We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Having driven over 15,000 miles across the USA this year, we’ve seen hundreds of them. Crosses beside the road. Each one saying, “a life was lost here.”

It’s a sobering reminder of the risk we take every time we get behind the wheel.

In some states, instead of homemade crosses, there are signs posted by the Department of Transportation. Wyoming takes down homemade memorials and replaces them with a sign showing a dove on a broken heart. Driving by at 55 mph, the Squid Wagon’s top speed, they look a lot like the logos on portable defibrillators.

The signs in South Dakota are easier to understand. They feature a red “X” to mark the spot, and the thought-provoking words, “Why die?” In some places, there are two, three, or four of these signs together. Four lives lost here.

Doing research for this essay, I found that there’s actually a name for them: Descansos. It’s the Spanish word for a place of rest, a memorial erected at the place where someone died.

Seeing one makes me think, “Am I driving carefully enough?” But in all my life, I’ve never come face-to-face with a traffic fatality.

Until last week.

We’d just driven 750 miles from North Carolina to Florida, and after arriving at Dad’s house, we needed to take a walk and stretch our legs. We decided to look up an old friend we hadn’t seen in over 10 years.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take my car?” Dad asked. No, we assured him, we wanted to walk.

It was an OK walk, except for the lack of sidewalks. I was especially nervous about bad Florida drivers, so I waded through the mud and high grass and trash by the side of the road, to give them plenty of room.

On our way home, Barry and I were walking along holding hands. Nervously, I kept pulling him further away from US 1, over into the puddles.

And then my day was shattered by a terrible sound behind us.

I turned, and as I took in the scene, I started running back towards the intersection. All I cared about was the large man who lay in the center lane. I was pulling out our cell phone as I ran, saying to Barry “He’s not moving - he’s not moving - please, let him be OK!”

I was running, but everything was in slow motion. I took in the motorcycle pieces scattered across the road and the large white van pulling over to the shoulder, but I couldn’t figure out how it happened.

A small group converged in the middle of the road. A woman got on the ground with the prone man. “He’s breathing,” she said, her face on the pavement beside his helmeted head. Cars were passing only a few feet from the two of them, and I began waving them out to the right-most lane. A few minutes later, a police car arrived, and Barry and I left. We hadn’t actually witnessed the accident, and we didn’t want to be in the way.

I was shaking as I walked. The man hadn’t spoken or moved a limb, but his midsection was twitching in a frightening way. Was he going to be OK?

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept reviewing the scene, trying to figure out how he’d been hit, and how he could survive his injuries. There had been no blood, only the ominous dark stains of oil and coolant and fuel under the pieces of his motorcycle.

The next morning, my Dad pointed out a small newspaper article. A 26-year-old man was airlifted to a hospital, where he died. I turned away, tears in my eyes.

His name was Cory. He was engaged to be married in a few months, and he left behind a 7-year-old son. He was a chef at the Moorings Yacht Club.

Cory was killed by a large van that made a left turn out of a parking lot onto the busy highway. The driver must have been in a hurry, or on the phone, because Cory was hard to miss. It was broad daylight, and he had a bright orange motorcycle. He was not a small man. He wore a full-face helmet that matched his bike, despite the fact that helmets are not required in Florida.

A day later, a cross appeared at the intersection. It said “RIP Cory,” and it was decorated with red foil heart-shaped balloons. Every time I passed it, my eyes were drawn to it. Once, as I sat at the stoplight, I watched a jogger pause and look at the photos of the deceased. I felt a lurch in my chest, thinking that Cory was still alive when I saw him.

My happy vacation was subdued, impacted by the senseless death of a stranger. It was a first for me, walking by the scene of a fatal accident, and I won’t ever see motorcycles the same way.

Please, drivers, slow down and be more careful. Whether it’s a motorcycle, a bicycle, a jogger, or another car, it’s a person. None of us wants to be obliterated, replaced by a cross by the side of the road. I don’t ever want to hear that terrible sound again, and I still cry for Cory, even though I never knew him.

At 27 tons, the ketch Wind Lore towered over us on her jackstands. I’d once parked the Squid Wagon in her shadow to do an oil change, and wondered about the varnished teak and homeport of Shelburne, Nova Scotia. She was in excellent condition, and there was nothing stored underneath to give us clues.

