One Year A Pole: Part II - Gingerbreadland

  My digital guidebook recommended Toruń as a charming medieval town famous as the home of Polish gingerbread. Say no more. I was sold. It was a sunny Friday afternoon when I arrived, walking the long bridge across the Vistula from the train station side to the old town. I checked into my hostel which was right on the square (rynek) to discover that I seemed to be the only occupant. 

   When I asked the receptionist Jan about it, he responded that they were open... for now. 

   “The boss says we might close on Monday” Jan told me.

    With only my $10 to show for a days work I could see why. 

    I found the town charming. Though I couldn’t quite get a bead on the gingerbread. I didn’t find any. And the two gingerbread museums were closed. In fact it seemed that everything was closing hour by hour. There’s always the river though! And I found the holy mass that evening a grounding reset for my soul. 

   Shortly after dinner I put down my phone, I had reached my self-imposed daily limit.  But another 40 minutes I went ‘bad’ and picked back up the internet. 

   It was then that I saw the news. Borders were closing... all over Eastern Europe. The time had come for my freak out moment. My brain racing, hands shaking, my only reaction “get out”. I devised a radical plan for Sunday, a 4am train to the airport, a mid-day flight to Ukraine. After paying out my dollars by the hundred I put down the phone. 

   I knew I need to calm down. A walk is always the right answer, no matter the question. Quiet midnight streets soothed. As did a few conversations with wise minds stateside. I got to sleep about an hour before dawn, what little sleep I could manage. 

   Waking up I knew I needed to take care of myself as best I could. I did my full morning routine, went for a run, and took a long shower. 

    Since my expensive escape plan seemed like a foolish endeavor, I decided that a better plan than ‘get out’ was ‘stay here’. If I couldn’t stay in normal touristic accommodations... and it’s a global pandemic, then a cabin in the woods seemed like the obvious solution. I searched google maps for most of the day, interrupted only by my panic shop of stamps, vegetables and a SIM card for my phone. 

   I had a few requirements, the cabin had to be within 5 miles of a train station, a church and a supermarket. That I’m way I could walk to everything I needed!

I lined up a few prospects, a dozen really, google can be quite a hole. But one stood out above the rest. I had a good feeling about it, maybe it helped that it had an English name listed next to its Polish one. 

    On Sunday I asked Jan the receptionist if he would call to try and make an arrangement for me, my Polish skills being nonexistent. 

   They picked up on the second ring and an energetic conversation began. Unaccustomed to the Slavic tongue, it sounded bad. Knowing I was an American they asked if I was sick with the virus. When he hung up, after the longest 6 minutes of my life, I found out to my surprise that all was set. 4 weeks at 200 zloty a night. A bit steep, but being a pandemic I figured I’d be spending zero on bars, restaurants, museums, transport etc. 

    * I knew the pandemic wasn’t going to be over in 4 weeks, but I didn’t want to scare off any potential hosts by asking for more. 

   A little later Jan helped me to find a taxi and discuss arrival details.

   Monday morning, closing down the hostel and hitting as many ATMs as I could I made my way to the train station, back the way I had come across the river. My rail journey was pleasant enough. A sunny day, windows that slid down for fresh air, a compartment to myself. But spoiling the pleasure was the fear and uncertainty that was in mind, for me, and I presume, everyone else on the train as well. It seemed as if the world might end tomorrow. 

    When I got to Węgierska Górka, my stop, it was after dark. Well after dark, heck it was after dinner. The station area was entirely deserted. I sent a text to the taxi man, I had made an arrangement, or so I thought. In this rural berg I was at the mercy of the lone taxi. What if he didn’t come, who could I call? I sat there waiting. 

   Eventually he arrived and we made our way up to the cabin. I followed along on google maps, the cell signal faded out. It’s a strange thing to ride through an unknown country in the black of night.  You are curious to know, but only shadows and floating lights come to you, hints, but nothing can be made out. 

  After a brief and somewhat awkward introduction to the cabin, I was... somewhere. After all the tension and travel it was hard to believe it was real.  

