Rusty Drives Cross Country to Black Rock City, Nevada! (And how we will keep you informed.)

Your Rusty Road Crew

In the early morning of August 12, 2025, The Rusty Iris will begin an epic week-long cross country drive to the Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada! You can follow the crew as it makes its way all the way across the country. We will be posting here daily.

For those of you who don't know Burning Man, it is this (per the Burning Man Project):

"Burning Man is a global cultural movement advancing a more creative, connected and thriving society. With events and groups in 34 countries, Burning Man Project brings people together to co-create art, community, and shared experiences of awe."

The crescendo of the Burning Man movement is a five day event in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, in which 80,000 volunteer participants build an intentional city based on a set of principles. At the end of the event, the participants dismantle the city and leave the desert in a pristine state.

These are the ten principles of Burning Man. You can learn more about these principles by doing a simple internet search. One principle in particular will affect how we post about our experience. I will discuss that next:

• Radical Inclusion

• Gifting

• Decommodification

  • This is the one that affects our posting, as I will discuss below. It is defined here: "In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience."

• Radical Self-reliance

• Communal Effort

• Civic Responsibility

• Leaving No Trace

• Participation

• Immediacy

Do these principles already sound familiar from your knowledge of The Rusty Iris and her crew? We hope so. The Burning Man culture was a major inspiration for Kirk and Wendy in how they have designed their lives, how they created their extraordinary wedding, and how and why they created The Rusty Iris.

In order to honor the non-commodification principle, and to respect the intellectual property of the Burning Man movement, in all other posts we will not use the Burning Man name, but will instead refer to the "Event in the Black Rock Dessert" or "Black Rock City." You'll know what we mean and that we are honoring the culture of the movement.

Hugs from the Rusty crew. See you on the road!