Then, one Sunday morning, our watching yielded some information. In a flurry of activity, a white PT Cruiser pulled up and a family piled out. They stood looking up at the boat, taking pictures. Then they drove away.

“Hmmm…maybe that boat’s for sale?” I wondered out loud.

A few hours later, a beige Toyota Camry arrived with what looked like a rocket launcher on top. Three more people got out, this time climbing onto the boat via a very tall ladder.

Now I had two pieces of information, and I said, confidently. “Those must be the owners, getting it ready for the sale.”

I was absolutely and completely wrong.

That day, we met Rick and Mary Jane, Wind Lore’s owners, and Frank, Mary Jane’s father. They had about a week of projects on their list, and then they planned to launch the boat and cruise down to New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

But what about the people in the PT Cruiser? Like us, Rick and Mary Jane were mystified. Barry and I still marvel at the coincidence, having boatyard strangers take such an interest in that particular boat just hours before Rick and Mary Jane arrived.

The next day, we received a coveted invitation to climb the sky-scraping ladder for a visit aboard the boat. Sitting in the salon with a glass of wine, the companionway seemed very familiar — Rick pointed out that it was a Formosa, the model of boat featured in the cult sailing film Captain Ron. We all laughed about the fact that the crazy engine room in the movie wasn’t authentic, it was a set. And the infamous shower scene wasn’t filmed on the boat, either. Dang.

In the next few days, among conversations about projects and people and boats and places, I asked an innocent question. “Will you leave your car here when you go to Florida?”

“We’ll have to come up and get it, I guess,” said Rick. “You want to take a road trip?”

“Oh, yes!” I sang out. Barry was looking askance at me, but he knows that I won’t miss any opportunity to visit my Dad in Florida.

After Wind Lore slipped her lines and headed south, a massive cold front came through, making their trip down the ICW a chilly one. Back on Flutterby, our progress was slowed — our Awlfair wouldn’t “kick,” and it was no use applying paint in these temperatures. Not to mention how miserable we were, personally, huddling in the van with a tiny space heater.

Finally, the cold eased, but then came torrential rains, three inches in one night. When we awoke on Election Day, our boat sat between the Intracoastal Waterway and something I call “Lake Bock.” In the past, I’ve jokingly called our location “puddlefront.” We took off our socks and wore sandals, wading through ankle-deep water as we packed the car.

Then we got into the Camry with the rocket launcher (actually a rooftop gear carrier) on the top and headed for I-95. When we arrived at New Smyrna Beach and Wind Lore, 11 hours later, Mary Jane had dinner for us, and our Canadian friends were patient with us as we watched the election returns.

At some point in the evening, Mary Jane turned to me and asked, “Did you know we just had an election?” I was embarrassed. “Er, not really.” Less than a month ago, the Canadians held a Federal election, just as important to them as ours is to us. Turnout was the lowest in Canadian election history, perhaps because of all the noisy campaigning going on just to the south.

The following morning, I awoke refreshed after a night on their glamorous boat. I looked around at the hand-carved teak doors, the sunshine pouring into the spacious salon, and the palm trees ashore. I could hardly believe my luck as I put my jeans and raincoat away and changed into shorts.

Rick and Mary Jane thanked us profusely for saving them a trip back to North Carolina for their car, but that seemed unnecessary to me. The pleasure, actually, is ours.

A day later, my brother called to tell me he was sending a card with some photos. He’d used up a disposable camera I’d gotten him, and now he was sending me some of the prints. Oh boy! Pictures!

I waited about four days, and then I started going into the office. Every day, I’d stick my head in an ask, “Any mail for us?” “No, not today.” After about ten days of this, I was a little embarrassed to ask. And I was starting to worry. What if both items were delivered on the same day, and the mail got stolen out of the box? It’s not a very secure mailbox.

Finally, I got a sheepish email from my Dad. He’d accidentally put his own address as the ship-to address. Just as I was writing him back, teasing him about his “senior moment,” my phone rang.

It was my brother, also sheepish. “You don’t have to look for that card any more,” he said. He’d put insufficient postage on it, so it got returned.

I sat back, laughing. Here I was, all excited about getting a couple of goodies in the mail, but they were just a tease — both senders had sent them to themselves!

