Zoom zoom

How to get to Burning Man - that is the question. From what I hear, driving is pretty much the default mode of transportation even coming across the country from the wrong coast. Makes sense since generally everyone showing up has tons of food, water, camping equipment, and bikes and possibly some artwork or theme camp materials as well as a bunch of stuff that you don't want to run through the TSA, ahem. There is also the option of renting an RV which appeals to my sensibilities of having comfortable surroundings while eliminating the need to scrounge up camping gear but I had looked into that option when I was still wavering in my decision to even go and apparently every single RV in the world was already spoken for. Some people will fly into Reno, rent a car there, and buy supplies in town before making the relatively short drive to the site. Some camps will load up all of their gear into a giant rental truck and have a smaller advance team drive it to the site then the other members can either drive a lighter car or fly in.

Those are all well and good but the options for me are to take my trusty though well used (over 200,000 on the clock) Integra or to rent something. I am having a hard time stomaching the idea of spending money on a rental car for more than a week when it is going to be collecting dust (literally) for all but a couple days of the rental period. I also am trying to figure out how much I could fix up my car with the money it would cost to rent so I take my car to the garage to have them give me an estimate of what it would take to get my car prepped for a road trip. They keep it for half a day and tell me I need front axles (known issue), transmission fluid change (OK), oil pan gasket (whatever) and give a total estimate of $1150. Eeek. Is my car even worth $1150? Rental is looking a whole lot more appealing now. My car is super reliable so I'm pretty sure it can make it. Well, there was that time when a radiator hose clamp failed and I dumped half my coolant right when I was going to hop on the dyno at the emissions testing facility but I was still able to drive, coast, watch temperature gauge, pull over to let engine cool, and limp to my garage a few blocks away so that doesn't really count as a breakdown. I also have an offer by my friend Sun to help me do the work on my car so all I would be out was the cost of parts. And on his day off from work no less. Sweet. With labor costs and price gouging taken out of the mix I could get the work on my car done for a fraction of the estimate. I take him up on his generous offer, pick up replacement parts from the auto store, but when it comes time to take the old parts off we can't remove the nuts on the wheels. Sun is literally standing on the end of a four foot extension to his breaker bar and the things don't budge. We both do back of envelope calculations and figure that his weight on a lever that big is way more than enough foot/pounds of torque to break them loose but to no avail. Time is running short and the idea of a rental is looming bigger than ever now.

I once again turn to the trusty Internet to help me make my decision. I hit the Expedia website to get an idea of how much a rental is going to cost and it turns out Enterprise has embarrassingly low prices. I'm a bit backed into a corner and don't really have any good options so a rental it is. Made a phone reservation and went to the agency first thing Sunday morning. I had in mind the warnings from a veteran burner: don't tell them you are going to Burning Man and don't get a GPS device since both of them can tip off the agency that you will be driving in the desert and they can tack on surcharges for off-roading. Good to know. So when the agent asks purpose of the rental: "Just taking a road trip...to California" which is of course true that we will be going to/through California. I just omitted the part about also continuing on to Nevada. Ooops, my bad. They roll out a nice new silver Mazda 3. Silver is the perfect color too because it will help hide the dirt that will accumulate from the dry dusty conditions of the desert. I saved money by going with an entry level car but I can see why it doesn't cost much. Didn't realize they still made cars with hand crank windows and manual door locks. Was half expecting to see foot pedals in lieu of engine. Still it is dependable transportation and that is what was needed. The rental rate is cheap which helps to offset the hit my wallet is going to take by having to pay for insurance since I don't have comprehensive/collision on my car. Turns out I inadvertently paid for liability too which I didn't need. Ouch. I'm not happy that I'm going to be insuring what is going to be a paperweight 90% of the time but I'm not going to take a chance of being on the hook for costs to fix or replace a car. It is an EV- move overall but I can't afford the variance. After signing (and initializing in three places) my life away I am handed the keys. Time to load up the mule and hit the road.