A Burning Man Blog by Mike

One of the great benefits of going completely away from home on a trip is that my carb cravings go completely away. At Burning Man we had next to nothing for refined carbs to eat. I weighed 197lbs when I left for Burning Man. I’m now down into the 186-189 range. I never thought I’d get to under 190 like I did in the late 90’s. This same thing happened to me last year when I went to Brazil. Cravings were dead when I got back and my weight loss program was born. I’m only a dozen lbs above my high school weight of 175lbs. If I can ever get this damn thyroid under control, life should be quite sweet. It’s already vastly improved.

The wagon got 3 new coolant hoses and a radiator cap. They were toasted. The fan belt for the water pump was lose too. I put in too much coolant so now I am draining a little at a time and adding water to bring the ratio down. Then the air conditioning will get evacuated and recharged. The wiring for the trailer needs to be added and the tires need balancing.

The scooter still needs the cracked wheel changed and the 4th battery pack added. I doubt I’ll have time to add the lighting. It also needs some kind of cloth attached around the perimeter to keep the playa dust out.

Tonight I cut the front door opening in panel #3. That took some guts! Then I sewed up the zippers for the door. Some ground anchors will have to added to each side of the door to make the #3 panel more stable. All of the cutting has made it more unstable. But it has to have a front door. I went with a 6 foot tall front door.

Yesterday was the the first time the Hexayurt was assembled completely. It took maybe only 10-15 minutes. It sure felt like less. We did it in Bill’s back yard. The ladder was needed to hold the roof up initially. I thought Bill could hold it for me as I zipped the roof together. But since the walls are not hinged together as I had originally planned, they tend to float in and out freely and have to be held vertically so they keep the roof panels aligned while I zip the roof together. I could make a vertical post to temporarily hold the first couple of roof panels up. The ladder will strap onto the side of the trailer so we’ll probably just take it.

Here is the interior of the Yurt! We left one section out to be able to better photograph the insides. I purposely left all of the blue writing on the interior of the Yurt so that it would absorb as little heat as possible. You can see the black zippers on the ceiling. They are plenty strong enough in shear. The material used was just basic canvas duck. The adhesive was just Liquid Nails.

You can just seem my hand as I’m opening one of 3 roof hatches. With the door, this will be handy to ventilate the Yurt when it cools off after sunset.

I’m only a few feet in front of the Yurt. Bill’s lense makes the Yurt look a little smaller.