This is now my favorite picture of me ever, ever. I risked the life of my camera and getting dust in all it's precious parts to capture the moment when for a second, I thought I might die. Who's a wussy Girl? Me...HA! (Just maybe dramatic.) I have the power of greyskull! She-ra be damned. Not that I can usually be accused of being prissy, but sometimes, I even surprise myself. Like in dust storms about to have a panic attack. We were riding to meet a friend after the Critical Tits ride, and one girl rode off and the storm hit, and me and another girl were stuck out in wide open playa and I freaked out and left her and tried to find shelter and got lost and had to ask for help and it was a very huge challenge but I survived and made it home before the rain. I said in an entry before I left, people can tell you "dusty" and people can tell you "windy" and "white out" but as you ride head on into 60mph winds with dust taking a whack at being a low cost exfoliator...for your teeth...you really do find new definitions for words you thought you were clear on. Like ouch. I must have screamed that word and a few expletives about a hundred million times over the course of the first 20 minutes I passed by the same intersection and rocks flew onto my legs that were about to fail me. (It took a good 3 tries in the storm and around the stupidness that is center camp's street layout to end up going the right way.)
Notice the sunglasses/goggles combo I'm working? That wasn't our first day of dust storms. The first day, we played pick your pole and keep it home. It wasn't just our shade structure that was structurally questionable, as domes rolled the streets and a brief search of flickr shows comical crashes abound. But for a good 2 hours, you sat, stood, chased and held things in place while pole dancing. Afternoons were not spent critically observing art, but quipping quickly and cursing the storm. "Get that..." "Wait there..." as things flew off of tables and through our camp and you wondered who would come back to help and who was lost and dirtiest. It was good team bonding at a minimum, and awesomely great laughs as everyone seems to be energized by the fighting of nature.
Inside my tent after the dust storm. *Everything* was covered in those layers of dust. The best advice I got off tribe was to bring an extra sheet and cover everything. I got a lot of compliments on how homey my tent was, and I was pretty proud, but it certainly collected the dust. I remembered to do cover it all most days, so my bed stayed generally protected most of the week, my nightstand/hat box, not so lucky. I should have taken a picture of the sheet, but I was too concerned with getting my bed clean again and dumped it all back on it's home again.
Horse in the Dust Storm at the Man on Sunday. Always freaking dust storms. My lungs are filled with the playa.
And finally, a faint photograph of the double rainbow after the rain storm.
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