-
The Town of Gerlach
I can’t let it go. I have to find out more. How in the heck do residents of Gerlach support themselves? Granted, there are only 499 of them. Maybe they’re up to 540 now with the present average population growth rate of 1.1% a year. But what do they do all year long? Does the work related to the 8-day BM festival actually sustain them? What else are they doing? Back to the trusty Wikipedia, which tells me that gypsum mining, tourism from BRC and hunting are the economies that support this settlement. Tourism…got it; hunting…explains the taxidermists; but gypsum mining…what’s that? The contributors to Wikipedia are going to town…
-
The Approach
We’d been in the car since 1:00am, starting our journey when it was dark and cold. It was now about 11 o’clock or noon and the sun we’d get to know better was introducing itself and making itself well known. We got to the little town of Gerlach off Hwy 447, the last stop before Black Rock City which is a mere 12 miles away. Calling it a town might be a stretch. Wikipedia says the combined population of the Gerlach-Empire area was 499 people in the 2000 census. There are more active MiPLers than that. There was one main road that had a gas station with the last flushing…
-
Terms to Know
BM:Acronynm for Burning Man Black Rock City (BRC):The temporary city on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where BM takes place. It is 90 miles north-northeast of Reno. Burner:A Burning Man participant. MiPL:Meet in Portland. The social group I’ve been active with for the last 3-1/2 years. I went to BM with a MiPL contingent. MiPLer:A person who is involved in Meet in Portland. MOOP:Matter Out Of Place. Litter on the playa. There is a “Leave No Trace” policy which means everything you bring in, you must bring out, including grey water you can’t evaporate in time. Playa:A dry lakebed. More specifically in this case, the large,…
-
Prologue
Sunday, 11:30 P.M. I wanted more time to do this, to capture my thoughts. But today was just like every other one I’ve had for the last few months and then intensified. Overscheduled. Overcommitted. Overwhelmed. I wanted to sit and take inventory before I left because so many have said that this is going to be a life changing experience and I figured I should set a benchmark to know if that will be true and if so, by how much. However, I’m not thinking it will be. I am not looking for any answers on this trip or to escape from any part of my life, although there have…