One Year a Pole: Part I

  To travel the world as an American in this day and age is still a privileged experience. The world is written in our alphabet. Our fashion is the fashion. And  our occasionally silly domestic affairs make news in every foreign land. 

   The reverse is of course not true. No one visiting New York is offended that signs aren’t written in Mandarin (it is spoken by over a billion people). 

  And so when I was asked what Americans think of Poland, I had to answer truthfully: “they don’t”. I guess for this reason I had no expectations, great or otherwise about this nation. 

   In fact I hadn’t any excitement at all coming here. It was simply an overland route from Scandinavia to the Balkans. I figured I might see a few sights along the way. 

Boy did I! 

  The global pandemic made me an unintentional resident of the land of John Paul II. 

  And you know what I found out? Poland is a pretty darn good place to live. 

   Put most simply it’s the perfect ‘half & half’ of Eastern and Western Europe. 

    I must confess though that my initial impression of this country was decidedly unfavorable. 

   A damp dark lifeless city. Concrete. Hostel guests smoking in the bathrooms amidst multifold signs to the contrary. 

   Daylight brought little change in this perspective. A dull town square, more concrete. 

   Once I got on the tourist trail, so to speak, things got better. Gdańsk is fascinating, even if the March weather was a blend of rain, sun and horizontal hailstorms. At this stage the pandemic panic was creeping into the back of everyone’s consciousness as we maintained our normalcy on the surface. 

  I shared my hostel room with a Pole on a bit of a do-nothing-and-relax vacation. He thought himself better at English than he actually was. Still we managed to converse. He kept insisting that everything was fine, it was all a big scare, and then would laugh the uneasiest laugh I have ever heard. His family must have been practicing that laugh for generations under communism. 

My third morning I awoke listening to a still-in-bed phone call from the next room over. An American, the kind of kid who runs away to Europe because Boston isn’t far enough, insisting to her parents that everything was fine. 

   At the tourist information center they told me that all the museums would be closed from... today. In fact they had already closed a few hours before. Just that morning I had gone to at least one museum in Poland, good thing. 

   The next day the panic hit the populace. I whiled away the hours waiting on the rain. When it finally cleared it was after dark and the moon was peeking it’s head above the horizon. I set out to see the old earthwork fortifications of the city, now a park along a waterway. 

  I walked past 6-story blocks of Soviet housing, across broken cement and past barking dogs. 

  I stopped at a supermarket to buy a donut. The locals were panic-shopping. I watched with serenity and amazement. Their panic shops were so tame, comparing them in my mind to ludicrous American behavior.

I walked into the park. The moon reflecting on the mirrored surface was so beautiful that I barely made it in before I just had to sit and meditate. I sat on a bench, closed my eyes and began to feel the presence of my breath. Then I felt something on my left foot. I startled to my feet. As my vision came to I perceived a fox, just as startled as I, moving away. I grabbed my backpack, said a few exclamations of shock, and carried on my way. 

  Fortunately the fox bite had been of the investigatory type and not an attack. Also I was wearing a shoe. 

  Surprisingly this incident neither rekindled my initial displeasure with this country nor inspired me to consider the spiritual significance of such an encounter. 

It was time to move on. 

Top of The Year

 I must confess. I love to read Wikipedia. I binge read it really. One article to the next, new discoveries, new adventures. 

I’d like to say that this past year of lockdowns has given me more time than ever to read Wikipedia. But the reality is that I read it exactly as much as any other year, it is a constant diversion in my life. 

This past year three articles stopped me cold and blew me away. I was fascinated, sucked into the story, and curious as to all of the side stories. Each of these three kept me busy for days, spaced out over the span of weeks, and to be honest I’m still not done with one of them yet.

1. U2’s Zoo TV Tour — I must admit I’m a casual listener of U2. You know they come on the radio and such... I wasn’t aware of the bands transformation from a politically serious band of the 1980’s to their more familiar incarnation as rock Mega-Stars of the 90s and oughts. This tour was that moment of transformation.  It wasn’t just any rock and roll tour, it was perhaps the maximal tour of any band in history. When you read through all the stories you keep thinking “this could never happen today”. 

