state