When we finally reach BRC Road, we spent a good 10 minutes driving 10mph before reaching the gates. At the gate line up, they were searching some people’s cars, and even got them to remove their bikes from their car mounts (one of the guys looked sorta like Eric… Sam disagreed). Fortunately, our experience was pretty quick and easy. We gave the gate guy our tickets, he scanned them and the vehicle pass, and then we were on our way!… to the next gate.
The next gate was actually a census checkpoint. Adora and Eric got questioned, but Sam and I didn’t (they said questioning was random). So we proceeded to the final gate, where we were greeted by a naked greeter. He got us to make embrace the playa dust by making dust Angels, and then ringing some sort of bell (while doing some sort of warrior cry I can’t remember right now).
Afterwards, we headed over to Eric’s camp at 8:30 and I. When we pulled in (Sam sorta pulled in aggressively), a guy named Dalton came up to us and started acting pretty territorial (he kept insisting we go to our own camp). Of course he was super nice to Eric and Adora. Unfortunately meeting Dalton was the first BM camp we met, so not a very good first impression.
So Sam and I spent 30 minutes trying to find a place to camp out. He talked to one guy for a good 15 minutes about what is the etiquette and boundaries for camps. Basically the guy he talked to said that camps are usually territorial, and they do mark their boundaries.
We then ventured into 8:45 and I, where I stumbled across a camp that looked like they had open space. I approached one of the camp members, Tara, and asked her if we could use the space. She said yes, so we were super stoked. But then, 15 minutes later, one of the camp mates said they were gonna use he space. Fortunately though they had space at the back of their camp, so they made some room. Also, the neighbors adjacent made more room for us so we could fit the car and our tents.
After parking the car, we started to set up our tents. Its the first time I actually set up a tent on my own. Fortunately I found the instructions. The take aways for me though for setting up any tent were: (1) the skeleton of the tent needs to be set up such that there is a good amount of tension, and (2) the stakes of the tent need to be pointed inward.
After setting up the tent, unloading our stuff and changing into proper attire, it was around 5:30pm. We then made our way to Eric’s camp to see how he was doing.
<pic of tent set up>
Eric’s tent was pretty awesome. It had a silver reflective coat to block the heat from the sun, it had fans that regulated the temperature, and they fit two twin air mattresses. Apparently the tent cost $500.
We then showed Eric our camp set up. Shortly after, he left, and Sam and I decided to do a little bit of exploring.
We first went to center camp. The most notable thing is that they sold lemonade. We also night some ice nearby and put it in or camel baks. There was also an information booth that we used to find out where Richard’s camp was.
We got to Richard’s camp probably around 6pm. He was there, and we chatted for a bit. We made plans to meet up again around 9:30pm at his camp.
<pic of center camp>
Sam and I then started heading back.
We got back around 7pm, and started making dinner before it became too dark (we made the mountain dehydrated dinners).
<pic of dinner>
We then proceeded to add lights to our bikes (I had to re-add mine since Sam took them off back in Rino since her became paranoid we would get pulled over because of them).
<pic of bikes>
We then headed over to Eric’s camp…