Want to know why? (And trust me you do) a weeks worth of Wikipedia awaits. 

2. Sir Walter Raleigh — You’re probably familiar with the name.  He’s one of those captains of the Age of Exploration, right? 

   Wrong. 

    He lived more lives than a normal man might in a hundred tries. The article starts off “He was an English landed gentleman, writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy, and explorer.” 

That enough for ya? In reading his history, one has to keep going back and forth trying to keep the chronologies consistent in your head. Secret marriages, suppressed rebellions, life in Ireland, Westminster, a stint locked up in the Tower of London... and yes the Lost City of Gold... all this and more... 

3. The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro — straight from the ‘Truth is Stranger than Fiction’ file. Inspired by the success of so many airline hijackings a group of PLO half-wits decided to hijack a cruise ship. What could go wrong? A lot apparently. The cascading series of events has a Tom Clancy feel to it. Except that in fiction we often get smooth criminals, devious plots, and logically ordered events. In real life we got a wide cast of interesting characters, from the bumbling to the crazy. Only Abu Abbas stands out as an intelligent, seasoned operator. The drama escalated until the point where USA’s Delta Force was in a classic guns-drawn Mexican-standoff with Italian Carabinieri. 

Wait Aren’t the Terrorists supposed to be the bad guys?  This geopolitical drama is worth your attention. 

Honorable Mention. Jud Süß —  Joseph Goebbels produces the winter blockbuster of 1940/41. “Based on true events” of an 18th century regal drama, twisted into antisemitic propaganda, and featuring Germany’s biggest stars. 

A letter to Joe Biden

 

Evan’s Coronavirus Celeryroot Soup

   I developed this recipe based on the situation at hand (stay at home, lots of time) and the simple materials available to me. 

  This recipe has a zen quality to it. Do not try to complicate it, this recipe is about letting simple ingredients shine. 

   The key step which requires some explanation is the dice. The celery root must be chopped in a fine dice, less than a 1/4 inch dice, but maybe a little more than 1/8th of an inch. 3-4 mm 

With the other vegetables you can be a little looser with your precision, but basically this is the same dice for all the ingredients. Don’t try and use a food processor, you won’t get the evenness of the cut vegetables. 

As with most soups it’s better the next day, if I make it to eat for dinner I usually try and start in the kitchen 3-4 hours before I wish to sit down to eat. 

Ingredients:

Celery root

Onion 

Leek

Carrot

celery/parsnip/sweet potato/ something else?

Split peas (yellow, dried)

Cooking oil 

Olive oil

Paprika 

Salt and pepper

• Set some water to boil in a kettle

• Clean and chop your auxiliary vegetable, or two, set aside into a med/large bowl as mise en place

• Peel the celery root, use your chefs knife and not a peeler. Turn the root sideways and take a thin slice about the thickness of your dice. Set the root aside and lay the slice down on your cutting board. Make cuts along the root that go 90% of the way through, but don’t cross through the back end. The cuts should be parallel and very close together. You should now have something that looks like a white circular comb 

Now cut cross ways, to make your dice. Voila! You’ll have to cut up that last bit of the slice that the score cuts didn’t go all the way through. 

   Once you’re happy with the contents of your cutting board, transfer over to the mise en place bowl, and work on another slice. 

Yes this takes a lot of time, but you have nowhere to go right?

• Now dice up that onion and add it to the mise en place. You can be less precise here. 

A word about how much.  I usually use one small celery root for a batch serving two. Or a half of a larger celery root, the remaining half will keep well in the fridge. 

(If you make a double batch using a whole large celery root there will be a lot of chopping, consider recruiting help. )

For onion, a small onion or maybe half of a large one. For the other vegetable, just a bit, maybe 1 medium-small carrot, 1.5 stalks of celery, 1 parsnip, use your judgement 

The ratio should be about 

         60       /       20       /        20 

celery root / onion & leek / other veg. 

• Choose a pot (stainless preferred, double walled preferred, any pot will do) at least double the volume of your prepared mise en place. Add a healthy dose of cooking oil ( 2-3 tbsp) and place over medium heat, when the oil gets hot add the vegetables and turn down the heat to med-low, stir every 15-30 seconds for a few minutes. 

