Today is officially my one-year anniversary with GE Aviation.  On top of that, I hit my 31st birthday this month and on the same day I hit my 5-year anniversary in Portland.

Last year I was meeting my co-workers for the first time as we got onto a jet to fly to Austin, Texas.  I spent my first week of employment meeting my new team that I’d be working with and trying to get my computer up and running. The legal entity of GE I work for is Austin Digital, a group of around 15 developers and a number of other people totally around 40 people.  I work at the Portland office, which consisted of five developers before I was hired and is now seven.  The group is small, but we create some excellent projects.

Since my beginning, I worked with my small team here in Portland, four of us, to develop an entire web API and a web portal to view some of our existing products online.  I’ve gained experiences working with technologies I’d never really used before.  From starting to use javascipt/typescript to embedding Tableau into our site with Tableau’s javascript API.  I’ve had a good time so far and have learned quite a lot in my short year here at GE Aviation.

It’s that one year mark, and to me, it means I need to figure out what I’m doing next.  I like this group, and I plan to stick with them for a while, but I don’t think I have a real direction yet in the company with how I can grow and be the most effective.  Here’s hoping that those questions get answered soon.

Another side of things to consider is that I’ve been back from my global adventure for 15 months now.  Crazy to think it’s gone by so fast.  My five months of traveling the South Pacific seems to of been forever ago and I’m definitely feeling the itch to explore some more.  My finances when I returned were pretty dry, and working here has helped a lot in that department to stabalize me once again and allow me to do some smaller trips.  I think the most important thing to focus on now is to keep paying off debt, do some smaller trips, and then figure out how I can get my foot on the road once again in another part of the world.

Sometimes You Pick A Bad Egg

After a long day of flying (Portland-Denver-Orlando-San Juan, PR), we touched down into the San Juan Airport around 9pm or so.  Our flights were all successful without much of a delay anywhere.  Quite nice for three legs of flying.  We grabbed our bags (50L backpacks each with a small satchel or backpack), and headed to the taxi zone as bus transportation wasn’t very well known at the time.

We gave the man our hostel (The Palace Hostel) location, got into his van, and made our way to the hostel.  Thankfully it was a flat rate for the ride as he gave us quite a little drive of the places around our hostel to go check out for late night eats and drinks.  We arrived our hostel and paid the guy $20 for the lift.

The hostel wasn’t very inviting, but I’ve been to enough of them that this is sometimes the case…especially on Christmas eve at 10pm at night when most of the locals are at home having dinner with their families.

Once getting checked in and locating our room, we quickly realized that this place was quite a dive.  Now, I understand that I’m staying in budget accommodations, however, I’ve stayed at enough hostels to know a good one from a bad one, and this was on the spectrum of the latter.  The room was small with a creaky bunk bed.  Thankfully at least it had AC.  The bathroom we were supposed to be using didn’t have toilet paper and the light didn’t work…just great.  After asking to get a roll of TP and being told that it isn’t a common hostel amenity (maybe in PR – later found out that isn’t true), I was helped out by one of the workers and handed a half roll.  It’s better than nothing, I thought.  Bathroom use consisted of turning on my cell phone for light which is always a sign of good things to come.

Though the conditions of the hostel weren’t to my liking, we made the best of it and hit the streets around 10:30pm around the hostel to find a drink and some food.

Avoid The Touristy Spots

This is something you must learn, and after almost 3 good years of traveling, I’ve found that you get the best experiences and save the most money avoiding the places all the tourists go.

We talked to the hostel and they didn’t have many recommendations except the tourist spot for drinks, so we just started wandering the streets and soon after, found a place with music and drinks.  It was full of locals, and that’s what we wanted.  We didn’t speak much Spanish at all, but we were able to get a couple beers however.

The local beer, Medalla, is a lot like any American domestic beer, kinda crappy, however, we were hot, thirsty, and willing to drop the $1.50 a can.  I was pretty excited when I found prices like these for a beer as I wasn’t sure what to expect for the prices.  Soon after leaving this spot and going to some of the recommended locations (touristy spots), I soon found that we needed to come back to this spot.  The recommended spots had the same beer for around $5 a 10oz can. That’s not cool!

This was quite the pricing theme of the trip.  If you were willing to walk away from the spots the tourists go to and find spots the locals go, prices went down a lot.  One of our favorite spots was near the $1.50 beer spot and they had 200ml bottles of rum for just $3.00 and a bunch of pool tables which Bobby and I enjoyed quite a few nights.

