#ww2016

WEDNESDAY

After a stay with @ghostsjogging and @undercutsquad and their adorable dog Max (yes, I’m sure you can guess what his last name is), I set out to find a mix of seeds to put in the little Vuvalini seed bags I had made for the Clan of the Boltcutters tribe members to give out or barter to people.

I picked up @singoallala at the local train station and we stopped by a Target to get some last-minute supplies, and for her to experience just how excited we get about Halloween here in the States.

I picked this up, in no small part because of the raven!Max AU bouncing around in the back of my head.

After a stop at a local army surplus store just for curiosity’s sake (and because they promised a discount to wastelanders), it was time for the trek to California City. Epic music was in order.

Photo by @singoallala

We arrived early enough in the afternoon that there was quite a lot of time to kill, and since California City has next to nothing in it, we found ourselves wandering around in a Rite Aid just for the sake of something to do.

Eventually we got word from @primarybufferpanel and @fuckyeahisawthat that they had made it with the rented RV (lovingly nicknamed the War Rig) to the Borax Bill RV stop outside of California City, and we headed that way to meet them. The first greetings were had, and after we got the RV all ready to go, it was almost midnight and time to go jump in the line to get into Wasteland Weekend. We caravanned down with another couple RVers we had met, bumping our way down some long dusty roads, and made it to our spot in line.

THURSDAY

At that point we were just plain excited, and so we grabbed some of the cloth Primey had brought, spray painted our Boltcutter symbol on it, and hung it off the back of the RV.

Photo by @fuckyeahisawthat

By 1:30 we decided we should probably get some sleep before the real adventure started, and all piled into the RV to sleep for a few hours before the gates opened at 7AM. We woke up around 6:30, had a quick breakfast, and then the line started moving.

As we inched forward in the line and got closer and closer to the city, the excitement grew. A few wasteland cars had gathered on the front corner of the city, and I tuned into Wasteland Radio, which was a pleasantly surprising mix of good music and long bouts of neat wasteland-y ambient soundscapes. (And that one brief interruption where a woman told us “Just eat it. Don’t question what it is.” I’ll leave it up to you whether or not that was sound advice in the wasteland.)

The anticipation grew as I saw more wasteland vehicles, dilapidated post-apocalyptic camps, fully-costumed wastelanders wandering the streets, and the hollowed-out corpse of a car body just kind of sitting by the road. When I finally turned into the gates and entered Wasteland Weekend, my mind went straight toward claiming land for our 20-person tribe, and after navigating the slightly confusing streets that didn’t quite match up to the map, we found the intersection of Valhalla Highway and Anarchy Road where we had hoped to camp. Unfortunately that bit of land was quite uneven and not suitable for an RV, much less a nice place to set up a shade tent and a dome, but a little farther down the block, we found the perfect scrap of land, nice and flat with only a few bushes, and we claimed it for ourselves. We met our neighbors, laid out markers around the edges of the space we needed, and started planning where we would fit everything we wanted to build.

Then began the waiting game. Those of us who showed up early had very little of the infrastructure of the camp, so there wasn’t much we could do until @sacrificethemtothesquid was to bring it that afternoon, and so we went for our first wander through the city. It was still being built, only the people who had been allowed to arrive early the day before had set anything up, but we visited the Temple of the Nuke, looked around the city, and headed back.

The main gate to Wasteland City opened around noon, with much excitement, revving of engines, and a parade of vehicles entering the city. War Boys watched diligently from on top of the War Rig, and there was a beautiful Fury Road Interceptor.

I’m pretty sure I took a picture of the Interceptor every time one of them rolled by.

The wind picked up sometime later, and we went back to camp to hide in the RV and do some crafts, finishing up costume pieces and putting together our own decorated wheel for War Spawn’s wheel altar.

Photo by @primarybufferpanel

At that point, my tent was collapsing, and guy lines weren’t doing much, so I had to move my car back into camp and tie the top of my tent to it to keep it from caving in on itself. We eventually braved the winds and went back into town, where we met @bonehandledknife, and placed our wheel on the altar.

