Foxy Moxy: The Virgin Burner Diaries...

Installment #2 in the series

I'll spare you the details of putting up a tent at midnight in a petering-out duststorm... we are indeed here, and that's what counts, right? Next door is a bar called The Lost Penguin, announcing itself in neon tubing 7 ft. tall. It will become my main visual landmark on the playa, a beacon to guide me home in the most inclement of weather situations.

Scott and Naked Bob have decided to go to sleep. I have a second wind and am ready for wherever pedal power may take me. I bid the boys "Adieu" and head out into the darkness. I head first for the farthest point out on the side we have settled on. All the streets that fan out from the center point are named for times on the clock. We are camped at four, so I head toward one 'o clock where a giant nightclub named the Opulent Temple reposes.

I'm greeted by 300+ partially-naked writhing bodies, getting their groove on. I have never beheld a nightclub of this size in full swing, even in a major city. The DJ sits between two stories-tall round projection screens and the dancers can stay on the playa level or climb upward and dance on platforms. The entire club jets fire upwards, at key moments, into the night sky. The scale of it is mindblowing, and yet no one seems to marvel but me.

I could join in, but I can feel I've reached my physical limits. I can always come back (and do). On my way home, a sound of something amusingly awful locks in the last of my attention and I pedal as fast as I can to catch up. Rolling across the playa is a mobile karaoke art car, trailing singers on bikes and on foot, doing their damndest to warble their way across the dusty landscape.

I amuse myself with them all the way until we reach the Man, and I realize that the time to sleep is upon me. I head back to my camp with a grin on my face, every muscle pumping the bike in anticipation of all that lies ahead...