Click on any photo to see a larger version with more detail. :-)

Most of the first day was spent setting up the dome, the shower and unloading enough of the truck to get to the materials to build the nose.

The box contains all the nuts and bolts for the dome and is where the center of the dome will ultimate be. The 120 struts needed for the dome are layed out in piles. That's Center Camp in the background...

You can see the base of the dome layed out. That funny pose Yvonne is striking is really just an effort to balance against the wind. Increasingly rarely there was wind without dust...

Domes are pretty straightforward to build. Yvonne and I assembled this one fairly quickly.

Sometimes it was calm and quiet... but it was still hot.

Once the dome was built it was time to cover it. This dust storm stayed for a while and we sheltered behind the tarp during the worst of it. Center Camp would normally be seen right behind the dome.

Once the dome was covered I set up the shower. Then it was time to prepare for the construction of the Desert Nose. You can see piles of struts which were sorted by the color of tape on them. Later those piles were sorted numerically.

It was still Tuesday, almost a week before Burning Man's official opening, and there was almost nobody around us except Sound Camp. So a trip to the outhouses was a straight shot across the desert.

The whole time people were working on Center Camp and the penguins watched it all come together.

...they watched when there wasn't a dust-storm, that is...

Only the struts needed for the lower levels of the nose needed to be sorted to begin with. Why create or preserve order before it is needed unless there is something to be gained?

By the time the sky looked like this we were both so tired we could barely think. But a sunset doesn't require much thought to enjoy, thankfully.

Oh, we are so at Burning Man now...

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