Ours is the little one on the left.

We got a dust storm warning sometime later, and went to go hide in the RV, but not before I dropped by the line to say hi to @sheliesshattered and her partner Jack while they waited to get in.

Jack: “Who is this strange person over here waving at me?” sheliesshattered: “DONDA!” *leaps out of car*

I went back to go hide with the others in the RV as the dust storm picked up (and we listened to Storm is Coming from the Fury Road soundtrack for good measure). The RV rocked uncomfortably in the heavy winds, and at some point we kind of decided we should probably all sit on the upwind side of it. We didn’t think it would tip over, but it felt like it was trying to, and we didn’t want to encourage it. A series of sad and very bored messages from Squid, who had been sitting in line for hours already, brought us out of hiding, and we braved the wind to find first @ooksaidthelibrarian in line, and then walked down the line and meet Squid and @iphysnikephoros.

Photo by @sacrificethemtothesquid

Because of the length of the line, most of our people couldn’t get in as soon as they had hoped, and between that and the wind, we didn’t actually get anything but a few tents put up on Thursday. @retaliatesfirst and @socially-awkward-libra, dragging along @magicpillzplz and @shinobijosh, had all made their way in, and Team Squid finally made it in, only to drop off Iphys, hang out for a while, and then turn around and head back to town where they were staying for the weekend. @youkaiyume, @yohunny, and @v8roadworrier also made it in later that night, after a grueling 6 hours of waiting. If Wasteland City was hard to navigate during the day, it was almost impossible at night. We tried to help them get to our camp, but it wasn’t like we could give them any landmarks in the dark, and the streets didn’t exactly follow the map in all places. Finally they found themselves by Thunderdome, an obvious enough landmark, and so I trekked out into the night to find them and bring them back. It was far too cold and windy and late to try to set up tents (and by that point my own tent was so full of dust that we might as well have just slept on the ground), so since Yohunny would have no place to sleep, V8, who was supposed to be staying in my tent, now had no decent place to sleep, and Yume was staying in California City, they unfortunately had arrived only to unpack some stuff and turn around as well.

F’yeah and I were able to squeeze back in with the RV crew, and we all piled in to sleep.

FRIDAY

Luckily there was no line by dawn on Friday, so our wayward crew were able to arrive without spending hours in line again. @yourdykeinshiningarmor had found us in the middle of the night, and @bethagain made her way to us, and we were finally all together! And finally we could begin setup of our camp. We moved vehicles around, since we no longer needed three of the cars to tie our tents to (and we had moved the RV the previous night to block off our camp so other people wouldn’t move into our space in the middle of the night) and then began setup of the dome that Squid built, plus the shade structure, as tents filled in around them.

We swear we’re not summoning a demon. (Photo by Jesse)

See, it’s fine. (Photo by Jesse)

Considering we had pulled the entire camp together from all around the world, most of us having never met face-to-face before, our camp ended up looking AMAZING, and everything we had hoped for.

Our little piece of the Green Place. (Photo by F’yeah)

The Bolthole. (Photo by Jesse)

At some point we all took a break and trekked down to see the car show, where pretty much all of the wasteland vehicles had gathered to rev engines, do donuts, and show off their stuff. We finally got to see the city fully filled out, and it really did feel like we had stepped out of reality and were walking around in a post-apocalyptic city, years and years after the end of the world.

I’m not even kidding. Took a photo EVERY time an Interceptor rolled by.

One of my highlights of the day was stopping by the Dinki Di(ve), where we got some fries and I bought some kangaroo chili served in a Dinki-Di can.

I love it and it shall live on a shelf forevermore, when it’s not being a cosplay prop.

That evening we stopped by Thunderdome to see the action. The opening ceremony of the Thunderdome included a live performance from an amazing woman who somehow managed to pull off singing the Diva’s song from the Fifth Element.

