JOURNEY COMPLETE — Chelan County, United States
🥾 arrived by on foot
Out the door at a quarter past five, my son riding shotgun in the little blue Prius for the dark drive down to Pangborn. Around the world with a backpack, a CPAP, and a boarding pass that says Seattle, which is technically the wrong direction. The adventure starts before sunrise or it doesn't start at all.
✈️ arrived by plane
Two hops and the mountains were behind me. Landed mid-morning with the whole Bay laid out on the approach, and nothing between me and wine country but a rental counter and Friday traffic on the 101.
🚗 arrived by car
Woke up in the shadow of the Six Flags coasters, walked into a barbershop with long silver hair, and walked out with the crop from my business card. A new chapter deserves a new haircut. The barber never asked why. Barbers understand.
🚗 arrived by car
Three days of camp life among the Rangers — bocce, a river to wade in, a fire pit, a potluck, a meal shift. Dust, laughter, and the smell of a Napa evening. The kind of weekend that recalibrates a person.
🚗 arrived by car
Broke camp as the light went gold and pointed the rental south down the 101. Traded a tent for a hot shower and a real bed within earshot of SFO, because tomorrow the trip stops being domestic.
✈️ arrived by plane
The big leap: fifteen hours and change on a great circle over the top of the world, then out into one of the shiniest airports on earth at midnight local time, wandering the concourses on everybody else's clocks. Two calendar days went missing over the pole. The date line kept the receipts.
✈️ arrived by plane
The double-decker A380 into Suvarnabhumi, wheels down five to one in the afternoon, and the heat met me on the jet bridge like a wall. Jet-lagged and grinning. A couple of days to wander the city and eat street food that ruins you for food at home.
🥾 arrived by on foot
An aquarium in the basement of a shopping mall, which undersells it badly. The best part: the underwater tunnels, sharks gliding right over your head while you stand there grinning like a kid.
🚗 arrived by car
Nine days of laptop-by-the-sea: code in the mornings, the Gulf of Thailand past the railing, warm tropical rain arriving on schedule most afternoons. Evenings belonged to the night market — grilled prawns the size of my forearm, mango sticky rice from a cart with a line for a reason, and a green curry I have been trying to reverse-engineer ever since.
⛵ arrived by boat
A day trip across the water to an enormous temple right on the Gulf, carved entirely from teak — no nails, just wood and decades of stubbornness. Four directions, four traditions — Thai, Khmer, Chinese, Indian — tracing humanity's place in the cosmos stage by stage as you move through it. Walked the whole thing filming with the Insta360 and mostly forgot to breathe.
⛵ arrived by boat
BTS to the river, then an Orange Flag express ferry across. Stepped off the pier into a downpour — fell in the water, while Thai kids ran and slid through it laughing. Incredible pad thai, then waded over to the temple. Had most of the grounds to myself, and stumbled into an actual ceremony. Sat down. Watched. Incredible.
✈️ arrived by plane
One last Thai morning, an easy taxi, then east: Bangkok to Tokyo, two hours on the ground at Narita, and over the pole to New York. Left Monday morning, landed Monday night. Somewhere over the Pacific I lapped the sun.
✈️ arrived by plane
The longest stay of the whole trip — longer than Thailand. Home base in the East Village: stoops, bodega coffee, the city running at all hours whether you join in or not. Some plans came off and some didn't — the fire circle got cancelled, the rope dart never left the bag — and the city filled every hole in the schedule without being asked.
🥾 arrived by on foot
A thirty-dollar rush ticket turned into sixth-row orchestra for Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror — back on Broadway for the first time in 26 years and worth every one of them. Luke Evans' Frank-N-Furter owns the room from the first note; Rachel Dratch narrates like she's in on every joke in the building. Callbacks flying, popcorn in hand, the whole house on its feet for the Time Warp. It's just a jump to the left.
✈️ arrived by plane
JFK at 4:29, a three-hour Seattle layover, then the little plane into Pangborn — wheels down at 11:59 PM, one minute inside Monday. Forty days, one lap of the planet, home to the Cascades. The mountains were exactly where I left them.
🚗 arrived by car
Barely a week home, then over the mountains for the big one: Dad's 80th. Cake, stories, the whole family around one table — the kind of evening you drive four hours each way for without thinking twice. It was great. Then the long quiet drive back through the passes.
🚗 arrived by car
Out the door at 5:30 AM again — this trip has a thing about dawn starts. Over Stevens Pass in the dark, a one-ton truck waiting in Kent at 7:30, then south over the Narrows for the trailer: an RV this time, a real bed and a door that shuts, instead of a tent full of playa dust. Hitched up by ten and pointed the whole rig south.
🚚 arrived by one-ton & trailer
I-5 past Olympia and Portland, then east and down US-97 through the spine of Oregon — Madras, Bend, juniper and sage to the horizon. Towing changes the whole feel of a drive: slower, heavier, and you notice everything.
🚚 arrived by one-ton & trailer
Over Cedar Pass into Surprise Valley, then NV-447 through the sage to Gerlach: population small, dust everywhere, the last real town before the playa. Checked in, credentialed — and the rig rolled in early enough that I taught a NuCamp workshop from nine to one. A morning of code before a month of desert.
🚚 arrived by one-ton & trailer
Everything staged in town got loaded and driven out onto the open lakebed, and that's home for the next month. There is no city yet — survey flags, work trucks, dust devils, and the early crew who conjure a city out of nothing flat. Since then it's been the actual job: empty the containers, haul out everything that slept in them since last year, get shade up over all of it.
Tower in the morning
🥾 arrived by on foot
Before the gates, before the crowds, the crews who build the city gather for a burn of their own. A smaller fire, ten thousand stars, and the people who make Black Rock City real. I'm writing this from the playa with dust in my keyboard — Build Week is roaring around me, and it belongs to another department, which is a lovely thing to be able to say.
🥾 arrived by on foot
Sunday the gates open and Black Rock City fills: art cars, sound camps, rivers of bicycles, dust storms and sunrises. A full week of the strangest, warmest city on Earth, running through Labor Day.
Wow. Big wheel.
🥾 arrived by on foot
Saturday night the whole city converges on the center. Fire spinners ring the pavilion, fireworks split the sky, and the Man goes up in a column of flame while eighty thousand people roar.
🥾 arrived by on foot
The opposite of Saturday. The Temple, filled all week with letters and memories and grief, burns on Sunday night while tens of thousands stand in near-total silence. The heaviest, most beautiful hour of the year.
🥾 arrived by on foot
When the event ends the real work starts again: the city comes down, gets packed back into the containers, the playa combed clean until it is bare to the horizon. Saturday evening the crew sits down together for the Last Supper — one long table at sunset on an empty desert.
🚚 arrived by one-ton & trailer
Off the playa Sunday morning, then the long road home — the same highways in reverse with a month of desert in the wheel wells. Back over the passes to Leavenworth, to wash playa dust out of everything I own. Both trips, done. Until the next one.
Two deer