Saturday, August 29th, 2026 – Eugene, OR
Turns out the people to took our spot at the camp ground were Burners. From Portugal, or so the host claimed.
I woke up to texts from the camp ground host. I talked to him later, who filled me in. He’d talked to them and collected their one night rent in cash. They claimed not to have seen the name on the post next to their spot, indicating it was reserved, and claimed not to have seen the large, prominent sign saying the camp ground was full.
The good news was, we got the cash he’d collected. The host was great; a former Burner himself (can one be a former Burner, or is it retired, or inactive), he was very chill about the whole thing, apologized, and then asked if we wanted an actual refund or he could give me the cash. He hinted a refund would be a bit of a pain, with paperwork, and it was an honest complaint, I didn’t feel pressured. So I took the cash. He offered us a spot to hook up to water and sewer if we wanted, but it was late and we didn’t need it, so we declined.
We found a local bakery for breakfast, then headed to REI for some last minute things.
As we left, someone on the freeway kindly shouted at me that we had a flat. I pulled over in Springfield and sure enough, one of the rear outside duals was flat. Yikes. I’d aired up all of them before leaving, but things happen. The tires are relatively new, in that the RV hardly goes anywhere but the Nevada desert so they have low miles.
I had fortunately stopped about two miles from a Les Schwab, and they had time for a flat fix. They’d also sold us the tires, so hopefully the flat fix would be free (it was). We limped over there, unhitched the trailer, and handed over the keys. They had to move the high school car wash fund raiser out of their outdoor high bay so they could fix the flat (no way would the 5 ton former minibus fit on one of their lifts at this location). From flat detection to fix was less than 2 hours! Yay for a slow Saturday in Springfield, Oregon. We did not see any four-fingered yellow people, however.
After Springfield was a drive over the Cascades to Klamath Falls, where we fueled up the rig and the squishy bodies inside, then pushed on into the night. We crossed northern California and drove through Modoc National Forest (where the agricultural checkpoint was closed this time, a first for us). We crossed over Cedar Pass and dropped into Cedarville, where I had planned one more snack stop. But the newish gas station was closed; in years past they’d stayed open late due to Burner traffic. So, we didn’t get our last-stop corn dogs.
The next stretch is the most boring and exciting part of the whole trip: a last little bit on a winding 2-lane highway, a dash across the border into Nevada, and 40 miles of suffering. Seriously, Nevada, you now charge an entertainment tax on Burning Man tickets, can’t you fix your roads? Brutal, brutal. But the nice part about this drive is, I get passed by other Burners! Yup, we are slow. We’re in an old rig, it leaks a little water, and it’s towing a trailer. So, we don’t roar up the hills and slalom down the backsides. Slow and steady.
Gerlach and the End of Civilization
Finally, we descend into the Gerlach area. I stop at the local transfer station for a quick check of the rig (which was doing great), and a first view of the Black Rock Desert and all the people who are headed there.
We jumped into the 8 mile backup to Gate Road. That took about 40 minutes. Then our tires touched gravel, and finally hard playa, as we left the pavement. The playa dust hit us right in the everything, and sure tasted and smelled familiar.
Gate Road leads to Gate, the sprawling set of checkpoints that everyone must pass through to enter. Gate Road is 8 lanes wide (some years, it was 10 lanes), and all lanes are filled eventually. We waited in the first part for about 2.5 hours.
The first interaction is at will call, where all 8 lanes are stopped and anyone in any of the lanes which need to go to will call are directed there, one lane at a time, through a large intersection. Those, like us, who have tickets, are directed on to the next set of 8 lanes, whichever is open (we were directed to cross all the way from the rightmost lane we were in to the leftmost lane to continue).
The second checkpoint is inspection and ticket scan. At inspection, they ask questions about what you’re carrying, then they walk through the RV, look inside the art car, look inside the large tool box on the trailer, and generally look into any space which could fit a person. Yup, they are looking for stowaways. It’s a problem. Think of this as the Costco final receipt check. They want to make sure the number of tickets you have matches the number of bodies you have. They also care about lasers, drones, weapons, etc. and ask about those, but this isn’t a “toss every box” inspection, more a “poke the haystack with a bayonet to see if it bleeds” sort of thing.
We passed. They scanned our tickets, and we moved on, at 5 MPH.
The final checkpoint are the greeters, and the newbie bells. These are folks who hand you the thick events book, a map, and give you a hug (if you want) to greet you into the city. No inspection. No questions (except, if this is your first time). The bells weren’t installed (very large bells that first timers are encouraged to whack with a large mallet), but they encouraged us to get out and wallow in the dust, just to get that out of the way since it’ll happen more or less naturally anyway. We declined, but accepted the books.
It was dawn by then.
We aren’t part of a registered camp. That’s okay, many folks aren’t. So we are relegated to the edges of the city, places of large blocks of space and little organization. We found a spot at 5:30 and I, sort of our go-to location. We had the map of where the registered sites are, just in case, but they are also sort of marked (badly) by tiny flags in the dirt. The roads are also sort-of marked: the intersections are marked, and the roads have wheel tracks, but that’s about it. The first to arrive in a block sort of define the neighborhood. Kinda cool.
We parked.
We crawled into bed.