On Friday, I had another “Oh boy! A care package” realization. I poked my head in the office. “I’m expecting another box…” I said. “Oh, sure, they probably sent it back to themselves,” Anique teased me. “No, really, it’s…” I broke off. I was afraid that if I told her what I was expecting, I might never see it.

Finally, I sort of mumbled, “It’s a box of homemade wine.” I didn’t tell her that it’s excellent pear, grape, and cherry wine from Yelm, Washington. But Anique’s reaction was completely unexpected. “You like homemade wine? Really? I have a jar of it in my car!” I looked at her askance, wondering why she would have a jar of wine in her car in the parking lot at work. I guess if she breaks down, like we did in Iowa, she could give it to her Good Samaritan instead of an inflatable space alien.

As it turns out, Anique and her boyfriend have a pear tree, so they made a batch of pear wine. They couldn’t even use all the pears, and they still ended up with a lot — a whole lot — of wine.

Since it was Halloween, I went back to the boat and put on my costume — a big boatyard bunny, complete with Tyvek “bunny” suit and dust mask decorated with a Sharpie marker. The ears were real, though. I hopped across the yard, surprising a lot of serious, hard-working folks and making them laugh despite themselves. Nobody in the yard had any candy for me, so I played Easter bunny and gave candy away instead.

But when I got to the office, I got lucky. I held out my bag and said, “Trick or Treat!” Anique had fetched that promised jar of wine, which sure beats candy corn and little packages of Lifesavers.

I’m still waiting for my “Oh boy!” care packages — Dad’s Shpongle CD, and Hank’s card with the photos, and Tom’s excellent Washington wine. But the consolation prize, sweet North Carolina pear wine in a quart mason jar, was fabulous, and that makes the wait worthwhile.

I suspect the reason I won the costume contest was actually not how I looked, but how I acted. Whenever I wasn’t at my desk (and I don’t think Expeditors got their money out of me that day), I would stand up, hold my arms at my sides, and scuffle-scoot across the carpet, making high-pitched bursts of squeaking noises. In a men-must-wear-ties business environment, it drew a lot of laughs.

That Halloween evening, I came home from work, triumphant with success. I wanted to take my winning costume out again, so I talked Barry into going to Trolloween that night. “But what am I going to wear?” he asked.

I started thinking, and I got out the life-sized crow my Dad had given us in honor of our boat, the Northern Crow. “How about putting this on your shoulder?” It was styrofoam-light, with realistic glossy black feathers. I dug out a huge green jacket with a hood to go with it.

“You look great!” I enthused, after he was dressed. His face was hidden deep in the hood, and the crow looked real, wired onto his shoulder. He’d added black longjohns, a pair of leather hiking boots, and a big wooden hiking staff. But peering into the mirror, he frowned.

“What do I tell people I am?”

“You’re not a kid any more. It’s only little kids who get asked, ‘What are you?’ on Halloween!”

That night, my award-winning Cousin It costume was a complete failure. Without the bright fluorescent lights of the office, I couldn’t see a thing. And my scoot-and-squeak performance didn’t translate to the large crowd, nor was it fast enough to keep up with the parade.

But Barry was a huge success. Everyone who saw the crow did a double-take and asked if it was real. Over and over, I heard (although I couldn’t see a damn thing) people saying to Barry, “Great costume, man!”

At the end of the evening, he was as triumphant as I’d been earlier.

Since then, we’re not afraid to dress up in non-representational costumes (although Barry did dress as Jolly Roger Rabbit at Burning Man in 2007). Our costume bins are full of things that are colorful and wildly patterned, and it’s just a matter of putting the right colors and textures together with the right wigs, hats, and shoes.

The next time you dress up, if anyone asks what you are, here’s what you do. Put your arms at your sides, shuffle-scoot quickly across the ground, and make high-pitched bursts of squeaking noises. I guarantee, they won’t ask twice.

A little costume inspiration

Following are a few of my favorite Burning Man costume photos. Please be forewarned, some of the images are very revealing, and although there is no outright nudity, you might see more of Meps (and some other people) than you really want to.

A couple of days ago, Barry popped his head down into the boat and said, “Guess who’s in the slings now!” When I came on deck and looked across to the ways, it was Arima, the rubber boat.

