COPYRIGHT REMINDER All material on this web page, including photographs, is under copyright. Do not reuse without permission. To protect the non-commercial nature of the festival, the Burning Man organization does not allow commercial use of material from the festival without prior authorization (see the Burning Man website for details). COPYRIGHT REMINDER Final Burning Man Preparation Today, I planned to get to Black Rock City. Unfortunately, I still had a long list of chores first. The first thing I had to do was separate out my stuff. Black Rock City is so dusty that the only way to protect things is to seal them in plastic bags for the duration of the festival. Everything I bought over the last few days will be used at the festival, but not everything I used on the trip before ... read more

Today is my day to prepare for Burning Man. I had planned for it to be my only day. How wrong I was. Veteran participants warned about the need to build things in advance. Black Rock City is an incredibly stressful place, where missing tools and spare parts can’t be replaced. Structures and other things should be assembled in advance, and then broken into pieces for transport to the event. This ensures that everything needed is available, and they can be put together with minimal effort on the playa. Shade Structure Build My main goal today is to build a shade structure. Black Rock City gets incredibly hot during the day. By 9 AM, tents get so hot the heat wakes people up. For anyone who wants to sleep past then, a shade structure is essential. ... read more

Asking rafters to name their favorite river is like asking art collectors to name their favorite artist; it just isn’t possible. Still, certain names (Picasso, Warhol, Monet) get mentioned more often than any other. For rafters with advanced skills, that name is the Tuolumne River. Toulumne River The river starts in the high Sierra Nevada within Yosemite National Park and flows west to the central valley. It’s infamous as the river dammed in 1914 to create the Hetch Hechy Reservoir (see ). The raftable section occurs west of the park. It exists thanks to a major tributary called Cherry Creek. This creek replenishes significant water flow after Hetch Hechy basically eliminates it. Cherry Creek is also dammed, for power. Ironically, this improved whitewater on the river because it creates a reli... read more

Today, I explored more of San Francisco’s outer neighborhoods. The city is well known for cultural enclaves, which preserve a particular culture within the overall city. I first went to one of the most famous, Chinatown. Many big cities have a neighborhood with a large concentration of Chinese. I ate in one in Seattle (see ). Most Chinatowns look like American cities with Chinese culture grafted on. The architecture is American, and the signs are a combination of Chinese and English. San Francisco’s Chinatown, the second largest in the United States, is completely different. Chinatown This neighborhood looks and feels like a city in China. Passing through the Chinatown Gate marks a transition to another world (gr... read more

I started today in Union Square, San Francisco’s wealthiest neighborhood. The centerpiece is Union Square itself, a large concrete space around a Spanish-American War memorial. It has some interesting sculpture. A wealthy shopping district surrounds it with some impressive department stores, including another huge Macy’s branch. Unlike many other stores that Macy’s took over (see ) this one is original from the 1940s. Naturally, cold fog covered everything. A nearby intersection holds a neoclassical water fountain. It’s called Lotta’s Fountain. It was one of only a few things to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire that basically destroyed the city. L... read more