This past week my friend Amber and I planned a camping trip. Our hope was that it wouldn’t be like your regular run-of-the-mill camping trip. We wanted to create a family style Burning Man festival. We live in Nevada, so it seemed only fitting, and we hoped to add a little of that Burning Man creativity, pizzaz, and chaos (I like to think we nailed the ‘chaos’ part pretty well).

What we got instead were 35 MPH winds. We couldn’t camp in the Burning-Man-esque dry lake bed we’d picked out because the wind was too strong.  If we’d made a burning man, we would have watched him take flight across the desert soon after.   Our hot dogs would have dried out before they got to the fire pit.  And the materials we’d brought for art projects would have scattered across the desert like New Year’s confetti faster than you can count down from ten.  We had to opt for a sheltered rock cove and a low key evening instead.

I’m proud to say we stuck out the camping trip despite the never ending wind, though Amber and I were somewhat disappointed. The kids, on the other hand, could have cared less. They ran around the rocks pretend-shooting each other for hours, took advantage waves created by the wind at the lake, flew kites, hunted for bones, mastered the giant sling shot, and ate dust while taking rides on the tailgate of the truck. I suppose we made due.  I suppose they’ll remember it fondly anyway, burning man or not.

I managed a few pics.

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