Just kidding. Arima is fiberglass, just like us.

Like us, she came from Hilton Head — Dan even stayed at the same marina while he was getting the boat cleaned up and ready for the trip north. He arrived at Bock a week before we did in May. For his summer boatyard escape, he crewed on a boat to Ireland, arriving back a day after we returned from our Burning Man trip.

At 35 feet, Arima is about the same size as Flutterby, but outfitted very differently. She’s a distinctive white sloop with green canvas and classic lines. And except for the side trips and surprises, Dan would have left long ago.

His first launch date was a Friday in June. It was the last day to be launched before the yard closed for a week’s vacation. I saw the Travelift pick him up, and as he touched up the bottom with paint, I snapped some pictures. It was Dan’s big day, and I thought he’d enjoy the photos later.

Dan tied up at the dock and said farewell to the boatyard employees. He planned to leave the following morning. That evening, Barry and I stopped by with a tiny (1-1/1×2-inches) homemade bon voyage card.

But it was not to be. Water rose in the bilge, and his bilge pump ran often to keep up. So he sat there, at the dock, waiting 10 days for the employees to return. When they did, they plucked him out of the water and put him a new spot.

Anyone else would have been despondent, but Dan took it in stride. He went to work on his cutlass (or is that cutless? nautical terms are weird!) bearing, laying on top of the engine with his head down in the bilge. It was uncomfortable, and I know he was frustrated, but he never complained. He’s a good example that way.

A week or so later, Dan told us he was done, and the problem was fixed. The Travelift picked him up and gently put him back in the water.

This time, water poured in so fast, they lifted him out almost immediately and blocked him up again. I could no longer restrain myself. I published a limerick about his travails and began calling Arima the “rubber boat,” because she bounces out of the water when you put her in!

Dan decided he was over his head, and hired the Bock crew to repair the now-cracked stern tube. Meanwhile, he helped out another boater, an Irishman named Steven. We’d heard that Steven and his nearly-mute Chinese girlfriend were going to launch the enormous mystery vessel in the sandpit “soon” and sail it to Ireland, just the two of them.

A couple of weeks later, I was walking by Arima on my way to the bathroom. Dan stopped me, saying “Hey, can you give me a ride to town next week?” “Sure, where are you going?” I asked. “Ireland!” he said, with a huge grin.

So Dan left his boat in storage and sailed off to Ireland, blogging the whole way. When he came back, it took less than a month to get ready to go.

Last week, when he said he was ready to launch, I chuckled. “He’s like the boy who cried wolf. I hope he’s getting a frequent-launching discount.”

I didn’t want to jinx him, so when Barry told me Arima was in the slings, I kept my camera to myself. About an hour later, on my way to the office, I walked by the boat, still hanging there. Dale was underneath, looking more serious than usual as he chewed on a toothpick.

But what was this? The bottom was wet — the boat had been launched and pulled back out AGAIN!

This time, Dale and Larry and Randy were able to quickly fix two bad through-hull fittings, and Dan made it to the dock where he’d spent that first week in July. Since we know him better than when he first launched, we took a bottle of rum over and sat on Arima, enjoying the feeling of being on a boat that’s floating. “Woo hoo! A wake!”

The next morning, despite high winds and rain, Dan slipped his lines and motored away. At my request, he blew his horn as he left. We were down below, in the middle of a tricky and time-dependent fiberglass layup, so I could only peek out through the portlight. Barry managed to get a sticky, Tyvek-covered arm out the hatch for one last wave.

On my way past Dan’s spot, I took the wooden blocks and pads that had held up Arima, and the chains from his jackstands, and I wrote his name on the ground. A little memorial to the good he did here in the boatyard.

This morning, I have mixed emotions. I’m glad Dan is out there cruising, but I’m feeling sorry for myself. There have been many days when I was depressed and Dan cheered me up. Now I have to cheer myself up.

No, wait, who’s that driving into the boatyard? It’s another Dan! Dan Smith, who rescued us and took us to Raleigh back in December, has just come back for the first time in months. Here’s another laid-back Dan with a positive attitude — just what I needed right now.

Maybe my message on the ground brought him back from Raleigh? Instead of a farewell to Dan of Arima, it’s welcome to Dan of Funny Farm, and all the other positive and cheerful Dans — and people with other names — of the world.