After walking all over the part of San Juan we were in, we finally made it back to the hostel where we stayed up with some of the other guys talking about the plans for the night and drinking lots of rum before Bobby and I decided to call it a night.

Christmas In Old San Juan

After sleeping in a bit, we decided to figure out what Christmas was going to be for us.  We kept hearing about Old San Juan and decided to venture out that way.

One of the things I kept reading about were The Forts of Old San Juan.  We decided to not worry about the buses and just walk the 45 minutes to Old San Juan.  It was hot, but we figured we could manage.  The walk was pretty great and gave us a good look at the area on the way to Old San Juan.  Lots of friendly faces about the streets and the park we walked through which brightened our moods.

We arrived the San Juan National Historic Site and found out it was closed for the holiday.  Damn! Well, what now?!  That wasn’t going to stop us.  Old San Juan isn’t just about the forts, it’s also a lovely area with colorful buildings and cobblestone streets.  Quite a charming place and gave us quite a good time of continuing our walking.

After a couple hours of site seeing around the streets, we stumbled upon a brewery (Old Harbor Brewery) that had some local cervezas (Spanish for beers) – even a tasty seasonal.  We went in, realized it was of course more for the tourists, but stayed anyways because we wanted some tasty brews.  We learned about the history of the brewery and that they’re pretty much one of the only ones around.  After the history lesson, the brews, and our hummus plate, we ventured back out to the streets.  We ended up in the direction of the ports and soon were blown away by the size of the cruise liners that were docked.  These things were ginormous.  I’ve been on my share of ferries, but never a cruise, so I was quite surprised by these massive ships.

After being blown away by the vastness of the ships, we kept walking and found this Christmas themed park dubbed “Navi Town”.  We didn’t stick around long here, but we did enjoy some free canned tea.  We saw a large statue of a sea horse so we left Navi Town to go check it out.  While there, we saw this little dog and didn’t think much of it.  Well, after a bit more time of wandering, we started walking towards the direction out of Old San Juan.  On the way out, that same dog we saw earlier was going with the flow of traffic and keeping pace (probably 5-10 miles an hour)…in the middle of the road itself.  It was awesome.  Such a cool little pup.

After catching our bus, we left Old San Juan, got back to our hostel, and went to the pool hall where we grabbed some rum and played a lot of pool.  We ventured back to the hostel where we met some of the others and found out they were going out to Old San Juan to go to some of the bars over there.  We didn’t have any plans, and hanging out with people for Christmas sounded good, so we went with them.  A couple I saw before in the hostel happened to also be at that bar and after some time of chatting, I got a number of a taxi, and gave them a call to make plans way too early in the morning (5:30am) to go to Vieques Island.  The four of us got a taxi to the hostel and quickly passed out.

Couples In Vieques

I woke at 5:30am realizing that my alarm didn’t wake me up and after waking Bobby up, we quickly packed, and barely made our taxi to the ferry.  The rush to the ferry was a bit overwhelming, but we made it the hour drive and then got in line to get our ferry tickets to Vieques.  Well, we quickly found we got there way earlier than we needed.  Got our tickets around 7am, and then waited around for another two hours for the ferry.  Oh well, the joy of traveling, right?

The ferry took a couple hours and we quickly got to know our travel companions.  A couple with killer dreads from Minnesota who were escaping the normal existence of life back home.  Bobby and I had no plans for accommodations that night, and after chatting with these two, finding out they were doing some camping, we went the same direction.  We walked into a place to ask about tent rentals and found a price of $40 a night which we turned down.  We hopped into a cab and got to the site location on a BEAUTIFUL beach called Sun Bay.  Problem was, no tent rental places in site.

I didn’t want to have to take a taxi back into town, so I ended up chatting up the security guard there about the lack of a tent and looking for a place to rent one.  He laughed a bit, and once he realized I was serious, he called up a friend and I was told to wait.  After about 5 minutes, one of the workers showed up, and he let me and Bobby borrow his tent for $10 a night – SWEET!

The bay was amazingly beautiful, the drinks weren’t too expensive at the tent location, and there were lots of wild horses in the area.  Pretty happy with the location.  I started chatting up some other campers and learned about an area nearby that had more restaurants and hotels.  We all ended up walking along the beach before finding the location mentioned and ate some expensive food and had some poorly made drinks, but we were happy looking over the bay.

