Travelogue: Burning Man to Hemet, CA

Time Period: September 6 – October 24
Miles Driven: 1179
(not including non-RV trips)

Post Burning Man we only had one specific goal – to make it to Hemet, CA for much needed down time. We had met some folks in the area during our travels earlier in the year that we only had the opportunity to visit for a few days back in April – and we were anxious to return to their beautiful home.

We stayed at Burning Man late, helping with the clean-up efforts and taking responsibility for our camp achieving a ‘green’ rating for leaving no trace behind.

Directly from Black Rock City, we went back to Fallon, NV to pick up Kiki and wash some dust off.

Afterburn at PermaBurn

Eyeing a handout we received during our clean-up days, we were intrigued by an opportunity to visit PermaBurn for their Afterburn event.  PermaBurn is 600+ acres that were purchased about 85 miles due west of Gerlach, with the intentions of being an intentional full time Burning Man inspired community. Well within range of the playa, it’s an ideal place for testing out and staging art projects.  The vision is one of community effort and manifestation.

Always in search of nomadic ports with like minds, we were intrigued enough to divert up to Northern California for a few days to check it out. It was a small gathering of folks for the weekend and we had opportunity to meet many of the folks behind the project. It was just what we needed – an opportunity to chill with community post Burning Man, before returning to the ‘real’ world. And bonus, there’s cell phone signal out there!

For just $200, interested folks can buy in with a lifetime membership – which gives you a vote in how the land is used. It also gives you full access to the land for as long as its held as part of PermaBurn. An awesome opportunity, and one that we definitely recommend checking out if you’re so intrigued. The folks behind it are awesome and well intentioned.

Sacramento and San Francisco

After PermaBurn we returned to Sacramento, where we have dear friends – Sean & Lindsay, as well as our storage unit. We spent a few days putting our Burning Man gear back in storage and getting our house reorganized and prepared for potentially not returning to the area for a while.

And then it was on to San Francisco for an evening to spend with our dance community – Rhythm Society. It was their quarterly All Night Dance Celebration. Not even a fire marshall could keep the event from happening, and it was quickly re-tooled to take place at an alternate location right on time. It was definitely worthwhile to make the stop on our way south.

After lunch on the Presido munching down on our favorite burritos from Taqueria Cancun, we started our southward journey.  We opted to take the interstate instead of a slow meandering way – anxious to get to Hemet.

Hemet, CA

There are definitely places in our travels that feel more like a homebase than a stop,  and Hemet is amongst them. It’s not so much about the place, as it about the people. Fortunately for us, this place has both!  Beautiful scenery and awesome people.  Here they also have a little porch with RV hook-ups right off of it. We’ve taken it over, giving us a beautiful outdoor living room and office.

Another reason for hanging out in this area of the country was its proximity to Las Vegas, as we had been invited to attend Photoshop World as a guest of our technomadic friend Ben Willmore (who is a presenter there).  Deciding it was cheaper to carpool up and split a room with our friends from Hemet – Sean & Helene and us made the trip together up to Vegas.

We had a lot of fun, including participating in the iStockPhoto party invite process – which involved decorating Munny dolls. We made ours to resemble Ben with his rocking mohawk – which he boldly decided to keep from Burning Man where we last saw him.

Upon returning to Hemet, we each got invitations to attend two different conferences in two different places.  Cherie was invited to the Experts Academy up in San Francisco, and Chris to the Los Angeles Idea Project.  For the first time in our 2.5 years of travel together – we went our separate ways for a few days – which is probably a good thing for traveling couples to do every so often.  With no rush to be anywhere, Cherie opted to take the Coast Starlight train back – enjoying a relaxing and scenic adventure.

We’re now hanging around Hemet for a few days more as our Jeep has some maintenance and warranty issues taken care of.  Chris has been practicing his paragliding, a sport he’s not done in a couple of years.

We anticipate in the next few days we’ll embark on the next adventure – which we actually have no clue where we’re headed yet.