Aug 30 - NV

September 14th, 2005 | By April | 1 Comment »

Day 29 - After yesterday Jason and I didn’t know if we wanted to stick around if the weather continue on like yesterday’s, but we were graced with very pleasant cool wind from the north and no dust in our eyes or nose. We quickly found our daily routine of drinking as much water as we could as we rode our bikes around and than trying to find the closest port-a-potties. I think we visited the lovely port-a-potties more than anything else on the playa. We were drinking 2 ½ gallons of water a day between the two of us and probably could have drank a bit more because my skin was still dry – though it probably was from the playa dust also.

I enjoyed a foot bathing camp were they have tubs set up with brushes to wash off the alkali from the playa dust with water and vinegar, and than some foot balm to help them not crack. After that visit I visited the place a few more times during the week ï??Š We also met some bootsnall members – Tiff, Jill, and Ben. It was great to hang out with them and talk about traveling and getting to know them more than just over the computer.

Aug 29 - NV

September 14th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day 28 – Woke up to a still morning that was chilly accompanied by an outstanding sunrise coming over the mountains, and techno music playing in the background…I have no clue who listens to techno that early in the morning. We were on a pre-historic lakebed that was dried up and cracked surrounded by mountains. The immigrants were still moving in to find their new homes on the already layout playa city, and there was a constant flow all day. The morning was so perfect until about 10.00, than the winds started up again and blew all day creating constant white-outs, sucking in fine dust and not seeing more than a few feet around us was a very unpleasant. We rode around the city a bit to see what was going on, and it was mostly people setting up their camps or art installations. So, finding shelter at the center camp café and listening to live musicians while watching people dance and/or practice their fire dancing movements was our only escape from the storm outside. Now we know why they suggest bring goggles to burning man. By mid-day the fine silt dust became our outer layer of skin and the wind had taken all of our hydration out of us. We constantly were drinking water and making trips to the port-a-potties.

That night we met our neighbors who’s camp’s name is Frogma (which included Martin, Dee, Trey, Rene, Terence, Raphael, and Giz,) and took company and shelter in their geodesic dome (the most come form of shelter here out on the playa). They had some very comfy couches and tables set up inside the dome along with a few carpets. We soon learned that this was not over doing it, but quiet normal here. People have allocated furniture used only for Burning Man.

Aug 28 - Black Rock City, NV

September 14th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day 27 – Two lane highway on a very dark night with long segments of cars, thinking ‘are we ever going to get there?’ Finally, we arrive at 10.30pm to the dusty road of Black Rock City. A 5 mph speed limit is in effect and to help the time pass by they were very kind to place signs every 10 feet of poetry all they way to the ticket gate. At the ticket gate they check for stowaways and informed us of the weather, to drive slow, and to proceed to the greeting entrance. It was extremely windy and dusty that night – the wind was about 40 mph. We drove on slowly, again reading more great writing on signs posted down the road. We were greeted by a lady and nude gentleman. I don’t know how he could stand the cold wind and biting dust that was flying around. We were given a city map, a book of events, and general information. Than, we had to go sound a big bell at the gate before we drove through to let everyone know that there were two new burners in the city now. They made you feel like you were coming home, not coming to an event. We made our way through the city to find our new home for the next seven days. The area we ended up setting camp at was where a soccer-mate from nyc mentioned she might be staying. Did I mention it was windy and dusty?? We set up our tent with rebar as stakes and hopped inside for our first nights sleep in the city.

Here is a link to a photo album on burning man - not many pictures, it was more of an experience than a picture taking thing. For burning man & hwy 50 pics CLICK ON ME - you don’t have to sign in the website, just click on the album.

Burning Man

September 14th, 2005 | By April |

Day 27 - Black Rock City / aka Burning Man - This past week was spent in the company of virgin burners and burners – and we were part of the virgin burners since it was our first time to Black Rock City. I have to say it was the best experience that either of us have ever had and can’t wait to go back again. Black Rock City starts to fill in with it’s inhabitants at midnight on Sunday and keeps filling up until Saturday night – the night of the burn – up to a total population of 37,500 people! The layout of the city is in a radial grid with “the man�? in the center of the circle and streets shooting out from the base of the man oriented by the hours of a clock, and rings of streets rippling out starting with letter A and to letter H from the base of the man.