After having a pretty uncomfortable night in the tent, Bobby and I decided we needed to figure out if we were staying here or moving on.  We made friends with another tent couple from New York, Avery and Nolan, and walked back to the restaurant area to get breakfast with them.  The day was filled with beach time and getting to know each other.  It was excellent.  I’m really hoping to bump into those two again.  In the afternoon, we also bumped into a couple that I saw the day before briefly and found out they were wanting to go to Culebra as were we.  It’s another popular island around Puerto Rico with supposedly the 3rd best beach in the world, Flamenco Beach.  The original plan was to just take a flight over to Culebra, but we were quickly disappointed to find out they were booked.  Instead, we found a great deal on chartering a sail boat, so we booked it for the following morning!  The couple we were going with, Jake and Maria, invited us to just stay on their extra bed in there hotel.  That sounded great for us and gave us a chance to not sleep on the ground.

Culebra Is Rad

We woke up early the next morning, took a taxi, then a dingy over to our sail boat taking us to Culebra.  If the winds were favorable, it would take us two hours.  Well, they weren’t, so it ended up taking us around 4 hours to get there, but we made the best of it and had some great bonding moments along the way.  The owners of the boat, a couple from Denver, made us snacks, provided us drinks, and even let us use their snorkel gear and kayak when we got to Culebra to see the sea turtles.  It was quite the amazing sailing trip.  I’m also pleased to say that I’ve now sailed in part of the Caribbean.

After seeing some lovely sea turtles and taking a dingy to the island of Culebra, we made our way to our accommodations for the night, a tent, this time with pads and room for four with gear.  They even provided us some toilet paper, bug repellent, sun block, and flash lights.  The tent was under the trees next to Flamenco beach.  We dropped off our gear, and went with Jake and Maria to explore the “3th best beach in the world” under the moon light.  The beach was quite nice, however the majority of it was covered in kelp which takes it out of my list for worlds best beaches completely.  Not sure what people were smoking when they said it was the “3th best beach.”  We enjoyed some great conversations at the beach before heading to our grand hotel (tent) to go to sleep for the day to come.

The following morning, I got up, and went for a swim (after traversing through the sea kelp).  Afterwards, I met up with the other three and we decided getting a golf cart was much desired to explore other parts of this island.  Golf carts were the most affordable modes of transportation on the island, so we got one and started our exploration.

We picked up some snorkel gear, made a number of stops, got food for later, and ended up at another beach opposite on the island from Flamenco called Zoni beach.  The waves were awesome here, so we spent a good couple hours just body surfing.  It was such a good time and what we all needed.

The beach time was followed by more exploration of the island.  It wasn’t a huge island, but I wouldn’t have wanted to explore the place just by walking or biking as there were a number of hills and it was quite warm out.  The cart was surprisingly powerful being able to take the four of us up some steep hills I wasn’t expecting it to make.

After a day of traveling around the island on our golf cart, booking a flight the following day to the main land, we finished up the evening enjoying some good food and going to the resort nearby Flamenco beach which was actually a really cool place I’d probably stay at if I ever came back to Puerto Rico.

The night came, and so did the sunrise.  We got up early, did a little swimming, then carted to drop off our snorkel gear, and drop off our cart.  We got a lift over to the airport, made some PB&J sandwiches and checked into our flight.  The airport was small, so real security was a joke, but it was a beautiful way to get to the mainland without dealing with the slow ferries.

Our mates had a rental car at the airport from when the came to the smaller islands, so we got on with them and went to the El Yunque Rainforest.  After a large number of windy roads, we made it to the gate with a big sign saying it was closed for vehicles.  No big, we got out, and started on foot on the main road until we found the picnic area.  This area was pretty nice looking with a number of signs warning us to avoid mongooses.  I only saw one the entire trip (earlier that day), but that was it.  There was a decent trail in the area, but it was rain washed out, so we went up the road.  As we got to the only direction cars could end up going, we realized that this place looked like it hasn’t been cleaned up in years.  So much overgrowth which took the road of around twelve feet or so, to barely fitting a single person.  After a ways in, and getting our shoes covered in mud, we realized that we couldn’t go any further.  Well, that’s just great.