...Shortly followed by people on bungees beaning each other with bats. :D

Afterward, we retired to our shade tent, tried some of sheliesshattered’s fruit-and-herb infused alcohols, and puppy piled on our collection of pillows. We also at some point made a toast to @fadagaski’s Potato Lives fic, which led to some adventures the following day involving a potato. Expect that post soon.

SATURDAY

Saturday was Furiosa day for me! I was up early, as usual, and donned my Furiosa costume and Imperator’s paint with excitement.

Furiosa thinks this tea is mediocre. (Photo by F’yeah)

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FINDING GURDY

Really, by this point, @flamethrowing-hurdy-gurdy had already sort of found us, and he had left a clue to his existence for us at the notice board at the heart of the city, but none of us had seen him, and he wasn’t going to make finding him simple for us. Or boring. We hadn’t really known where to start with his clue on the notice board, but by Friday night, he had left another of his beautiful paintings in our camp with a hint on the back.

Saturday morning, I was dressed up in my Imperator finery, ready to go and feeling antsy as everyone else slowly woke up and got ready for the day, so I set out to follow the clue.

The drawing he had added to the back of the painting indicated a camp with one of those hand-shaped chairs, and luckily someone in the Boltcutters had seen such a chair and remembered that it was in a camp called Pangaea, which was located somewhere *vague handwavy motion in the general direction of everything else at Wasteland* over there. I went to the main part of the city to check the map, and Pangaea had handily added their magnet to the main map where they were located. And of course it was all the way back just a couple blocks from our camp.

I stopped by, for some reason expecting Gurdy was camped there and having no idea what I was in for that morning, and I asked if there was someone named Gurdy around. I was met by confusion and a shaken head, but after a moment the woman went “wait, are you with the Boltcutters?”

“Yeah!”

“There’s a thing tied to our sign for you there. I was really confused about where it had come from.”

And sure enough, there was a little roll of paper tied on with “Boltcutters only plz” written on the outside. I opened it up to see a little drawing of a wasteland fire spinner. I took it back to the camp to report my finding that Gurdy was not at Pangaea after all, and then headed out to follow the next clue.

The designated fire spinning area seemed like a good bet, and sure enough, to the sign on the corner was tied another little roll of paper with the same multi-colored string and “Boltcutters only plz” written on the outside. This one had a drawing of an intersection sign post on it. I went down the street until I found the “Hey slow down!” sign as shown on the drawing, and there was another roll of paper. That one led me to the front gate of Wasteland City. The next clue led me to the Last Chance Casino. Then to the Atomic Cafe.

Art by @flamethrowing-hurdy-gurdy

Along the way, I had gotten welcomed into people’s camps, encouraged to enter the costume contest, asked what I was looking for, and helped with finding the next clue down the line.

Finally I picked up the 7th clue, and it simply said:

Do you have tea? I need tea. Or at least the commiseration of another who cannot get tea in this wasteland. Draw a teapot and pin it to the notice board and I will come find you then. -Gurdy

I borrowed a sharpie, messily drew a teapot on the back of the clue (made harder by the fact that I am left handed and was wearing my Furiosa arm at the time), with a little note that said that we happened to be making sun tea that very moment, and that we would all be gathered in camp for our Vuvalini Stitch and Bitch at 2:00 that afternoon.

I then went on my way, since there wasn’t much else I could do to find Gurdy.

At some point later that day, I was waiting at Information, when a guy walked up to me with a full gallon of water, said “Are you thirsty? I have extra.” and left the whole thing in my hands. I had no idea at the time that this was Gurdy, but I was indeed thirsty since my Furiosa costume did not include a water canteen, and it was a welcome gift.

A little before 2:00, as we were settling down in our shade tent and getting ready for the stitch and bitch participants to show up, a wild Gurdy appeared! We welcomed him in, sat him down on our pile of pillows, and I poured him a tea cup of our freshly-made sun tea. As it turned out, he was camped half a block away from us, and we had all been walking past his tent for the last two days.

