The Dunes
8.19.6
There have always been 3 basic rules to The Dunes.
- Set all complaints and rivalries aside for the night.
- Don't fuck up the dunes.
- There is always a problem.
The first two rules are mine. The last belongs to fate.
Perhaps I should back up for a moment...
Every year on August 17th, I hold an annual party called The Dunes. While that date is technically my birthday, I avoid thinking of it as a "birthday party." In fact, it's quite the opposite. The Dunes is partially designed to distract people from my birthday. It's perfect, really...I don't have to open any presents. I don't have to be taken to any restaurants. I don't even have to pick up a phone all night. In lieu of this usual birthday fare...I practically give everyone I know a present.
The one thing I do ask of Dunes attendees, however, is that they remain respectful and aware of the rules listed above.
This year, everyone was incredibly aware of Rule #3...
I suppose the problems really started weeks ago.
I usually start making calls and distributing flyers a month in advance. I do this to give everyone plenty of time to clear their schedules (It is a rather difficult task organizing 20 separate people with 20 different schedules for a 2-day trip, after all). This is perhaps one of the most important parts of the preparations.
For some reason I could not get the motivation to make calls this year. I felt lazy, a little depressed at times, and at one point even considered cancelling the trip altogether. It wasn't until one week in advance that I finally started the invitation process. Needless to say, this left us with a very small amount of attendees this year. Only 8 people showed up.
Honestly, this was not too terrible of a number considering the late notice, and the nature of the trip. Besides, there's something to be said about small gatherings. They do have a certain charm to them. So we met at the usual place, and left for the dunes around 1:00pm.
The drive up was beautiful. Nobody got lost. Nobody was pulled over. We actually made excellent time. It seemed as though things were off to a great start. There were a few scattered storms here and there, but we had Q monitoring the weather station, and he assured us that by midnight the winds would be pushing the storms north, far away from us.
We arrived and started ascending the dunes much earlier than usual. Normally, it's already dark by the time we reach the summit, but this time we reached the highest peaks just in time to watch the sun as it set behind the dunes. It was uncanny how much the scene resembled the flyer I had made days before.
As the light started to fade, and the day-climbers left the area, we began to set up camp. When that was finished, we entered the social tent, and began drinking the shots I had prepared.
It was sometime before midnight that the group decided to venture outside of the tent.
We could make out the stars above, but they were partially blocked out by our flashlights. All around there were calls of, "Turn off your lights!" When the last light clicked off, everything became clear. Since we were so far from civilization, we could see everything. The Milky Way lingered directly above us. Stars twinkled in ways that you can only imagine in the city. The sky never looks as beautiful to me as it does in the dunes.
It was then that we first saw the flashes in the distance.
Lightning is more dangerous in the dunes than perhaps anywhere else. In the dunes, you are the highest point, and you are made of the most conductive material. Electrical storms in the dunefields are known for their deadly nature. The park rangers warn that, in the event of one, you should flee the area immediately.
Suddenly, I noticed Ace, scrambling up a dune just to the north of us. Instinctually, I followed him. My legs were already tired, and I barely made it up the hill. When I did, I found him holding a handful of sand, watching as a stream of it flowed between his fingers. The wind was pushing the sand directly south. "This is not good man," he said, "This is not good."
My gaze turned to the north. Directly ahead of us a wall of clouds flashed violently. These clouds were headed in our exact direction (I remember thinking that Q must have mistook a "northerly wind" as meaning that the wind would be blowing to the north. He claims that this was not the case, but I think I'll always wonder).
It was time for action. We ran down the dune, and gathered everyone's attention. We described the situation, explaining that we needed to take a vote. Would we stay put and brave the storm...or abandon the dunes?
We shined a flashlight from person to person. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Stay. Stay. Leave. Leave.
There it was. 6-2. It killed me, and I hated doing it, but we had to leave. There was just something wrong, and everyone felt it. If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's to always trust a bad feeling (especially when an entire group is experiencing it). The group had made their decision, and we would stand by it.
(I later discovered that the two who had voted to "stay" had been tripping on mushrooms at the time...which made me even more confident that we had made the right decision.)