We headed out to find a couple other people who we ended up talking to for a while.  The guys who was leading the duo has been living in the area for a while and said that we were at the South entrance which most people don’t end up going to and that we wanted the North to see all the waterfalls.  That’s just our luck.  We ended up finding another trail and made it to what could be considered one before making our way out and heading North to a city called Luquillo.  This was a decent beach town I heard about that didn’t really meet up to expectations, but we stayed a little while anyways.  Attempted to grab some food at the local “mall” of small restaurants that for being expensive and not very busy, was extremely slow.  So we cancelled our orders to beat traffic and took off back towards San Juan as our traveling companions had an 8 am flight they had to catch.

We all went to Old San Juan together and wandered around some of the parts we were last time before we decided to head up North.  I’m glad we did cause we stumbled upon the top of the second fort which was a lovely site.  While out there we caught the sunset and found a fantastic restaurant called St. Germaine.  The atmosphere, the workers, the food, and the fantastic drinks were so good that Bobby and I came back a couple more times the next few days.  With one final dinner with Jake and Maria, they gave us a lift to our new hostel (Island Time Hostel) and departed ways.

Always Enjoy Island Time

The first hostel we got was off a site called hostelbookers.com which I use most all the time when booking hostels.  Well, this time I found this one on hostelworld.com and I’m glad we did.  It was WAAAAAYYYY better than the last one.  If I were to ever come back to San Juan, PR, I would be staying here again.  The people were friendly, the grounds were clean, and our room was pretty good for being small.  Bigger than the last hostel for sure, and it came with a private bathroom.  They also provided pancake mix and fruit for breakfast.  I wish we could have stayed here longer, but we had places to be and sites to see.  So we checked out, and took the bus to get to the Sheraton near the convention center I scored a couple rooms at for New Years.

New Years Eve At The Sheraton

I got a killer deal at the Sheraton using some points I had.  Regular rate for the room was $225 a night, and for NYE it was $800 a night.  Thanks to my spg points I had, it worked out to around $100 a night.  I’ve heard great things about the parties in Puerto Rico, and though I didn’t actually attend the main party at the Sheraton, there were tons of people showing up for the one there and the convention center next door.  The cost was $135 for the party, but after Bobby and I scouted the scene to realize most everyone there were couples, we decided to just do our own drinking and soon after, we found the casino.

Earlier that day, Bobby and I bought some cigars from one of the shops in Old San Juan and enjoyed them while also the “free” casino drinks and the games.  Games of choice were Craps (though it wasn’t working for me this time), Blackjack, and Roulette.  Blackjack was the winner this time and I ended up $20 over the $100 I started with for the six hours we were on the floor.

The night ended around six or so before having one final cigar, a couple drinks, and passing out to some Puerto Rican soap opera on the TV.

Gooooooooooooooooooo Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks!!!!!!!!

We slept until around noon the following day before getting up and figuring out what our day was going to be like.  The only thing either of us had scheduled was to watch the Ducks play Florida State in the first round of the playoffs at 6pm.  That gave us enough time to relax, get some grub, and enjoy the game.

Leaving the room around 2pm or so, we went on a hunt for lunch and were surprised to find out that there wasn’t much open in the hotel outside of the Brazilian joint charging $40 a plate.  So at around 3pm, we got the bus, and took it to Old San Juan.  We heard about a good pizza joint (Pirilo Pizza Rustica) where we ordered two large pizzas.  While the pizzas were being made we went to Walgreens (all over PR), and got two twelve packs of Medalla.  Leaving there, we left just in time to get our pizzas, and make it back to the bus depot before they had their shift change (added 30 minutes to the trip) and made our way back to the hotel around 5:30.  Just in time to eat, and get prepped for the game.

We decided that it would be a smart idea to make the game into a drinking game.  Each point or first down Oregon got would be a sip of our beer.  Each turnover would be to finish the drink we had.  Well if you watched the game, you’ll know that our beer didn’t last too long as we scored 59 points and there were six turnovers in the game!  Suffice to say, we finished both our twelve packs and didn’t feel amazing afterwards.  Only thing left to do then, get up and go hit the table games in our casino where we watched the next match where Ohio State defeated Alabama.

We only were at the casino a couple hours before the effects of the pizza and beer caught up to us and we hit the beds for our final night in the Sheraton.

The Forts of Old San Juan: Guardians of the Caribbean

The majority of our final full day in San Juan was spent exploring the forts of Old San Juan.  It’s only $5 to enter the fort and it covers the other fort as well.  We started with the larger fort called San Cristóbal.  This place has a lot of history and is quite a cool place to explore.  Bobby and I made it into a game of sorts where we tried to explore as much of the place as we could.  I’d say our ventures were quite a success.