We’re not trying to get anything browned, but we do want the vegetables to get oily and shiny and a bit translucent (for the onion).

After about 4 minutes add the split peas,  at about the same amount as the onion, or a little more. Not too much though! Maybe a half cup?  Keep stirring another minute or two.

• Add the hot water until everything is covered by 1/2 inch of water. Stir.

• Add a tablespoon and a quarter of paprika, and stir. (Optional) (smoked recommended)

• Bring to a simmer and turn the heat down to low, cover and simmer.

• Stir every 10-15 minutes. The kitchen will start to smell wonderful. If the peas absorb a lot of water you may need to add a little more water. 

• After 90-120 minutes the vegetables will begin to break down. You’ll open the lid and notice that there is layer of water that has risen to the top, as you stir you’ll see that it’s drier and gloppy on the bottom. At this point you must stir a little more frequently to reintegrate the water and keep the bottom from scorching. I use the back of the spoon to forcefully press down on the soup against the bottom or sides of the pot to help break apart the vegetables and peas. Then stir again and cover. 

• after another 30+ minutes your soup is done. Add salt and stir in. Take off heat. 

Serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top and sprinkle with finely ground black pepper. Serve with a warmed chunk of hearty bread with butter. Other side ideas, bok choy, potatoes, tomato salad. 

After initial cooling it is a good idea to keep the pot covered and place it in a plugged sink full of cold water to help lower the temperature. Transfer to sealed clean containers. Keeps for about 5 days. Or you can freeze some. 

Smacznego!

Living Life with ‘Mo Regrets

    Often the opposite is said... a trite repetition in The Culture... a misplaced remembrance of a song lyric comes to mind, “Don’t look back”. 

I want to consider the value of regrets. 

There’s a huge asterisk here of course. For most people embracing and sitting with regret is a ripe context for the arising of self-hate, shame, worthlessness, and guilt-tripping. This molasses filled swamp envelops you and causes only pain and turning-away. I don’t condone any of these unproductive yet sticky & habitual mental states. 

But if you come to a place where you can at least recognize and discern what is the constant voice of self-hate and what is your intrinsic emotional flow. And if you can resist the loop of re-hashing the latest example of your worthlessness Then it’s time for you to consider the power of regret. 

Like all of our universal human proclivities, love, fear, gossip, and so on, it exists as a kludgy mental process which serves us in some way. The power of regret is not to mourn or commiserate the past. The power of regret is to help shape our future. 

This week I awoke one morning From an unpleasant sleep and felt a familiar feeling. The comedown from a slumberland sugar-high. Soon I identified within me the feeling of regret for my actions the night before. I am at a point in my life where I feel the winds of change around my main vice of binge eating. Feeling bad the next morning, both in body and mind, is not new. But this morning was different. 

I had the presence to avoid the well trod path of shame. The piling-on my present self for all the unwise actions of some previous Evan. I saw that I regretted my actions. I forgave myself. And I contemplated how I can respond to sugar craving in the future. I realized that this was the healthy path of change. That my regret would help me to make better decisions for myself. 

It was a revelation to see the positive process of regret in action, after so many years of exposure to the opposite message.  

I recalled another example of how regret can help us to make better decisions in the future. A while back I had dreamed to help coordinate a final reunion of my grandma and her best friend when they both were dying. Had I been living close to family at the time it probably would have happened. But I was across the country... and life is so busy as we make it.  When I got an email from her son to let me know that grandma’s best friend had passed away I knew the opportunity for a meeting had passed. I regretted not having tried harder to make it happen. At the time I was deeper in the swamp of self-hate. While I don’t recall how it went at the time, it’s likely those feelings of self-loathing and failure led me to an evening of dullness and binge eating. 

Years later when I was back home I spied an opportunity to help my maternal grandmother. Nana grew up an only child. When her family moved into a new apartment building, Beatrice, the girl who lived down the hall became her big sister. They spent the better part of a century living in the same neighborhood, raised kids, lost husbands; always the closest of friends. As Bea’s health worsened she went to live with her son out in the suburbs. She and Nana often talked on the phone, but they hadn’t seen each other in years. 

