A raging dust storm turned an ordinarily blistering hot late summer day in Arizona into a surreal nighttime adventure Friday. Photographer Diego Salcedo said the storm descended onto Queen Creek in minutes as he and his family were leaving a parking lot. There was “dust everywhere. It went dark so fast,” Salcedo told Storyful.
A line of strong monsoon-fueled thunderstorms formed well to the east of the Phoenix suburb that afternoon. As heavy rains fall from the storms, they can create tremendous downdrafts that race out ahead of the storms, picking up sand and dust from the barren desert landscape along the way.
The result is a powerful and massive cloud of dust that can race ahead of the storms at freeway speeds. Once inside the dust cloud, visibility can drop to near zero in mere moments, creating dangerous driving conditions. The National Weather Service did have Dust Storm Warnings in effect for parts of the Phoenix area at the time. (Fox Weather)
Meanwhile, merely hours later the Burning Man festival drew to a close this week and 80,000 exhausted revelers queued for hours to leave the party site. The notorious event, set in Nevada’s Black Rock, made a very dramatic return three years after the pandemic. It has attracted its share of A-list celebrity fans over the years including Elon Musk and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, Will Smith, and more.
And even though dust storms swept the desert before the occasion, free-spirited attendees didn’t let it dampen their spirits. They wore outrageous outfits to the nine-day festival, letting loose and disconnecting from social media with hedonistic celebrations. At this year’s event, which costs around £500 to attend, festival-goers were pictured driving around in their flashy vehicles under the hot Nevada sun. Some cooked pizzas in the extreme heat, while others socialized and bopped along to jazz music.
There were also opportunities to practice yoga, kick back in a hammock forest, or enjoy hypnotherapy sessions. But other activities were much less wholesome. Many dressed up in armored bikinis, which were created in a costume workshop where attendees could construct their own futuristic cossies out of metal. Some even ditched clothes altogether in favor of body paint, which did little to cover their bare bodies.
Some Burners headed to The Playa – a section of the desert known for psychedelic fun. For the 2022 event, there was a camp there called Consensual Abduction. By climbing through a “wormhole” slide, guests could gain access to all-night raves on a neon-lit dance floor. According to the Gate, consent was pushed as a big theme at the Burning Man 2022 event.
This is important considering the opportunities for revelers to engage in after-hours group sex, frolic in communal showers and have a spanking great time at black-light BDSM sessions. And let’s not forget what goes down at the notorious “Orgy Dome”. The Orgy Dome is a “safe, consensual, sex-positive, inclusionary and exploratory environment”.
We’ve heard plenty of debauched tales from this area of Burning Man – including a story about a bloke who broke his penis during the action. Inside the dome, multiple bodies writhe around on a mattress and soak in the pleasure. (Daily Star)
