We woke pretty early to find that half the camp had already packed and left either immediately after the temple burn, or very first thing this morning. Glen was just on his way out and we said a hasty good-bye. We did our best to shake out the worst of the dust storm that happened yesterday afternoon, covering everything in a thick layer of playa dust, but it was largely futile!! Once we had said our final goodbyes, returned our various bits of costumes to their rightful owners and collected a few more business cards from the people who we have had so much fun with all week, we headed out of the desert and onto the little road that took us to US50 ‘the loneliest road in America’.

On the way through Fallon we stopped at a car wash and cleaned the dust off the outside of the van then vacuumed the inside. Our poor little vehicle is still somewhat dusty, but a whole lot better than when we left Black Rock. We were passed by many dusty cars loaded with bikes and coolers on the way out through the small rural towns along US50, it is much easier to spot fellow burners on the way out of the desert!!. It felt very strange stopping at the first restaurant we came to for breakfast – it was clean, bright, we sat at actual tables, and had to pay for our food!!! The soap and warm water was welcome.

In the late afternoon we stopped for the day at a natural hot springs just outside of Austin, Nevada. We had to drive 10 miles up a dirt track to get there. We had a beautiful view of the sunset over the mountains as we soaked in absolute silence, accompanied only by the distant sound of thunder and a lonely coyote somewhere off in the desert. During the night there were some amazing lightening shows on the horizon and a completely cloudless sky full of stars. It was the perfect place to camp after Burning Man, and although we were joined by a couple of late night campers, they were gone the next morning affording us an early morning soak in the hot springs alone before setting off clean and refreshed towards Arizona and the Grand Canyon.