RV packed to the gills, we filled the tanks with gas and propane and hit the road around 6:30pm on Saturday. Since we couldn't pick up the RV until 2:30pm, we decided to drive three hours the first night, as we knew we'd be getting a late start. Upon arriving at the historic Belvada Hotel in Tonopah, I turned the key in the storage locker to get our luggage and the key broke off in the lock with no resistance, like it was made of frozen butter. We laughed out loud in the cold night, grabbed a few things we had stored inside the RV and slept well in the beautifully remodeled hotel room. In my 34 years of living in Vegas, I've only done the Vegas to Reno drive once and I remembered it as being drab gray sameness, but it was actually colorful and interesting. It appears I've finally come to appreciate the nuances of Nevada landscapes.
My daughter Whitney had Ubered from the airport to a nearby WalMart and we spotted her smiling face in a sea of RVs in the parking lot. Shopping for food was an adventure. There were so many people shopping, some already in full Burning Man regalia. I was surprised by the many long colorful braids, but after camping for a few days, I got it. My hair is not long enough, but having hair braided and off your neck is genius in the heat and dust. Shout out to the airport WalMart, they were prepared and efficient and had pretty much everything we needed.
My niece Monica and her fiance met us at the Burning Man gate, which was lovely. We followed their bicycles through the dusty well laid out streets right to our coffee camp. Monica, an organizational genius, had laid out the camp beautifully. There were 20 of us total in the camp, though not everyone arrived at once, so it was a challenge to fit the coffee tent (for lack of a better word - the huge 'tent' was a masterwork of engineering), the SHIFTPODS and the RVs in the allotted space, while also considering privacy and shade.
The first night we basically organized the RV and sat outside in our camping chairs. A few innovative people in our camp figured out how to open the RV storage locker with the sliver of broken key and what, maybe tweezers? I don't know how they did it, but I appreciated it very much. You have to get creative in the middle of the desert. As the evening cooled and darkened, colorfully lit up art cars would drive by at random. I felt like I had been plunked down in a Dr. Suess book, where wonderful creatures and vehicles zip around at will. It was pretty magical to be having a conversation and look up to see a fabulous confection roll by.
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