I got a slightly later start to go visit the camps, so that's pretty much what I did straight until the sunset. I was barely able to finish the second half before sunset, but ended up making it, while being able to spend some time with a few camps. It was fun to visit kidsville, as well as the alternative energy camp (I spent quite a bit of time there chatting with one of their solar panel and battery specialists, as I've been curious about how technology has evolved and what's out there (I did consider putting solar panels on my roof at some point considering my energy consumption due to the computing equipment that I have running 24/7 at home).
Not counting the many camps that were offering drinks, snowcones, and so forth, I stopped at a camp where someone was giving an informal lecture about the creation of the universe, all the way to us. It's kind of funny to find those, just like the math class that a guy was giving last year.
Sometimes, I'd love to stay and chat with every cool camp, but that's just not possible, even if you count the way too many camps that didn't have any theme, or anything cool on display. Yet, I've been trying to do a better job to actually spend time talking with random people and enjoying what there was to see instead of trying to see it all (and doing a pretty good job at it, but that's not the point). I've felt like I probably missed some dimension of the experience by running around so much last years, so I tried to mellow out a little bit this time :)
When I was almost done with the last rows of streets (as I was carefully crossing them out my map :), I was thinking about taking care of dinner, and while it would have been easy to just drop by any camp, say hi, and get food, it just felt a little wrong (probably shouldn't, but never mind), I was biking at a good pace, and someone flagged me and said "dinner, come on here". Of course, turns out that many people have prepare way too much food and are more than happy to share with you, but it was still cool to be flagged down the street like that. I had a nice chat with a couple where the wife was italian and had recently immigrated here, while I had some food with them. That was very enjoyable.
Then, it was time to head back for the camp, put on some warmer clothes, refill my water supplies (having gone through 2 litres in 5 hours), and head up for the man to find a nice front row spot to sit down at, and take pictures without people's heads in front of me :) The front of the man was already had several rows of people sitting down 1H before the burn, so I headed for the back for the man, which incidently, looks just the same, but I just realized that wind is blowing my way, so this may not be an awfully smart decision afterall... Anyway, for now I'm sitting down, typing this up, waiting for the pre-burn ceremony to start.
The burn went fine. There wasn't that much wood to burn, and we were downwind from the man, so I got to see a lot of smoke hiding it somewhat, but there as a very nice fireworks show, and then the burn went as usual, with the craze of people rushing for the center and running around the fire as soon as the man fell
I walked around where the man used to be to check out the sea of art cars that had gathered around. This is the one time where everything and everyone is gathered in one place, and your biggest landmark, the man, is just gone. This part is just impossible to describe in words, you just have to experience it to get a decent idea: art carts, music, lights, and more than you can imagine.
I found one that was playing very nice trance, and luckily, it was still there when I had completed a wide lap around the man, trying to see everything. So, I hopped into that art car, and danced, chilled, and just enjoyed the music.
When I got a bit tired, I pulled out my laptop to write some of this, and because I need help, just checked for wireless, and sure enough got some, so connected to the internet and sent my last two blog entries :)
Ok, the music has changed to other stuff, I'm going to head out and look for other music after I send this :)