It was a warm night filled with revelry, laughter, music, and dancing. The festivities on the night of the man burning was one gigantic party. The costumes and people watching were magical. One of my favorite sayings is “There is nothing prettier than young” and watching the outfits on the young ones who could slip easily into barely anything and make barely anything look fabulous was indeed fabulous.

Jim from Alabama picked us up in his art car and we motored out to the Playa, passing hundreds of lit art cars that we had not seen before and thousands of bikes decorated with LED wire, blinky lights and glow sticks. Teri and I seated ourselves next to Bob, a quadriplegic who had no problem wheeling himself around the city and Playa. We were his “dates” for the night and he had fashioned crowns of flowers with lights for our hair. Our art car found a perfect spot to view the burn, in between two disco cars filled with burners dancing to techno. Music filled the air and we took turns dancing on the desert before the fireworks began.

A wild-haired dancing middle-aged women, who was either tripping to the music or a substance, beckoned a partner to dance and I stepped up. Writhing madly, she tried to talk to me, but the music obliterated her conversation. My son-in-law Gage stepped up and began dancing with me and I was happy to have a grounded dance partner. I loved that he had been waiting for the perfect time to share a dance with me. He is a fabulous dancer!

Teri and I stepped up to a bar car behind us to sample whiskey with pickle juice chasers (Picklebacks) and one was not enough for her. Who knew pickles were a thing on the Playa? Supposedly, they are perfect for hydration! In addition to the water, the salts and electrolytes in pickles help.

There were many submissions for the design of the Man, but the one selected involved the Man cocooned by an ascending walkway. The theme this year was “Metamorphoses”, and designers Yelena Filipchuk and Sergio Beaulieu managed to capture the theme with their design lit from within, which threw light onto the Playa in beautiful patterns.

The fireworks began and they were magnificent! On the ground were lights everywhere, illuminating the crowd, and in the dark desert sky, the fireworks had no competition with real city lights. Brooke, Teri and I got up to dance with thousands of others and I felt like a teenager again.

I had ordered spinning LED strobe disco globes for my grandchildren this summer and grabbed two for myself. I had no clue what I was going to do with it until I began waving it like a traffic controller at an airport and realized burners actually thought I was directing them to go a certain way. It turned into “hippie fishing” of sorts. (Usually, hippie fishing involves tying glow sticks to a string, hoping someone will reach to pick it up, so you can reel it in.) Hundreds of party people rerouted their steps and my friends were helpless with laughter. Cheap thrills:)

The night ended early, but some of our art car riders were nowhere to be found, so Brooke, Gage, Teri and I hiked back to sector 4:45 Jove on our own. By the time we had walked all that way, our beds called our names and we answered the call.