Tool and Answergirl (plus special guest star Saucygirl) went on a grand adventure this past weekend. Kristen, Marion, and I loaded up the Cessna and flew out to the Black Rock Desert to attend our annual training for the Black Rock Rangers.
Flying into high desert is an interesting exercise, since it's not something one pratices often. In my case, I had flown nearby (to the Burning Man site) once before (with Caroline and Scotti and gear), but that has the advantage of a prepared (still dirt) runway. This time, we found the camp site (made simple courtesy of GPS coodinates provided by LongPig and daMongolian) and then had to choose a place that looked reasonable to land. I got a note informing me that the playa near the camp was soft, so we touched down farther out on the open playa, on what was practically an infinite runway.
The training itself went very well; Rangers are good people. We met some new faces, and got to explore the desert in a different context than the Burning Man Festival, which was fun. I took Odwally up in the plane and he gave me an arial tour of the area, including 80 Acres (the Burning Man work ranch), and several of the hot springs, which we later got to visit in person. It doesn't appear that landing at or near 80 Acres is feasible, but Haggis tells me that he's seen people land on the road and taxi in from there. I'd have to see it up close to know whether that makes sense to me.
Burning Man is in six weeks. We're ready.