Burning Man 2015 in Pictures II: Travel to Black Rock City!

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:

S Explains Things to D.
S Explains Things to D.

Many interesting things were seen, mostly out of camerashot:

"What's that over there?"
“What’s that over there?”

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

Does *everything* have a Yelp review?
Does *everything* have a Yelp review?

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

Black Rock Bicycles!  (There may be something of a theme to these names.)
Black Rock Bicycles! (There may be something of a theme to these names.)

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

Nevada Badlands.  We would be seeing a lot of this.
Nevada Badlands. We would be seeing a lot of this.

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

Spot the Burner!  (For bonus points, spot the art car.)
Spot the Burner! (For bonus points, spot the art car.)

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

The School Police?  How do you know?
The School Police? How do you know?

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

See that big blank patch?  That's where we're going.
See that big blank patch? That’s where we’re going.

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

Flat Badlands, with Butte.
Flat Badlands, with Butte.
Scrub Badlands, with Butte (Buttetholomew, to its friends).
Scrub Badlands, with Butte (Buttetholomew, to its friends).

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]:

Potato Chips?
Potato Chips?
They have all the same colours as vegetables...
They have all the same colours as vegetables…

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

Driving through the salt flats.
Driving through the salt flats.

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

It's difficult to capture the barrenness of this landscape.
It’s difficult to capture the 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.

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