Greetings from Clean Up!

Dear Friends and Family,
Burning Man is a leave no trace event. That means that everything, and I mean absolutely everything, from the largest art installation to the last cigarette butt must get picked up, packed up, and removed from the playa.

Once the morning arrives, everything that was stapled up, tied down, hauled out, and repainted gets piled outside the Café and loaded into trucks. Every dusty pillow gets beaten out and packed for next year. Every last cigarette butt or candy wrapper that must have fallen out of someone's pocket (hint hint) has to be picked up by some poor soul crawling around on their hands and knees. Oftentimes that poor soul is me or someone like me.

Despite that, participating in clean up is a fun, Zen-like experience. Watching and helping the playa return to its pristine condition is a treasure unto itself. You get to reconnect with friends you haven't seen since construction, before the city's population increased exponentially, and squeeze in few more days of Burning Man bliss.