We worked really hard on our vacation this year.  So hard I'm amazed we all stayed friends through the vacation!  We bought a rocket ship disguised as a bus and got it all gussied up for the trip.  We got ourselves a big old tent and a giant scaffolding to make a tower with and packed 'em up.  We nabbed lotsa couches and carpeting and loaded 'em on the roof rack to decorate with.  And of course, we brought lots of t-shirts and contracts to buy people's souls with. 

Souls sure are cheap!  We brought back 150 of 'em, each one purchased for a t-shirt, condom, and fortune cookie.  Most of 'em we got pictures of in our book of souls, and all of 'em signed a contract as airtight as we could make it.  Heck, if it weren't for the dust storm, pretty naked girls, and other distractions, I'm sure we would have filled out all of the 300 contracts we took with us.

Our camp was down on the southern (quiet) side of town, but pretty near in towards the giant MAN that ruled this strange planet.  We were right near our friend Bianca's smut shack.  Bianca loves us, we loved her from last year, and now some of us who got carried away at Bianca's are gonna be loved in the movies, or maybe on the web.  At least, we sure can't think of any other uses for the kinds of pictures they got of us.

Across the street from our camp was the Space Lounge where some nice people from San Francisco had set up a barter-only bar, and the Alternative Energy Zone that was feeding them power off of the solar system and home-made windmill.  The Alternative Energy people brought over their arc welder one day and tried to help us resecure the roof rack of our rocketship, but the strange alien vibrations of the place combined with the strange alloy of our chassis interfered with their earth-based technology, and we had to risk driving back with 2 less anchors holding down our stuff.

That was okay though, 'cause we had less to carry back!  After they burned the MAN we got all excited and burned half of our furniture, along with our neighbors the giant Pez site.  Kirby and I picked up each 6 foot Pez in turn and charged out into the desert screaming "burning pez!  burning pez!" and threw it onto the massive fire.  Then we brought out Leo's couch and Ethan's futon and Nancy's cage for the prodigal Fluffy and threw them all onto the fire screaming "burning mez!  burning mez!"  Now we have less stuff.

Gosh, timelines sure are hard to keep straight.  'Cause all the burning furniture was after the MAN burned, which was after the Temple of Rudra, which was after the Nebulous Entity, which was after the Dust Storm.

The MAN was absolutely the best.  Last year he shot fireworks out of his hands and feet as he burned.  But his year he just exploded in a giant shower of fireworks in every possible direction like a dozen fourth of july's, shooting sparks and fire all over the people gathered below with their giant vertical flamethrowers and flare guns and flames on chains and even car engines carried on litters by slaves.  I was sure some of them were gonna be goners but I hear everyone lived.  And even after all the fireworks explosions were gone the man was burning bright.  So bright you couldn't see his outstretched hands or widespread feet at all.  Yes siree, he was one 30-foot ball of glowing white fire for half a minute, maybe longer.  Brighter than the sun, I say.  And after all that there magnesium in his heart burnt out he was burning all aflame, redly and brilliantly, still clinging to life so dearly they had to tug on his lines to bring him crashing to earth.  "The MAN is gonna burn!" they were yelling on the megaphones beforehand, and burn he did!  And then we danced and danced and ran around his funeral pyre till our left sides were red and burnt from his heat and we were pouring sweat into our burns, then off to the Entity and home to burn what we dared of our camp!

Whew.  And that night after burning MAN and burning PEZ and burning MEZ we came across the giant Tesla coil firing its static electricity heart out.  15 feet tall of metal coil and it was shooting 20-foot long arcing, dividing, crackling, lingering, purple lightning bolts out in every direction, pushing them through the air for minutes at a time, getting them so close to where you were sitting you were sure you were a goner, blowing up the bits of people's camp they brought out to sacrifice before the alien electrical death machine.

And that was just Sunday!

On Saturday the temple of Rudra burned, hours late, but burn it did, totally unscarred by the giant Land Yacht that had crashed into it earlier that day.  The Land Yacht was neat but nobody oughta steer a 30' tall yacht across the desert in a 50 mph dust storm, especially not after a couple brewskies!  Besides, I say, it's just not cool to build structures as tall as the MAN. 

If the temple was a bit staid and stable, the Nebulous Entity was anything but!  We visited the Entity many a time, but it was the special night of Saturday when we got to follow in its glorious wake!  We'd gotten ourselves abducted by the aliens that serve the Entity (and had abducted one ourselves for examination) and came out to find the Entity preparing to move!  Imagine that 20' tower of fluorescent sea-life, industrial lighting, strange tentacles, and forbidding sounds propelled by all its slaves across the playa!  Well, needless to say we were frightened, but having just been abducted no choice was ours.  We were caught in its thrall and follow we must, and glad we are to this day!  The Entity is not malignant, merely alien.  It is friendly, joyous, mischievous, and totally oblivious to human life.  Those who remain well clear of the path of its might tentacles live to return to it again.  Only those foolish enough to stand in its path as it approaches are trod upon and become fertilizer for the desert biome.

Goodness, there's so much more to tell you about but so little time!  We took so many pictures early on yet stopped by Thursday so we could join in the fun around us.  We learned so much about physics and even more about chemistry, from the Tesla Coil and Catapult and Funnelator (where we launched broken doll parts into the desert) and from building our camp and powering our lights and playing with our neurochemicals.

We met so many lovely people, like Brandon and Bonnie who sold us their souls and their son Bean's soul and Bonnie's unborn child's soul.  And our nice neighbors on either side who slept on our futons.  And the pretty girl Sarah at the Fuzzy Dice camp.  And a girl named Angel I beat at a game of hangman and who owes us her soul but never signed a contract (though she did give us water).  And Leo and Kirby's friends Adam and Pete and J.C. and Dan.  And of course our friends Dan and Leena and Derek and Cam and Melina and Amy and Keith and Chris and Kara and IChing who met us there.  And Dave and his raver friends and the bus they finally got working enough to get there.

And there were so many other nice places like Nub Chai where they served us Chai and fruit during the day, and which had absolutely the best bus on the playa and lots of pretty people in pretty costumes who toured all over.  And the One Tree that dripped water all over everyone who danced or stood beneath it, and lit the space around it with flames from its copper branches.  And the 20' steel Dome put up by the rave crew from Cloud Factory, with a little brute force assistance from us.  And the Croquet set at the Lunar Leisure Lounge, the pool table out in the middle of nowhere, the most excellent Antarctica where you could dance in a refrigerator truck at 50 degrees while out in the middle of the desert, the great Palms place close to home with the best DJ on the playa, the triangle dance place on the loud side with the next best DJ, the giant Lamp Shade that appeared the last night, the swanky blue Fire Engine we only got to see once, the very weird Aesthetic Meat Foundation where I would not like to end up on an acid trip, and one of our favorites from last year: the spinny vertical light thing in the orange and white tent that had us so transfixed.

Wow.  Mom, Dad, I wanna go again next year!  Only this time our camp is gonna be bigger and better and closer to center camp.  We're gonna have even more water (300 gallons was awesome - 3000 would be better!), giant art, personal radios, banners we actually hang up, a taller tower, candles we can keep lit in high wind, more strobe lights and blacklights, a higher-bandwidth process for buying souls, pamphlets on all kinds of topics, and so much more!

Love,
your son, student, friend, and brother,