Following this we walked along the road towards the fort that protected the entrance to the port called El Morro.  Another awesome fort to explore and has a lot more stairs and goes much lower than the first.  A couple days before when we were in this area we saw a road that went around the parameter of the fort we wanted to get to and though they said the only way to get to it was from the port entrance, we were able to hop a couple fences and scramble over some rocks to get down to the trail.  Glad we did, cause it was a hot day and we didn’t want to have to walk the same path twice.

The road/trail was around a mile long and gave some pretty views of the water with the walls that make up the fort.  Along the path we stumbled up a grassy area where we saw dozens of large iguanas.  They were fast and wouldn’t let anyone get to close to take some pictures.  Jerks!

We finished up the trail and made it back into Old San Juan where we stopped in a Hawaiian coffee shop and had a late afternoon meal and some tasty iced coffee.

Finished In The Atlantic

We left Old San Juan by bus, grabbed our stored items from the Sheraton and made it to our final night in San Juan staying at The Atlantic Beach hotel.  This place was the cheapest in the area (still $99 a night) and was pretty central to the north side beaches of San Juan.  The guy who greeted us was a nice man and gave us some good info for the area.  We checked out the drink prices at the hotel and didn’t give into the expensive cheap beer, and instead made our way out onto the streets where we found more hotels, casinos, and good food for not that expensive of a price.

Bobby and I went to three casinos that night, one of which payed me quite well off of $12 at roulette.  I kept hitting the numbers and when I left, I was up to $210.  Which I quickly cut in half as I played a few other games.  All in all, I was successful at the table games and left PR a winner.  I also had the best Pina Colada while playing Blackjack which was surprising as the other places in PR just made them terrible.

After some tasty food, gambling, and another of the local beers (Magna, still crappy), we hit the hay and had one final bit of sleep (around 3 hours) before getting up for our taxi to get to the airport for a day of travel.

Bye Puerto Rico

We got up around 3am, and our travel day didn’t end until we arive Portland at 2pm (PST), so around 13 hours of travel.  The flights were thankfully all on time and we each made it home in one piece.

Though the prices of Puerto Rico were more than I was expecting, the experience I was able to get from traveling with my friend Bobby for the first time made it all worthwhile.  You never know who you are able to travel with and I’m glad to say that we can travel together.  Outside of a couple rough spots, it was smooth sailing.

I recommend Puerto Rico if you want something different than Hawaii or Mexico with amazing beaches, a place you don’t need a passport, and gives you a taste of the Caribbean.

Here’s to the next adventure!

This last weekend I decided to attempt to destroy my body by biking 35 miles around Crater Lake taking us six hours in total during the annual Vehicle Free Day (they close off the majority of the crater lake roads to cars).  Though I’ve been biking every day to/from work, have done the Portland Bridge Pedal (35 miles over the 10 Willamette crossing bridges), and a number of other rides-this ride kicked my ass.  I didn’t do any planning or extra rides before taking this on, so I feel pretty good about how it all went.  The ride ranged from 6,450ft to the highest biking spot of 7,700ft with a total mileage of around 32 miles.  I said 35 because we added a few miles here and there.  There were many climbs with many downhills.  The weather was great and the views were incredible.  The beauty of Crater Lake and those downhills made the ride worthwhile, though I’m not sure I’ll be doing it again anytime soon.  If you want more info about doing the ride, go here.

Minh, Nick, and myself left Portland around 7:15p Friday evening to head down to Crater Lake.  This was a definite first for me and I’m super excited for the ride and to be back to Crater Lake after almost five years.  We stopped in at “The Tap and Growler” in Eugene to pickup food and load up a couple growlers for the next day. Food wasn’t too bad, though probably better had we eaten there.  We continued on I5 then onto Highway 58 towards 97.  On the way, we stopped at Pilot gas station where we ran into Marcella and a number of others from or crew.  Back on the road, we heading into the national park for our first cold night of camping.

After a cold night of camping, we got things together and prepped for ride.  I was glad I grabbed some trail mix the night before from the gas station so that I had some extra snacks for energy on the ride.  It was intense.  Once we finally figured out our route, we left the Crater Lake lodge and went down the main road until reaching the East Rim road.  It was quite a distance downhill from the lodge which made me already know that this was going to include a lot of uphills.  There were around twelve of us who came down during the weekend for the ride, two stayed at their camp, and the other ten started it together.  Well, after the first major hill climb, some of the crew bailed out to go biking on another section (there weren’t any “better” sections to ride though).  I, along with four others, ended up continuing on and tackling this beast of a ride.