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The day in general was pretty damn amazing, and at this point I’m pretty sure it was the best day of my life. I got my hands on a potato, and the previously-mentioned potato adventures ensued (again, a story for another post). My Furiosa costume got the attention of one of the higher-ups in Wasteland Weekend authority, and I was given permission to climb on top of the War Rig and get some pictures.

I met a very nice War Girl and War Boy, and gave them some lizard jerky and dried peaches from the New Citadel.

We gathered our camp later and did a mass migration, all fully in costume and walking like the badasses we were down the street as a group, to go get some group photos of all of us in front of the Wasteland City gate and Thunderdome.

We met one of the stunt coordinators and weapons managers of Fury Road itself, I met a very neat Organic Mechanic, and then we liquified some Peeps in the death ray solar oven that Squid built (causal. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine).

The Peep never stood a chance. (Photo by F’yeah)

There was another car show, and one of the vehicle owners apparently wanted me in my costume on top of his car, so I got a chance to ride around on a wasteland vehicle in the car show, which was very neat.

Then came the War Boy chase, which was the most amazing thing ever. We, the Clan of the Boltcutters (who, for those of you who don’t know, are a Vuvalini/post-revolution Citadel themed tribe) got together with War Spawn (a War Boy themed tribe), and we gathered in 4 of their vehicles plus a bike: two cars for us Vuvalini, one absolutely piled with War Boys, and one with a Rock Rider and some other raiders, and we headed out to the open desert outside the perimeter of Wasteland City, where we drove around like mad, chasing each other, yelling, and pointing guns like we were in the movie itself. We had people on roofs, people hanging off the backs of cars, myself hanging out a window, and all of us having the time of our lives.

Photos by @yohunny

We got back, drove through the city still yelling and chasing, and then took the chance for a few more photo ops, then parted ways, all still excited and probably on adrenaline highs.

Photo by Yohunny

Immediately after that was the costume contest, which I got convinced to join in on, and it was thankfully not nearly as terrifying as getting up on stage usually is. I ran into another Furiosa, who turned out to be @ayamefeitom who had written a very long and detailed report on how she made every part of her Furiosa costume, which I had actually referenced while working on my own costume. It was awesome to see her work in person, and she ended up winning first place in the female replica costume division, which she totally deserved for the amazing detail and accuracy of her cosplay.

There was no time to relax, because immediately after that was the group photo in front of the city gate where they try to shove every single wastelander present into one single photo. I ended up with the War Rig again, by request this time of the guy who built it, and got to sit in the driver’s seat with a clusterfuck of War Boys gathered on the back, and an Ace hanging off the side.

Photo by Cap’n Ron

Photo by @youkaiyume

Afterward, we finally all retired back to camp, where we did a mead tasting, starting with Primey’s home-made mead brought all the way from Europe, and followed by four of the meads from my favorite meadery in Colorado that I had brought to share. S’mores making and puppy piles ensued.

SUNDAY

I went for one last wander around the city with Primey in the morning. We offered up a donation of some extra booze, plus a cooler full of fresh fruits and vegetables to the Wasteland Weekend staff, picked up our custom wheel from the War Spawn wheel altar, checked out Bartertown one last time, and headed back to camp. Before everybody started leaving, we had one last gathering to reflect on the awesome time we just had, the friends we finally got to meet in person, the bonds we made with each other, and to celebrate 500 days since the REVolution (i.e. when Fury Road first came out).

Photo by F’yeah

And then everything was a whirlwind of disassembling our camp, deciding who was taking what parts of it home with them (Squid: “OneTwoThree Not It on the cushions!”), and sad goodbyes and Vuvalini forehead touches as some of us peeled off to head home. Those of us left gathered for a post-credits shawarma scene at a local Mexican restaurant, and then we parted ways one by one to reluctantly return to the real world.

There’s nothing but salt.

I am so grateful to have met each and every one of you who came to be part of Wasteland Weekend and the Clan of the Boltcutters, and it’s going to be a very very long year waiting until we can do it again. I look forward to someday meeting more of you who wanted to come this year but couldn’t make it, and seeing what we can build this clan into!