What is Burning Man I will give you my best brief description, plus you can visit there website for more info www.burningman.com . It is a festival where people come from all over the world and all different ages to create and celebrate an experiment in temporary culture, Black Rock City. The only transportation for going around the city is in either an art car (a decorated car or elaborate machine) or by bike. Also, there is no money exchanging – the point being to create a gift society. Though, the city does sell two things ice and coffee (plus coffee shop type beverages) at the center camp. There is a ‘man’ wooden sculpture clad with neon lights to glow and give orientation at night to the citizens, he stands on a wooden structure that is usually interactive, this year the base was a maze with art work that lead to a viewing platform at the foot of the man. During the week the city grows, you live in the dust, heat, art, and a giving culture. On Saturday the big event happens (though everyday seems so great that it is all one big event) and a performance of fire dancers entrance us as we gather around the man, than a display of fire works go off and the man goes up in brilliant white flames and is burned once again. Sunday also has another burning event where they burn a temple that has been built during the week for people to leave memories or messages to remember loved ones or let go of their past. That is just nuts and bolts of burning man… but we will describe our experience later.

Black Rock City, is populated with three different type of campers: Theme camps, they create a camp with a group of people based on a theme and they decorate their camp and create something either edible, an event, or service for the general community; Group camps, where smaller groups of people set up camp together and decorate; and just campers like we were that come by ourselves and set up a personal camp. Some people also come in RV’s and camper vans.

Another Note

September 7th, 2005 | By April | 3 Comments »

Hey Everyone — We just stayed two nights at my Aunt and Uncle’s place in Salt Lake City, had a wonderful relaxing time. We haven’t had time to update the blog or pictures - but we will have a lot to post up very soon.

Burning Man was amazing and I will write about it later - best experience ever though, such a great community and giving people - all of my friends from the East Village would have loved it.

Right now we are on our way to Alaska. We have to cut our trip short by two weeks due to the hike in gas prices… so we are having to skip our stops in Wyoming and Montana and drive straight to AK.

To all my Loisaida soccer players - do your best damage this season - I miss you a ton and good luck with you fall season!! I can’t wait to hear how it is going and I’m thinking of you all a lot.

Aug 28 - NV

August 28th, 2005 | By April | 3 Comments »

Day 27 - Today we are taking care of our last minute preparation for trip to Black Rock City. We will arrive there tonight and stay for a week. And just found out we have much further to drive than we thought — So, no time to upload pics right now…. Sorry! But, you get a week off from reading our wonderful blog, but don’t’ think we are not thinking of you and pre-paring for our next entry I am excited for the rest of our trip along highway 50 and a week of staying in one location.

Aug 27 - UT/NV

August 28th, 2005 | By April | 2 Comments »

Day 26 – With the time changes we are tending to be good morning risers, usually getting up around 7.30ish but our bodies feel more like it is 8.30ish – I love it. We woke to nice cool temperature outside and a view of our red cliff canyon around us. We drove through the city of Moab, nice cute outdoor adventure town. Than, went to Cayonlands National Park. Again, another breathtaking experience viewing the canyons and rock formations – we could have spent hours there, and definitely want to go back and explore the area more. Our pictures of both national parks do not do it justice.

We went back up to I-70 and kept driving west to highway 50. This drive from Denver through to Nevada is one of the most scenic and spectacular drives I have ever been on. The one major area that sits right in there with the rest of the incredible landscape is driving through San Rafael Reef and Swell. It is an area where they had to excavate through this huge continuous reef barrier wall to continue I-70, they spent around 25 years and $4.5 million dollars to create it between 1957 to mid 1970’s, but once your drive through the wall to other side it is again, gorgeous.

We climbed and descended tons of mountains and finally made our way to the loneliest road in America, highway 50, and also found the longest straightest roads in the world. This continues as my most scenic and spectacular drive. One of the most surprising things we saw was as we were rounding a curve sitting there feet from the road in the flat grass lands and distant mountains in the horizon were a few sand dunes standing around 15 feet tall and sculpted by the wind. There were just a few of them sitting there in the fields of grass and farmland. Our resting point tonight was Ely, Nevada. An interesting town with tons of hotels, casinos, and very few hotel vacancies. We got the last room due to a cancellation at the Bristlecone Motel – a very clean and great place!