We ended the ride around 6pm, and spent the rest of the night hanging out relaxing by the fire.  The next day Minh, Nick and I took off around 9:30 to head back to Portland.  I had a great weekend and feel quite accomplished with the ride.

Let me share some pictures:

The 105 foot Man

Last Monday, Burning Man 2014 came to a close for me.  I was sad to leave this new home of mine, but glad to get back to greener pastures (literally, it was a white desert out there and getting back to green Oregon was so great!).  My experience of the event was very positive and left me wanting more.  I’m not going to go into details about all of my experiences at Burning Man, however I will give some highlights and incites (plus some pretty pictures).

Arrival

I left Portland Saturday morning with Jeffrey.  We started our journey venturing to Government Camp of Mt. Hood for breakfast (biscuits and gravy with a donut).  From Hood, we got onto Highway 97 which took us through Bend for a beer stop at 10 Barrel, on to Klamath Falls to get the rest of supplies and meet with Ellie and Shawn, and finally to Alturas where we slept for the night.

The following day we gassed up, filled out water tanks, and traveled to Black Rock City!

The journey from Gerlach to BRC was slow as this was the only road into BRC.  It was a long line of cars as we made our way down the long road, however, the AC worked in Jeffrey’s car, so no complaints.  Erin and Minh waited for us on the side of the road before driving onto the playa (the desert land).  Our three cars then ventured forth through the lanes to the gates of Burning Man.  Since nobody in Shawn’s car needed a ticket from will-call, they went to camp while Erin, Minh, Jeffrey, and I went to the will-call line.

The line took a couple hours to get through and it was very hot outside, though thankfully, I was able to move up a number of places in line due to some really sweet peeps.  Once our tickets were in hand, we drove to the entrance of Burning Man itself where there were greeters welcoming us to finally being ‘home’!

A tradition for new comers is to get covered in the playa, so I got on the ground and rolled around.  What a great way to arrive!

Jeffrey and I then drove through the growing BRC (still being setup) to our camp at 7:00 and Cinnamon, Time Ninja Syndicate!

First Experience On The Playa

After setting up camp at TNS, I went out with Jeffrey and a number of others to check out this place.  We went straight from our camp to Esplanade (the last street before the center of the playa).  Once arriving here, I was blown away by how large this place already had become.  So much construction still going on, with so much already completed.  We made our way past a number of art installations to the man itself.  The area under the man wasn’t open yet, so we left the area to explore this vast place.  There were art installations as far as the eye could see and some which drew us to them.

The largest of the staples (The Man and the Temple) was the piece known as ‘Embrace’.  This was a four story (78 feet tall) figure of two people in an embrace.  They were said to not have genders, but people put the taller, the Alpha, as the male and the smaller, the Omega, as the woman.  This was one of my favorite art pieces, as I was able to walk through the entire structure going up four stories into the Alpha, and three of the Omega.  I loved that they were connected through a tunnel which I was able to get through.  Within each of the different figures was a large heart.  The Alpha heart was made in Vancouver, Canada, where as the Omega was built in Portland, Oregon.  Pretty awesome to know that my city had a hand in this beautiful creation.  Each heart was different.  The Alpha heart moved in an out using gears, where as the Omega heart became brighter the more people were touching it’s outside.  Incredibly moving.  The night I went in with my camp mates, we were able to meet one of the people who created it and see how happy she was seeing everyone admire her creation.

Once the day turned into night, I was even more blown away as the place shined with lights coming from every direction and of every color.  There was also music and sounds coming from every other camp and “art car” as they made their way around.

To keep things short, I was absolutely blown away.

Day Time

My days consisted of trying to sleep in (the sun on my tent made things very hot inside), making breakfast or roaming the streets of the city for handouts, venturing with my camp mates or other people I ran into on the way, relaxing, napping, laying on my hammock, going to workshops, playing games, bowling, skating, biking everywhere, and more.  This place has so much going on.  The hardest realization I had was that I didn’t have to do everything.

