The Entry

Upon entering BRC, you must show your tickets, prove you have enough water to last you the week, meet a Greeter and be subjected to some hazing. Depending on which Greeter you get will dictate the severity of the hazing. Our guy was very tame. We must have shown faces of calm because he guessed we were veteran burners. He really only picked on Tim, the only male in our car. A couple of push ups and a bit of rolling on the playa. Oh yes, he did smack some ass (Heather’s) to welcome her in with a playa handprint on her posterior. Then we were allowed to gong a bell and enter the world of Black Rock City.

As we pulled in and pulled over to wait for the others go through their entrance exam, our car started talking about how we would have totally been up for a heavier hazing – so we decided to give it to ourselves. We were here, we were committed, we were getting ramped up in excitement about being here…so we figured we might as well just jump in and fully engage. So, Heather, Tim and I swan-dived onto the playa and made playa angels. This caught the attention of a greeter who came over and exclaimed with amusement, “You guys are idiots! Most of the people who we make do this stuff just look at us with disdained glares but you fools do it yourselves!”

But it was great. I had been worried for weeks how I would handle the elements. And this was an awesome way to just shove all of that aside, commit to where I was going to be for the next seven days and live in the moment. Liberating. That just might be the word for the week.