October 2007 Archives
I wonder sometimes what people see in their countries respective flag… why do people choose to display their flags? How long did it take a person or group to make the pictured “God Bless America” sign? . That specific house is the most lit up house on a very dark section of a quiet street in a suburb of a large American city. How many more homes in America are exactly like this one? How many are more elaborate?
Reality does kind of suck. Money, traffic and petroleum seem to rule the day. It makes me sad to know that this is not the only solution. Waking up to the challenge of keeping beverages cold never seemed so good. Knowing that I needn’t keep a schedule or worry that mine hinders others. Walking around in what I feel comfortable in and resting at a burn barrel after midnight. Getting in touch with how the moon moves across the sky. Knowing how rain really smells. Oh how I miss these things!
I know it might seem as if I obsess about this whole Burning Man thing… I do. It changed my perspective on a system that I already was skeptic of. I see just as in the film from the early 20th Century, METROPOLIS, that we are part of a breathing machine.
American Legion, Lombard Illinois 2005
Lombard Illinois 2007
This is just another side note in the history of a small village. Lombard is just like any other place in America. Things change and buildings go on to live a different purpose. Sometimes buildings are removed and others they are saved. This one was saved. Recently in this country it seems that many of them are not deemed worthy of saving.
Setting off around 05:20 we quickly see that nobody else is on the road.. A good thing for anyone on a road trip. Leaving Chicago is always amazing in the morning, you see the sun slowly coming up over the lake as the car creeps away from the urban into the rural. After my recent train ride through the country I was not looking forward to seeing endless corn and farms. Though uninteresting after about fifteen years of seeing it I was excited to see the fog in the fields as I had seen in Nebraska.
It was an odd experience… returning to the real world after burning man ended. After a crazy 2 day train ride followed by 7 days in the desert my concept of reality was a bit shot. At first the only part of modern america I saw was what greeted me on the side of some road outside of the Sparks / Reno area.
I rode from the burn to Reno in the back of the moving van because there was only two seats in front and we did not want to get pulled over. Having not slept the night of the man burn into sunday I was quite tired from my journeys and excursions in the desert. So, after sleeping in the back of the truck with 10 bags of garbage I woke up after what was about a 7 to 8 hour journey from our camp. Greeting me when the truck door opened were two native american fellows, the girls and a large trailer with a hand painted sign that read “TRASH”. I gladly helped bring out the 10 bags and we handed the guy $20… Our part of ‘leave no trace’ was completed! I climbed back into the truck and waited out the final journey into Reno and woke up at a 7-11 convenient store which was obviously visited by many other burners heading back to reality.
It was really foggy today. I always enjoy fog no matter where it is. The last time I saw fog was about a month ago on a train ride through the farmland of Nebraska as the sun was rising. The fog was so thick you couldnt even see out of the train. The stuff we had this morning wasn’t quite as thick but it did set a certain mood for the rest of the day…
tic tic tic… the road trip awaits…