  Here was my chance. I had a car, and the nose to prod Nana a little to invite herself out to see Bea. The reunion was a joyful moment for all involved. I have no doubt that my priority and drive to help grew from the experience of regret with my other grandmother. 

So if you can, keep one mindful eye open to look for regret in your life. Watch for that pull towards the guilt trip, stay on center and see what power regret can put into your life. I know that’s what I’ll be doing from now on. 

Take 5: A trip to Burning Man

    There are few things in life as dear to me as the community of wonderful crazies I have found through Burning Man It's almost not enough, what I've just said, but it will suffice, for the magical special thing about Burning Man is, I believe, incommunicable.

    Here I am (below) all ready to leave the farm in North Carolina. I had about 10 days to buy, register and wire-up a truck, and prepare everything I was bringing. There was a lot of running around, fixing up the trailer, bamboo harvesting, shopping etc. The only piece of available flat land for the trailer was was down at the bottom of the farm. The farm house is at the top of the hill, up a quarter-mile gravel drive. Packing day was a lot of up and down.

    You may notice the blue tape on my travel trailer, a tribute to my friend Andy, with whom I traveled post-burn in 2014.

     It may also catch your attention that the bed of my pickup is not piled over the top and strapped down with gobs of supplies. It is a tradition drive to the Burn with a vehicle that is maxed-out on payload by volume and moderately to severely overloaded by weight. It felt strange to be heading out with the bed of my truck virtually empty.

    Part of the reason I was so lightly loaded was that I was driving alone. I wasn't able to convince anyone from our Virginia-based art project (The Mega-Cake) to drive with me. Jamie and Chris were driving out from Norfolk a day later and we hoped to meet up in Wyoming to caravan together the last thousand miles.

    I'm pretty new to towing a trailer, so a solo transcontinental trip felt like a challenge. However given my cross-country experience I was confident in my ability to do 500 mi days. I planned for two rest days in my schedule to break up the monotony and to leave room for any unforeseen incidents.

    Day one was a great success, despite the lack of Air Conditioning driving was manageable without the use of the cooling suit I had brought with me. It is a t-shirt with tubes sewn into it. You connect it to a cooler with a special pump that pumps ice water through the shirt. Some cloudy weather helped on many days of the trip so I didn't end up using it while driving.

    Another big aide was the use of some old-school cruise control. That is, my steering wheel lock ("The Club") jammed between the accelerator pedal and the driver's seat cushion. Highly effective.

   Carbondale Illinois was reached before sunset on the first day. Visiting my friend Raine and her daughter Sequoia. Rest Day: Working out, breakfast, emails, sanitizing the trailer's water tank, cooking dinner, moon viewing, fixing generator.

    Day 3 took me up to St Louis, and then across Missouri to KC. (This map might be helpful now) Stopped at a Home Depot for a part to fix the kitchen sink in the trailer. Discover that even with my two generators my AC in the trailer still isn't working right due to high starting amperage. I made it to a lovely campground in Nebraska City. Camper life is really enjoyable if you find a peaceful campground. Of course I had to get to work draining the bleach water out of the camper's tank, fixing the kitchen sink, and researching the AC problem. I learned that all AC units might benefit from a hard start kit. In short, the part I needed was in Omaha.

     Day 4, detour to Omaha to pick up the AC part. And a stop at Home Depot to try a few more parts until the sink finally got fixed. Driving across Nebraska takes all day. I passed my first fellow burner, he too was towing a trailer. I waved, but I wasn't sure he got the message, my taped on decoration was facing the wrong way. He had a little burning man logo taped on the back of his trailer, this was something I would have to emulate.
      I pulled into Cheyenne Wyoming after dark and realized that my dim headlights would need fixing. Called a handyman to arrange the next day to have the help of a ladder to fix the AC on the trailer's roof. I plotted a pre-dawn run, brushed my teeth and checked the Facebook Mega-Cake group chat where I discovered that Jamie and Chris had broken down in Denver. With them the camp trailer with all the tools, tents, clothes and kitchen supplies wasn't going anywhere : (  I knew what this meant.