Aug 26 - CO/UT

August 28th, 2005 | By April |

Day 25 – So, it is the second day that I have worn jeans due to the temperature outside and not the mosquitoes. Transitioning from the humid hot east and southern coast to the dry heat of Texas wasn’t bad. The temperatures were the same there was just less humidity, and of course we enjoyed that. Than, change of hot to the cooler very dry mountain air of the Rocky Mountains was a bit of a stun to the body, in a good way. We now are experiencing cooler nights and a very dry climate – we’re not sweating all the time and our noses are quiet dry inside. We have been drinking a lot of water to help make up for the dry air, and I even started using moisturizer on my face again (haven’t really done that since the beginning of summer).

Highway 70 west from Denver was extremely beautiful. As we started to ascend the mountains towards our peak of 11,990 foot elevation at Loveland Pass the mountains were sharp rugged rocks pretty bare except for some evergreen trees sprinkled here and there. Than, the trees started gathering more and some grass was appearing with a few bushes. The red rock started appearing the further west we drove and the trees came and went as they pleased. These mountains are very steep and made our car work very hard to climb up and than just cruising down the steep grades of 7 & 8% - I can’t even try to explain the views into the valleys and through the mountain range, that is what pictures are for.

We broke off of I-70 to take highway 128 south to Arches National Park. The drive down to the park was exquisite with red cliffs channeling us and the Colorado river through the canyon. We admired the new surrounding environment with gaping mouths full of ‘oh, look at that’ and ‘wow, that is beautiful’. We’ve both have been through areas like this before, but the splendor of it still is something to get use to.

pics of a cayon we drove through to get to arches

We arrived at Arches National Park at the end of the day and toured the park with very few other travelers – making it much more magical. We didn’t leave the park until after dark, the sunset and sharp shadows were magnificent. All the stars that appeared in the sky, I forgot when in total darkness how many millions of pin pricks there are in the night sky, shined like diamonds. We camped that night along the Colorado river off of highway 128, there were tons of campsites along the river. It was our first times using sleeping bags that night and gazed at the stars before falling asleep.

Pics of the rockies in CO…

Denver Skyline

Rocky Mountains

More Rocky Mountains

More Rockies

More Rockies

agian, some rockies

Aug 25 - CO

August 26th, 2005 | By April | 3 Comments »

Day 24 – Denver, Co is a very appealing city with the Rocky Mountains in the background and so many various types of architecture. The one thing it seems to lack from our perspective is diversity in culture and money. The town’s first impression on us as we drove in yesterday was extremely yuppie-high class Disneyland. So many suburban stores dressed out and all name brands with prices so high it is crazy. Than, our second impression was a various amount of style in architecture, great outdoor spaces in downtown, very friendly people, very one seems to be in-shape (tons of bikers and walkers), and a lot of money for expensive stores.

Tonight we went to a cowboy establishment called Grizzly Rose outside of Denver for one of Angie’s friend’s birthday party. It was a very thoroughly country culture with line dancing, cowboy hats, a mechanical bull, and souvenir shop. We had a good time. Tomorrow morning we take off to go across the Rocky Mountains and had to Nevada.

Jason and our friends Jeremy and Angie — Thanks guys for the great time in Denver!!

There amazingly cute dog Otis - hang in there buddy the cone will come off in a couple more days.

Hanging out with the cowboys and line dancing cowgirls.

Aug 24 - TX/OK/CO

August 26th, 2005 | By April | 1 Comment »

Day 23 – We got up early and went to see the Cadillac Ranch off of I-40. The sculpture is extremely vandalized now and a bit beat up. It looks like it became the popular high school hangout. Though, it was still great to see and impressive – a bit depressing when you look down the line with all the taillights and underneath of the cars being exposed to you as if they were forced into penance.

We continued to drive through cattle country and I realized why it smelled so bad. The cattle farms that keep their cattle in fenced in tiny areas with no grass (stockyards) and hardly any breathing room reek as one would if you constantly live at rush hour on new york city’s subway in the summer heat. Compared to the farms that had their cattle wandering contemplatively in green grass pastures had no smell at all and the cows were eating their food at will with a more (to my eyes) pleasant surrounding and lifestyle.

Old use of wind for farming — and new use of wind for energy…

Sleepy man - our second rest-area sleep over with the truckers.

Cadillac Ranch