Some of the most memorable day trips I had was going to the Faux Mirage camp for their “foam wash”.  This was something my bud Patrick told me about and was so glad I was able to experience.  I went over with him and a number of other friends to this dome which was covered.  After waiting quite a while in line, we got into the dome entrance where we stripped down, and danced to music before going through “the wash”.  We went up stairs to a glass cage that fit around forty people.  Once inside, we were sprayed down with foam (Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Wash).  We helped wash each other down as we only had a little bit of time before getting our rinsing.  About thirty seconds after being foamed up, we were hosed down with cold water.  It was amazing.  After spending a number of days only using wet naps to clean with, this was breathtaking.  We finished up, got back into the main area, danced until we were mostly dry, and did it all over again.  Sooooooooo fantastic!

There were so many memories that I had on top of this that were great, but this was so refreshing that it stands out the most.

Night Time

Nights at Burning Man were loud, bright, and full of exciting things to do.  So many DJs playing at every other camp, fire being blasted above every other contraption, and things to climb on everywhere.  As someone with ADHD, this place was both the most amazing place ever at night, and my living hell.  Every where you turned there was something going on.  It was one of those places where you just start going in a direction that looks fun, and you’ll find something exciting.

Some of my favorite things here were the “art cars” being lit up, blaring tunes, and going all over the city.  Outside of a bike, they’re the best way to get around this place.  They have a max speed of 5 miles an hour , so hopping on one and off the other is a breeze.  These things ranged from disco fishes, to moving stripper poles, space ships, pac-man, Converse shoes, telephones, flame-throwing scorpions and octopuses, to three story yachts!  They were all so incredible.  The octopus, El Pulpo Mecanico, and the yacht, the Christina, were my favorites.

The nights were long and to be honest, continued until the party ended, which if you really wanted to, could have been all day and all night long.

The Burns

Some of the best times I had at Burning Man were the burns.  Three of them stood out the most for me.  Embrace, The Man, and The Temple.

Embrace burned on Friday morning.  I was so happy to see this structure burn as it was absolutely incredible to watch it go down, however, it was so sad to see such a beautiful piece of art be removed from this planet.  The number of hours that went into building this were plenty and to know that it is no longer around is pretty wild and somewhat hard to comprehend.  Thankfully, the hearts were removed and returned to their cities.

The Man burned Saturday night.  Our camp all went over together to a friend’s art installation where we admired from afar the burning of the man.  Though while it was about to start, I moved forward with MFD closer in so that we could see it more up close.  The burn started with fireworks which were lit off throughout the burn.  After it was caught on fire, we all sat around in amazement as it burned.  It took quite a while, however I stayed until it fell.  The burning of the man was the start to one of the biggest party nights we had.

Our camp, though small, had quite the drawing of the crowd with our awesome tunes put on by James, Patrick, and Kitte.  They rocked this place.  The night for me didn’t end until the following day when I saw the sunrise, rode out to the airport, and was flown around Black Rock City.

The final burn that stood out to me was The Temple of Grace.  This place was finished being built in the middle of the week, and it was simply beautiful.  It’s such a moving place also as so many use it as a way to say goodbye to lost ones.  I saw so many pictures of friends, pets, family, and iconic celebrities (Robin Williams).  To see this place of beauty burn was quite moving.  It makes me think of all that I’ve lost in my life, but reminds me of what I have to look forward to come.

Exodus (Leaving)

Leaving Burning Man was exhausting and quite sad.  In the beginning of the week, Patrick and others kept saying things like “and it’s only Tuesday”, but as the days went on and closer to Sunday, it stopped being said and instead became “it’s already Friday” said with grief.  The party still carried on through the days until Monday morning where we began packing up and moving out.

Our camp took until just before sundown to take apart, pack up, and clean.  Jeffrey and I were one of the last cars out, and even though we were all expecting a long exodus, it went very smooth.  In fact, Jeffrey and I didn’t have to stop once during the departure.  Overall, leaving took around thirty minutes (traffic).

Once gone, we made our journey back home.  We stopped for the night in Klamath Falls where we camped a night, then ended up in the beautiful Umpqua River area where we spent a couple nights relaxing in the hot springs with a number of others from our camp.  It was excellent.  We finally arrived home Thursday evening.

Final Thoughts

I’m not sure what impact Burning Man will have on this year, though I’m pretty sure it’ll be positive.  To see so much happen and what can be built in one week is incredible, and will forever be a flame under me reminding me that I too can do great things if I make the effort.

The biggest influence I received from Burning Man, would be to cherish the friends I have and keep working towards the goals I want to accomplish.

If all works out, I’ll be back to the sand once again next year!

Some Other Pictures and Videos

A fly over using a quadracopter (small helicopter)