Dave Raphael

We thought we might fly on Wednesday.  Wind.  White.  No surprise there…

Thursday morning popped up and I met John over at Burning Sky to check the weather and see about our flight.  This comes after a morning of pacing around my camp, my neighbors camp, the camp across the street and the camp next to them, extolling my calmness while chewing my fingers down to the cuticle…  After they announced the second weather hold, we headed back to Mystical Misfits, I hadnt spent much time over there yet and was clearly missing out on some fun.

Backing up just a bit, John is, I suppose one could finally say, a dear old friend.  I met him on my first job in the movies plugging in lights when I was 20 or 21 and this guy is absolutely the reason I first attended Burning Man in 2006.  As my good fortune would have it, John is a sky diver and jumping at Burning Man is as much of the ritual for him as is going in the first place.  You can scroll back through my blog to find a bit more history on this fine character in my circus.  Last year I shot him packing up his chute after a jump.  This year, there was a different story to tell.

There are a few different ways to jump at Burning Man, I think that if you have a plane or can talk a pilot into getting you in the air, nobody is really going to stop you however most people jump through Burning Sky.  Its a fairly well organized camp and they charter a plane and pilot for a few days for the express purpose of skydiving at Burning Man.  I am not a skydiver, so have never gone through the process, but from what I understand, you buy jump tickets during the winter in packages of five.  I also think you need a significant number of jumps under your belt before they’ll sell you a ticket at all.  John was not planning to use all his tickets jumping and that’s where things would get Juicy Junior, real Juicy (in a black suited kind of way).  Burning Sky might not let you jump with no experience, but if you get a ticket from a jumper they will let you fly in an observer seat providing you land with the plane.  And thats where I was this morning, holding a poker chip that would finally get me on a plane to see this madness in the center of the ghost of Lake Lahontan from about 11,000 feet.

Back at Mystical Misfits, I got a good look of what the camp has grown into.  Now two flatbeds worth of scaffolding large, slowly hauled up from the bowels of LA County, they were a sight to see in 2009 and easily the biggest camp on the block.

The big addition to the camp this year was a swing.  Safest swing in Black Rock City.

There was much discussion that morning about truss welds, the joys of rigging, trust and ultimately, hope.

We killed about an hour enjoying the view, trying to find more coffee and eating some bar-b-que sausage creation before heading back to check on the weather.

The scene back at burning sky was exactly as we left it, a bunch of bored skydivers and two anxious people, rocking on their heels, looking at the sky, hoping to trade white for blue.  We had made the decision to get on the plane if there was a plane to get on, and twenty mintues after checking in, a walkie squawked and we lucked out with word that there was a clear enough opening to fly.  With that announcement, there was madness in the camp as everyone scrambled to get their rigs together and hop the ride that would drop us at the airport.

Next thing I know Ive been handed a parachute, walked the plank into the back of the burning sky art car and am trying to balance the adrenaline surge and quell the freak out of the summer.  After months of waiting, this was actually happening…

increased heart rate.  check.  sweaty palms.  check.  tunnelvision.  check.  and this was just the van…

The best part of the mad dash into this van so we could make it into the air before the weather changed was the breakneck five miles per hour speed which hurled us towards the airport.  There are few things that I know of that can stretch time quite like driving in a car really, really, really, really slow.  Just what the doctor ordered…

End of the road and a long walk back.  Welcome to Nevada’s own wretched hive of scum and villany.