    Day 5, after an early morning run, breakfast, meeting an interesting retiree handyman who had a ladder. [He keeps busy writing google reviews, even for places he's never been to, and exploring old mines and hunting for gold.] At 8:30 am I called Jamie:
           "I heard you'all broke down"
     "Yeah"
           "Should I come down to help?"
     "Yeah"

      So off I set. (Fun Fact: Cheyenne is only 90mi from Denver) Along the way Jamie and I worked out various details of how I could tow his trailer.  Jamie wanted to know how high my trailer ball was off of the ground, because "this trailer is really low, and we gotta have it level."  At 8,000 lbs I knew there was no messing around with anything other then level.  Jamie told me he was running with the top of his ball 15 inches above the ground.
    I pulled over to measure mine, I called Jamie up:
         "I'm at 21 inches off the ground"
    "That's alright I'll give you my adjustable level ball mount, We'll just swap it out of the hitch"
         "Uuh, my truck doesn't have a hitch."
    "It doesn't have a hitch? Then what are you towing with?"
         "Its got this thing bolted to the bumper, its got a ball but its not a hitch."

    I had to look it up. Ladies and Gentelmen, this is what a you call a Pintel Hook.

       I told Jamie to figure something while I got back on the road. He cruised the internet and found a hitch that has a plate on the back with four bolt holes. You can bolt it to a tractor, you can bolt it on a wall, you can bolt it to a truck. I told him Amazon wasn't gonna cut it for our timeframe, I said:
         "Find it in Denver"
     He did.
          At Trailer Source, and I drove straight there.
     The friendly associate had pulled the part aside and I was all smiles as I got the part I needed. I walked outside held the hitch up to the bumper to see, and . . . F*¢K. 

     The bolt holes didn't line up. Immediately I realized that this was gonna have to be welded. I went back in the shop, spoke to the friendly associate. Spoke to the mechanics in the shop. Spoke to Jamie on the phone. No one had any answers. 
      There was only one problem with the idea of welding the hitch onto the bumper. it was a Saturday! By divine guidance the first welder I looked up on google answered the phone, listened to my problem, and said he could weld it in the alley behind the shop. I didn't like the sound of it. Some random dude, welding it in the alley, and I'm gonna trust my truck, all of the camps equipment, and potentially my life that this hitch doesn't shear off at 65 MPH.     But I had no other options. 

      I drove down to the welding shop. Mica the welder had a shop full of race cars, which is why he had to do it in the alley. But in the end I trusted him and he did a beautiful job.
     Now all I had to do was get a new ball mount, hook back up my trailer and park it somewhere. Luckily Jamie had located a fellow burner in the Denver area who happened to have a free yard to park my travel trailer, his name was also Evan. Then back down to finally see Jamie! By this time I had driven through the teeth of Denver traffic three times! I was pretty beat. 

      But we weren't done yet, I had to get Jamie over to the tool store so he could get a transmission jack to change his transmission in a Lowe's parking lot. Then to the named parking lot to tow Jamie's stranded truck away from the trailer and push it into a parking space. Then to finally hitch me up to the camp trailer. Whew! What a Saturday! we crashed hard.





    Jamie was going to have to wait a whole 'nother 24 hours for Monday morning to start calling shops to find out about an expedited transmission so he generously gave me his co-pilot Chris to help me get the camp trailer out to Burning Man.


Day 6: Chris Revels takes this triumphant picture of me getting ready to leave Denver. 