I didn’t find out the reason for the name until decades later. It turns out that when the boat was designed, the public was up in arms about some extravagant china Nancy Reagan had purchased for the White House. And this lovely boat, a 15-foot trailerable, could be built for about the same amount as a single place setting.

This week, there’s been a bit of hullaballoo about Sarah Palin’s $150,000 campaign wardrobe. I’ve been thinking about that $150,000, and I can’t imagine spending that much on clothes in my lifetime, let alone in a month. Then again, I shop at the Salvation Army.

Anyway, going back to Sam Devlin, I think there’s an opportunity lurking in this silliness.

There are a few boats around here that cost about $150,000. Some of them look great, slightly maverick, but with lousy performance. If you’d like to buy one, we have the perfect name: Sarah’s Wardrobe.

Our boat is not eligible. Besides costing much less than $150,000, it’s not going to be launched in time for election day. And we had to pay for it ourselves.

We were out for a sunny, relaxed evening of boating when Jeff told me about this. He’s a laid-back blues musician, but when he started talking about his crusade, his eyes flashed with real anger.

Why the crusade? Because the signs are illegally placed on the road right-of-way. Since no one will enforce this, Jeff takes the law into his own hands.

What is strange about this is that Jeff is not the only one. He’s just lucky that his tires are intact.

Three years ago, at a party, I heard the following amazing tale from another, completely unrelated Seattle friend. I’ll call him Floyd, because while he’ll tell the story to anyone over a beer, he doesn’t particularly want publicity.

In 2004, a four-by-eight-foot Bush-Cheney sign appeared beside a freeway north of Seattle. It stood on the grassy verge between the interstate and a small side road — smack dab in the public right-of-way.

Floyd drove past this sign every day, and like Jeff, it bugged him. He and several of his friends contacted the Department of Transportation, notifying them of the transgression and asking that the sign be removed.

The Department of Transportation took no action.

Like Jeff, Floyd decided to take the law into his own hands. But this wasn’t a sign you could just yank out of the ground. He purchased a cordless saw, and one evening, he drove out to the sign and cut it down. “The thing was huge,” he said. “It stood way over my head.”

Mission accomplished. But like Jeff’s signs, this one sprouted back like a giant weed.

Frustrated, Floyd drove back with his saw one Sunday evening. “Going back was definitely a mistake,” he admitted.

As he got out of his car with the saw, he was blinded by bright lights. Two huge men leapt out of a camouflage net, screaming obscenities at him.

Floyd’s first thought was that he could defend himself with the saw. Then he had second thoughts. “I thought I could take off somebody’s leg with this thing, and that would get me into real trouble!” He deliberately tossed the saw into the car and faced the enemy unarmed.

The two men advanced on him and began to rough him up. Both were over six feet tall, and Floyd isn’t a particularly tall or beefy fellow. He did the obvious thing: He ran. As he ran, he thought about his situation.

Since he was the one being assaulted, the smart thing would be to call the police. He stopped and pulled out his cell phone.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I should have kept running while I got the phone out.” Before he could make the call, his attackers caught up with him. Ouch.

They knocked him to the ground, tied his hands, and one of them put his heavy boot in the middle of Floyd’s back. It looked like a brutal beating was imminent. At that point, Floyd began screaming to attract attention, which annoyed and disconcerted his attackers.

“Go ahead. Call the cops,” they said.

When the police came, Floyd was tied up, face-down on the ground. “Am I under arrest?” Floyd asked. “Because if I’m not, you’d better untie me.” The policeman ignored the request.

“It seemed like the cop talked with the men forever, out of earshot, leaving me there tied up.” When the policeman came back, he arrested Floyd. He was unsure what to charge him with, and finally decided on something about defacing a political advertisement. “I’m not sure if I should impound your car. It’s not parked illegally, but…” the policeman said.

Floyd spent four hours in jail. When he returned to his car, all four tires were slashed. “Multiple times,” he said.

Floyd had his day in court, with mixed results. The sign was placed illegally, but it is also illegal to deface a political sign. Evidently, the two don’t cancel each other out.