By the time we were ready to descend, the wind was picking up, and the flashes were growing more constant and intense. As we trudged through the sand, it occurred to me: Perhaps there was a reason I'd been so lazy that past month. I felt bad enough that the night was being ruined for 8 people. I can't imagine if I had convinced 10 or 15 others to be there that night.
So we pushed forward. We ran breathlessly away from the approaching clouds. Each time we turned around, more and more stars had been swallowed by blackness. By the time we reached the bottom, the storm was directly above our recently abandoned campsite. I didn't see it myself, but I'm told that direct strikes could be seen hitting the exact place we had just been.
So, what were we to do? I was still determined to save the night. After all...people had invested time and money to be there, so I didn't want it to be a complete wash.
Our first back-up plan was to try renting one of the small cabins just outside the park. There we could still have a good time, and in the morning the dunes would still be close. If that idea were to fall through, then we would begin looking for motels...
It fell through.
The search for a motel then went much less smoothly than we would have liked. They were few and far between, and they all seemed to be full. Eventually we finally found a place with some vacancies. This was fortunate as all of our drivers were starting to get a bit tired (especially since we had been drinking just an hour earlier). I parked in the front, and the other two cars pulled around back.
I stepped out of my car and headed around the motel to meet up with Ace. As I walked to the back, a man suddenly rushed out of the side door exclaiming, "Are you guys staying here?"
"We're going to try," I confirmed.
"Well, we don't have any smoking rooms," he barked. I wasn't smoking, so I wasn't entirely sure why this was a concern of his. I told him that was fine, and continued walking.
I met up with Ace and we went in to see how much a room was. We met no-smoking-guy at the front desk and explained our situation. He proceeded to type some numbers into a calculator, talking to himself as he did so. "Two rooms...with discount..." He then took his glasses off with his thumb and forefinger and lifted his eyes. "It'll be a hundred and eighty dollars."
Ace didn't say a word. He immediately began walking towards the door. I tried to reason with the guy, but his only response was that he had a business to run. As I turned to leave I blurted out, "I hope you need something someday." I then made my exit and followed Ace to his car.
We now had a new problem: There was a police car parked in an empty lot across the street...and he was watching us. Suddenly, an unmarked car pulled up beside it. Then another one. Soon there were four police cars all watching us.
"It's going to look strange to them if we leave when we only just got here. They're gonna wonder what's going on. If we get pulled over, we're fucking screwed. So, I think we should just pull up next to the cop and ask him how far the next town is, so he wo--" "The sky is falling!"
...
The interruption caught me off guard. I stopped mid-sentence, and Ace and I both looked over at the cop who had just quoted Chicken Little through his loudspeaker. "What the fuck was that?" I asked Ace. He didn't know, and for a few moments we just stood in silence, waiting. What an odd thing for a cop to do! The phrase seemed almost ominous considering the ordeal we had just been through...
Suddenly, another voice boomed through the loudspeaker, echoing into the night: "Later doggies!"
"Fuck this shit," we decided. It was time to go. We got into our cars and started driving east. As we passed the police cars, one of them swerved onto the highway, directly between our second and third cars. I watched the scene unfold in my rear-view mirror, chanting quietly to myself, "Just drive good, Q. Drive good. Drive good..." The car followed them closely for quite some time before pulling off to the side of the road and making a quick U-turn.
It was decided that we just needed to go home. Nothing was working out, so why push our luck? Besides...we could get home while it was still dark, and then drink until the sun came up.
We drove for hours. Highway hypnotism was beginning to set in for all the drivers. Back and forth. Up and down. The lines on the highway pulsed by rhythmically, until they all just blurred together, and suddenly...we were home.
How foolish were we to believe that any energy would remain in us for drinking? Ace pulled beside me at a stoplight and informed me that his car would be going to his house to sleep. Everyone else came with us to the apartment, where we all passed out instantly.
And so the trip was over. The Dunes had, for the first time ever, failed miserably.
The next night we held a party in the apartment that we dubbed the "Dunes 6 Remix." We moved all the furniture into the bedroom, set up tents, and got as drunk as we possibly could. It was actually pretty elaborate. I used one of my club lights to create little faux stars on the ceiling. Another light became the moon. A strobe set as slow as possible became lightning over the horizon. Alright...so it wasn't exactly the real thing. But I still had a good time, and I still got very drunk.
I guess sometimes you just have to make the best of a bad situation...
