Today we return to our intrepid adventurers as they brave the roads of Nevada and the entry lines of Black Rock City.

In the morning, we met up with D, would would be helping out with building Mirror Blaze:

Many interesting things were seen, mostly out of camerashot:

Taking advantage of the hotel wifi, as navigatrix, I grabbed some maps:

We did some last minute shopping, then headed out to pick up our bikes:

Along the way, we saw a type of terrain which we would be seeing a lot of:

We also played a (not very difficult) game called ‘Spot the Burner’:

And ran into the school police (no relation?):

Then, it was time to head into the desert! I pulled out my trusty map:

For all we talk about the Badlands being much of the same, they’re actually extremely varied:

Passing through the last vestiges of civilization near Gerlach, we saw the ‘last store before the Burn’, where we had experienced our first culture shock upon leaving in 2013. They had interesting ideas about potato chips[1]:

And then suddenly we were there, driving through the salt[2] flats:

It’s difficult to describe or even photograph the alienness and barrenness of this landscape:

Next up: More playa and playa dust than you can shake a furry glowing boot at!

[1]Which is probably good, because potato chips feel like a terrible survival food

[2]Salt is somewhat of a misnomer, because playa is more like an alkali salt, around pH 10.