On the Black Rock playa at last!  The expanse is breath taking.  Those people in the distance are cleaning up from the "Burning Man" celebration, held a week or two earlier.  I failed to write down the GPS coordinates of the launch site before I left home, so from here I had to guess which direction to drive.  If you don't have a GPS receiver, or at least a compass, you are in real trouble out here, particularly at night.  Each day I stayed on the playa until well after dark to socialize and gaze at the stars.  In the dark I would never have found my way off the playa and back to the motel without my GPS receiver.