     With the 32 foot 8,000 lb trailer securely hitched I gingerly drove north out of Denver. I had Chris back out of the gas station. Maneuvering a rig this big was a whole new ballgame. 
      I got back behind the wheel, My truck had plenty of power to tow it, but we were being conservative, no overdrive on the transmission, 60-65 MPH max. At that speed, all of the Semi-trucks were passing us. When they did, their wake first pushed us aside, then sucked us in close then pushed us away again. I was learning quickly how to corrective steer against these forces. 
     We made it back to Cheyenne, where I had been a day before and set out west across I-80. We stopped at the summit rest stop at 8,640 ft of elevation. I drove west to Laramie and picked up new headlights. As I drove into the late morning the electronic signs on the highway warned "CAUTION: WIND GUSTS UP TO 45MPH", Chris drifted off to sleep. When he woke up the electronic warning had become all too real. I told him I had been white knuckle driving for the past 40 minutes. Just then a truck blew by and the gust pushed me to within inches of the edge of the pavement. As we came to our senses, a blue sign offered an oasis, Rest Stop 2 mi!  

    We pulled over at about 11am and waited, and waited, and waited. Plenty of time to have lunch, take a silly photo, change out the headlights, meet fellow travelers, and put retro-reflective tape and a little burning man logo on the trailer. 

     It came to me, the trailer was 'The Black Beast' and my truck 'The White Knight' to save the day. The rest stop seemed to know of the omnipresent condition.

    By the time the winds died down it was near sunset and we had been stopped for 8 hours. We drove on into the night, wary of the transmission. With no temperature gauge for it, we stopped from time to time to crawl under the truck tap a hand to the hot transmission and see how hot it was getting. It was hot, but the cool night air was helping. Chris' eyesight was no good after dark, so I drove on until my eyes gave out. We stopped in Evanston Wyoming, at the very west side of the state. We had made it a solid 440 miles. We did 2am laundry and slept. 

     Day 7: As we breakfasted and packed up Chris gleaned from the locals that the climb up into Utah was a reckoning. I wanted to plan a stop to cool off the transmission before the climb, but we couldn't figure out where the grade was, despite its mythologizing by the locals, so on we went. After cresting the summit, and a transmission temperature check on we went into more bad news. The gentile I-84 route down into Ogden was closed, so we'd be forced down the steep I-80 grades into Salt Lake City. We made it into town and did a little shopping to buy food for the weeks ahead. I drove out of town to an overlook on the Great Salt Lake to let Chris take a stint behind the wheel. But before we could set off, another misfortune. The transmission was untouchable, it was scorching hot. We sat in the narrow noon shade of the trailer and waited for the transmission to cool. I bathed in self-recriminations. 
      Eventually I looked to see about a mechanic in the last town on the edge of the SLC metro area. I called up Pete's automotive in Tooele. Pete answered the phone and dropped everything he was doing to come rescue us. He towed The Black Beast to his shop and we followed along. His inspection turned up nothing wrong other than being a quart shy on tranny fluid. After a few test drives up steep hills he pronounced our transmission good to go. By now it was the hottest part of the day and we again chose to wait untill conditions were better for driving. I set off into the cold star-filled night. When we stopped, only 400 hard miles had been accomplished. We were a couple hours behind schedule. and we felt like for sure we could make it. 

     Day 8: We woke and hit the road early, meeting more burners along the way.

Stopped at the last town in Nevada for food and ice and gasoline, and then headed up the beautiful and narrow country road that leads to the Black Rock desert. We checked the transmission temperature many times, and things were staying cool enough. At 2pm a stroke of intuition told me to check the tire pressure on the trailer. The tires registered 95 PSI!!! The Black Beast had thrown up one last challenge. We let air out of the tires and drove on. Reaching Burning Man for two weeks in a bubble city apart from the world. 

Mega-Cake was the art project we built. One week of work, four tiers, 6 flaming candles, 2000 Watts of power. It was open for 48 hours, and then we burned it down in a fireworks spectacular. 

Here is a timelapse of the week of building it. 

And Some shots of the Cake

And of course there were a few weddings at the cake. 

I Love this perspective picture showing the Cake and the city beyond.

Yours truly and Jacob (one of our Mega-cake Crew, 11 years old) just after finishing the Flaming Candles, Jacob is holding the box with the 6 buttons that fire off the candle poofers. 

And The Burn

There's so much more I could write about the Burn, The trip afterwords to Portland, selling the truck and trailer, visiting old friends and the three part train ride PDX-OAK-LA-KC back to North Carolina, but I'm out of words, and I'm sure the pictures are what you really wanted anyway.

-Evan