Still, the judge and prosecuting attorney were sympathetic liberals, even if they couldn’t say so. According to Floyd, “At the final hearing, the judge joked, ‘Are you ready to do your volunteer service for the Bush-Cheney campaign?’”

Floyd’s community service involved planting trees in a park with some little old ladies, an activity he enjoyed. It was fitting punishment for cutting down an illegal weed. Still, he won’t be taking the law into his own hands like that again.

That’s OK, because I know Jeff is still on his crusade. I only hope that he’s keeping an eye out for camouflaged vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands, as he removes the political weeds in the public right-of-way.

Instead, we have been working on fixing up the deck’s many holes, some of which were letting water (and then rot) into the balsa core. There are one or two that have grown well beyond a little rot around a hole and instead became big areas to patch. Having done this already in the forward portion of the boat, we were relatively old hands, and one lesson I had learned was that cleanup is a big job, so why not make a big HUGE mess all at once, then just do the cleanup once.

I think this was a good choice, but we sure did make a mess of the boat by now. As I write this, we just have to sweep and vacuum up all the dust, and then we can start putting some things back together. With any luck, it will never get to be quite this big a mess inside again!

I suspect that besides the normal sort of lack of energy to start big projects when returning from our Burning Man vacation trip, the expectation of what we would turn our home into was what kept us from starting this project–it wasn’t until a week later that we actually started removing the last hardware and grinding stuff!

And, if you wondered, no, not every place that needed to be ground out was easy to get into…

Just the same, somehow we managed to get at them all.

I will now proceed to Day Two, when the sun came out with all the crazy costumes, naked people, and dancing boys.

The dancing boys were on top of a large Penske rental truck parked across from the Squid Wagon. One of them wore only a pair of fur hot pants with a long, furry tail. He was my favorite, and I worried that he might trip over his tail and fall off the truck.

The sun was bearing down on us, so we set to work on our flaccid shade structure. First, we unloaded the roof of the van — two bicycles, a room-sized piece of Berber carpet, and one disassembled porta-potty.

That porta-potty was the reason we were camping with the Lamplighters.

Sometime in July, our cell phone rang in the Morehead City Salvation Army, where we were shopping (unsuccessfully; it’s a boring thrift store) for costumes. A Burner named Cosmo had seen my number posted on a Burning Man ride board. He wanted to know if I’d be interested in carrying a large parcel in our van, in exchange for some gas money. “It’s a shower for the Lamplighters,” he told me.

Cosmo asked me “Where are you camping?” I admitted that we hadn’t figured that out yet. “You should camp with Lamplighters,” he said. “It’s a fantastic group of people — they’re just like family to me. Sometimes, I don’t even leave the camp the whole time.”

Barry thought joining the Lamplighters sounded like a great idea, a completely different experience from last year. Instead of a small group of Seattlites near the outer edge of the city, we’d be with a large international group right in the center of the city, with a communal kitchen and lounge. But was this fellow Cosmo some kind of nut? How could he go to Burning Man without leaving his camp?

We never actually met the man before we set out on our cross-country journey. We made the arrangements by phone, and one weekend, he dropped off a large, lumpy pile of plastic parts at my brother’s house in Durham. A few days later, we stopped through, strapped it to the top of the van, and carried it across the USA to Cosmo and the Lamplighters.

Our camping spot, assigned to us by a fellow called Snotto, was on an alley that ran through the camp. To one side were a forest of tents and the elaborate Lamplighter kitchen. On the other side were the dancing boys and the Lamplighter bar and lounge. Behind us were Cosmo’s Ryder truck and a large cardboard box that we assumed was for storage. And in front, about 20 feet away, was a small row of porta-potties.

As soon as we emerged from the van, it was apparent that our campsite wasn’t on a high-traffic pedestrian walkway — it WAS the high-traffic walkway. The problem was, we needed our shade structure to keep the interior of the van from turning into an oven, and there was no way to reef the sail.

As we set up the giant canopy, I fretted about all those strangers walking through “our” space. Could we hang sheets or set up chairs to keep them from walking under our shade structure, or across our carpet?

Around then, a woman walked by on her way to the porta-potties. She was wearing a beautifully colorful costume, and I complimented her on it. A fellow passed on his way to the kitchen, wearing a 70’s-patterned muumuu, and we got into a conversation about how he found it on the internet. Then a neighbor came from another direction. He wasn’t sure which way to go — there didn’t seem to be a route for him that didn’t go through our space.

