We wake at four a.m. to the trill of the alarm and slowly drive out past the sleeping campers who shared our site the night before. In the dark, we bump down the forest service road, headlights throwing shadows into the pine trees. We ease onto the highway, hurried, excited; our destination is just a hundred miles away. The stars fade. Pink ribbons wind across the eastern horizon as morning breaks over the high desert. Usually a desolate stretch of road, we join a kind of caravan with old RVs, a heavily loaded U-Haul trailer and a white-painted school pus piled with a jumble of bikes.  We’re all going to Burning Man, the annual gathering in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada that defies description. It’s an enormous art project. A weeklong party. A celebration of human creativity, community and ingenuity. A dance. A memorial. A test of survival skills. Yes, all of that. Continue reading →