THEN THERE WERE THE MUTANT VEHICLES

  You can't drive around Burning Man unless your car is extremely strange. The "mutant vehicles" range from golf carts transformed into UFOs
 


to this $200,000 dune buggy.

                                                                  (Detail)















  There were over 400 of them at Burning Man this year. As none were allowed to exceed the 5 m.p.h. speed limit, they drifted across the event's "Playa" (a mile-wide  circular interior space) like sailboats in a gentle wind.
  Most were illuminated amazingly at night (with no tripod, my photos were blurred but... you get the idea).  
 
   
  
 



Notice the happy people on board?  Most had bars, dance floors, and very loud sound systems. You could roll from one party to the next 24/7.

 When the wind was right, they'd raise the sails and roll on wind power.

I couldn't get quite use to the idea of a fifty-foot yacht rolling across the desert. There were so many surreal things to enjoy in Black Rock City last week.


Many of the art cars were simple and small.  I helped with the "Balloon Chain" group. Some nights we'd put balloons on a 900-foot wire with lights. We used "Scaredy Cat" to tow them back and forth across the Playa 'til dawn.

 This was the Fire Truck From Hell.  That water tank on top shot out huge balls of fire.




Fire (no surprise here) is a big part of the annual event. Like "the man", many of the sculptures are burned at the week's end.  Many of the mutant vehicles bellow fire as well.
    
   One of the groups (they're called "camps at BMan) created huge versions of old VW's. I'm a little taller than the tire you see.

They light up at night also.

 

I spoke with the Finnish man who built this lunar rover replica.  It took hims 600 hours and thousands of dollars to complete. When I told him I was from Florida he said, "Great! I love Key West!"

  While there are hundreds of lit-up cars slowly roaming the Playa at night, there are thousands of
bicycles doing the same thing.

 A few more MV's before I go...

  Someone purchased a used Disney monorail car and hauled it out to the Black Rock Desert. Yes, there was music and dancing (at dawn) on board.  Seeing that I thought, "This really is the adult version of The Magic Kingdom".
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