“Please, feel free to come through this way — you’re not bothering us at all,” I said. “We can’t figure out any way to make this shade structure smaller, so just come on through and enjoy it.”

That was how we met one of the most interesting Lamplighters, No Account, known around camp as Noah. The lady in the beautiful costume was Day-Zee. The dancing boy was Christopher, but I never learned the name of the man with the amazing muumuu.

I started to relax. What if we didn’t “claim” the space, but actually welcomed people walking through? What would happen?

What happened was that we met dozens and dozens of fun people on their way to the kitchen, the bar, or the bathroom. We were inescapable — since we attached part of the shade structure to our neighbor Mike’s RV, even people who didn’t stop to say hello had to pass under our guy rope, decorated with the same colorful yacht pennants used at our wedding in 1991.

Once the structure was up, we turned our attention to our costumes, packed in three large plastic totes. Mike unloaded his bicycle, grabbed his camera, and set off to see the art.

About 45 minutes later, when Mike returned, we were still there, digging through the costume boxes. He was puzzled. “Haven’t you left yet?” he asked.

What had happened was this: As we sorted through the costumes, people came walking through our camp. We said hello and got into conversations with them. So the 45 minutes included about 5 minutes of costume-sorting and 40 minutes of making new friends.

We’d been admiring Swagmeister’s tatoos, teasing Boxes With Bears about his upcoming wedding, and gossiping with Sean about the dancing boys across the way. Then Leanne and Jeremy came by, and we introduced them to Mike. But he had more to see, so he went off again.

When he returned, we were still there. “Haven’t you guys left yet?” he asked, incredulous. “We’re almost ready!” we said. Barry was just tying the turtle sarong that went with his mind-blowing bowling shirt. I had zipped up my pink knee-high boots and was tying on the pink-and-green hat.

“Have you met Mr. Mister?” we asked. “He’s the guy camping in those cardboard boxes over there.”

This particular hour had been spent visiting with Mr. Mister, who gave me a tour of his home. He’d used aircraft part boxes to construct a shelter that was neatly organized and nearly dustproof. In previous years, he’d learned to make it fairly tall, because people didn’t realize it was a house. He’d once been in bed when an amorous couple sat on top of him and started making out.

With all the visitors, it took us forever to blow up the four inflatable space aliens, A. Leeanne, Ros Well, Lou Wheeze, and Gert Rude, and put on their jeweled neck collars so their heads wouldn’t droop. Then I strapped them onto my bike and assembled their spacecraft. Barry put together his flying apparition and hung it from his bike.

Finally, late in the afternoon, we took off. To Mike, it must have seemed that we dawdled around camp all day. But we’d actually gotten a lot done, from engineering an unusual and sturdy shade structure to assembling ourselves and our bicycles as art. For we were not just there to see Burning Man, we were there to be seen by Burning Man.

Along the way, we made a lot of new friends. I wish I had pictures of more of them. Heck, I wish I knew more of their names. They were strangers when they came to our crossroads, but they weren’t strangers when they left. And that’s the most time-consuming — and entertaining — thing we did for days.

The whiteout started at the worst possible time. We had partially unrolled the unwieldy 30-foot sail over the top of the Squid Wagon, and we had to abandon it and dive inside.

For a long time, we sat watching fine playa dust sift through tiny cracks in the doors and windows. Then we started trying to unearth the dust masks and goggles we’d brought to protect our lungs and eyes. Meanwhile, the sail flapped and chafed against the van, and we couldn’t see five feet. Finally, wearing our protective gear, we groped our way to the Lamplighters’ lounge, almost missing it in the total whiteout.

Was this what we’d driven across the country for?

The storm hadn’t abated by 5 pm, when we coughed and hacked our way to the Lamplighter Chapel. We milled around with the other newbies, until someone directed us to Digital Dan at the signup board. Dan is a tall, handsome man, and he looked like a sexy, elegant monk in his flame-decorated Lamplighter robe. He was also mysteriously silent. At the time, I thought that was to keep the process solemn and avoid back-talk. It seemed so appropriate that it was days later I finally realized he has a health issue that prevents him from talking.

