On Fri, 7 Sep 2001, Magorn wrote:

> I'll vote for Playa Magic and let it go at that......

The Playa gently healing me ? I like that. :)

It did seem to happen that way, though. On Saturday night, there was some
guy who was spinning out of control, not watching where he was going at
all. All of a sudden, the back of this guy's hand came out of nowhere, as
he swung wildly toward me out of the darkness, and it split my lip right
open. Annoying, but the wound was largely healed within hours ! Very
unusual, and quite pleasant.

> Playa dust stroms for me always made it much harder to breathe and in
> one case damn near impossible.....but that's the playa for you.....its
> barely possible that the particulate matter was so fine that it acted
> as a lubricant, something like powdered graphite, but the akali content
> should have made it most irritating to nasal passages and mucus
> membranes....however the ways of Black Rock are passing strange.....

The reaction does seem to be very individualized. I went out with a
suitcase full of skin care products. By the end of the week, the only
problems I had were directly attributable to a bad pair of shoes, and a
panicked barefoot run when I hit a hot patch of dust. (I hit a rough patch
under the dust, and loosened some skin. Dumb !) But the only skin care
product I used, other than bag balm and boric acid soaks on the feet to
protect the blisters, was sun screen. No nasal saline used. No problem.

A campmate over at H.O.I., though, found himself bleeding out his nose,
and with cracked skin, so if a BM virgin is reading this, I hope s/he
doesn't take this as an indication that there is no need to read that
survival guide. Quite the contrary. Until you've experienced the
environment, you don't really know how far your DNA will carry you, and
overconfidence did get some people really badly hurt. They'll live, but
they won't be happy about the fact, for a while.


Joe