Barry and I had seen pictures of the Lamplighting processions, but we were new to the complex, labor-intensive process. Each night, this volunteer public utility lights over a thousand kerosene lanterns and carries them, in robed processions, to 20-foot lampposts along the city’s major streets.

Each route requires dozens of people who sign up for one of four roles: A luminary, who leads each group; carriers, who carry 12 lanterns on long sturdy poles across their shoulders; lifters, who use long, slender poles to hang the lanterns on the lampposts; and support, the people who keep lanterns lit and take care of carriers’ and lifters’ needs.

That first night, Barry signed up as a lifter on the lengthy 2 o’clock route. I was nervous — was I strong enough to carry 30 pounds of lanterns and pole? Was I agile enough to hang lanterns 20 feet in the air? I decided to sign up as support, since that sounded easier.

There were about a hundred people milling about in the dust, cleaning lamps, trimming wicks, and using turkey basters to fill the reservoirs with kerosene. The tricky part was lighting the lamps in the storm, and I fretted about my ability to keep the lamps lit.

Finally, the robetenders helped us put on our robes and tied the cowls behind our heads. Then we gathered into groups, according to our routes. Our luminary, an old hand by the name of Jeff-Who, introduced to the lead carrier, a wild and crazy young woman named Ducky. She immediately began group bonding activities, including calling us the “Deuces” and inventing our own gang sign. Looking at Ducky and another carrier, a slender, silver-haired woman, I thought maybe carrying lanterns wouldn’t be so tough — they looked pretty normal, not like body builders.

So when Jeff-Who reviewed our roles and mentioned that support people would be expected to take over if a carrier or lifter was unable to finish the route, I wasn’t too worried.

Maybe I should have been.

We began lifting the loaded poles onto the carriers’ shoulders. I saw the silver-haired woman falter, then begin to walk slowly toward the front of the chapel. She seemed to be having trouble.

She didn’t quite make it to the fire cauldron, where all the routes gather for a convocation before spreading out. I found myself stepping in, putting a rolled towel around my neck and taking the heavy load on my shoulders. It wasn’t a question of whether or not I could do it. She could not, so I had to.

The load was so heavy and the wind so strong that all I could do was slowly place one foot in front of the other, following the person in front of me. I couldn’t turn my head, so I couldn’t see except straight in front of me. I was too focused on the pain in my neck and shoulders and arms to see anything, anyway. To make matters worse, the lanterns developed a maddening swing that got worse with every step.

Damn. This was the hardest thing I’d ever done, and I hadn’t even signed up for it.

Worse yet, I was near the end of the line, and the lifters weren’t taking my lamps and lightening my load. I was right at the edge of my physical limit, and I festered as I carried my load, angry at being ignored. But I was too exhausted by the task at hand to even complain.

I later realized we’d been sent out with extra lanterns. Since mine were swinging so much, they’d mostly blown out. In the fierce wind and whiteout, the lifters had all they could do to hang lanterns that were actually lit.

When it was all over, I stood in the middle of the road with my head down, like a horse that’s about to collapse in exhaustion. Someone took my lanterns and my pole, but I could barely get my arms down. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to use them for the rest of the week. I practically had to be lifted onto the truck for the ride back, where I heard Jeff-Who telling us this was the worst weather he’d ever seen for Lamplighting.

But our ordeal was not over.

The truck made a detour on the way home, out to the Man. That route had run out of lanterns, and they needed us to light and hang some of our extras.

It had only been about ten minutes, but somehow I found use of my arms again. I picked up a lifting pole and managed to hang a lantern. And another one. I drifted away from Barry, towards an empty lamppost, and then onto another one. Finally, I ran out of lanterns. As I turned back towards the truck, I panicked. It had totally vanished in the whiteout.

First came fear, then adrenaline, and then, when I found the truck, relief. And more relief when Barry appeared out of the whiteout.

We arrived back at Lamplighter Village exhausted. The kitchen crew had held dinner for us, but we could barely lift our forks.

This was Day One of a typical Burning Man experience. We’ve often heard it said that the event will push your boundaries, whatever they are. Even — especially — if you don’t know what they are. Evidently, I had some boundaries regarding strength and stamina that needed pushing. Day One of Burning Man 2008 was great!