Mission Country Club is an organically-grown Burning Man theme camp. The camp consists of friends and family from San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston, New York, Ireland, England, and Belgium. 2012 will be our 9th year on the playa as an organized camp. Home to the world-famous Brian Brunch, the Magic Kurry Cart, Sangria Soundclash, the Bugaboo and other offerings that bring a taste of San Francisco’s Mission District to Black Rock City.
2011 – Another banner year for Mission Country Club, with an amazing location at the 9:00 Portal & Espalande, 55 camp members, an insane collaboration with the Zonotopia art project Maricula Mirabalis and our new (at least to us) Bugaboo art car. Once again, and probably for the last time ever, we send 2 separate early arrival crews, one arriving Wednesday the week before the event. The camp is amazingly easy to set-up and we plow through our whiskey supply while simultaneously fending-off land grabs by neighbors on three sides of us. This year we have an art car, the infamous Bugaboo, that we purchased from a friend’s camp. We soon realize that she’s been rode hard and put up wet, as this gal has seen more playa action than most people in our camp, and that’s saying a lot. We luxuriate with our newly improved bar, kegerator, and misting system. The 2nd Annual Brian Brunch is a ridiculous success. After running out of our signature waffles and Playa Balls(TM), we serve ludicrous combinations of ingredients in our quesadillas and copious amounts of whiskey. Sangria Soundclash stages its 7th success year, cementing its position as a playa institution.
2010 – Back bigger than ever, Mission Country Club returns to the playa with almost 60 camp mates strong and another 20 or so friends from San Francisco and Reno joining us as satellite camps. A skeleton early early-arrival crew arrives several days early for purposes of drinking whiskey 12 hours a day while building basic infrastructure. By opening night we are wrecked. We took another crack at the 2:00 large sound camp area and wind up next to Bass Camp, with their 70,000 watts of cacophonous atonal experimental dubstep blasting 24 hours a day. An explosion of virgins generates much needed enthusiasm and youthful energy to our surly senior members. Much of the camp show-up early to help our Zonotopia friends build their insane twelfth-dimensional-shadow-from-another-universe art project. We again throw, in what is now becoming a yearly tradition, a Wednesday night sunset party at Zonotopia to inaugurate the beautiful newly built structure. Magic Kurry cart returns serving hot thai curry and magic curry tacos all over the playa. We pull off our 6th annual Sangria Soundclash in style with records quantities of Sangria served and extra helpings of Cumbia and Merengue (next year more Salsa, we promise!). Finally, we kick off our first annual Brian Brunch with organic pancakes and 6 different varieties of hand-crafted and individually brewed coffee on Friday morning. Brians show-up from all across town to hang-out with their like-named bretheren. All in all a banner year, with a few growing pains and many new friends.
2009 – We arrive early on Saturday and spend the next 2 days building the camp. We’re smaller this year but much more tightly knit, with half the camp staying from Saturday through Sunday…. We are graced again with the presence of our Irish burner brothers who work and party their assess off for the entire event. This year we’re placed on 2:00 and DNA and stay up for sunrises on the open playa every morning. Sangria Soundclash is a wild success with our biggest turnout yet: hundreds of people dancing to salsa and cumbia on the open playa, a huge impromptu conga line, and many requests for a daily Sangria Soundclash party. The Magic Kurry Cart makes its inagural debut and is an instant hit as it parties down at the Black Rock Hoedown and other events throughout the week. BM2009 goes down as one of the most memorable burns in camp history and a bonding experience for all. We commit to maintaining the community spirit and the burning man ethos alive year-round, whatever it takes.
2008 – Larger than ever, we arrive on the playa 50 strong with new shade structures and a fancy new dome cover. We finally bothered to register as a theme camp, and the powers that be thanks us by placing us out in the boonies and conveniently located next to two enormous wind turbines. Our new balloon loses a duel with the wind turbines but is the toast of the neighborhood for two full days before its demise. The Irish crew rocks the playa making it an official Year of the Irish, overturning our previous Year of the Belgians. We luxuriate in our hand-made wooden double bathroom stalls. Sangria Soundclash again rocks the playa despite our less than ideal placement. Tear-down is a breeze under Mundi’s tired and hungover leadership. Some choose to extend Burning Man an extra day bay annexing the town of Reno into Black Rock City.
2007 -We roll on to the Playa in a 10-deep caravan at midnight on Sunday and promptly evict the whining Cosmic Elves from our corner on 2:30 and D. The porta potties again are our neighbors and. We build the camp in 3 hours and everything is finished by mid-day Monday. We have one big dome and are ridiculously well organized. We call ourselves Mission Country Club and have a decent camp sign for the first time. Our camp is smaller than previous year (30 or so folks) but we know everyone and have our shit together. We throw Sangria SoundClash again on Thursday and turn-out a wildly fun party in the middle of dust storm complete with gogo dancers dancing on top of our dome. A few camp members sneak out of camp on Saturday leading us to institute a new Saturday tear-down policy.
2006 – Determined to not have a dupliacted name we call ourselves Pachecopolis, which nobody in the camp can pronounce. We camp again on the corner of 2:30 and D (Porta Potties yeahuh!) Camp grows to 35 and we realize that we hate having a second dome….Our mean but helpful neighbors who are old and ridiculosuly well financed with an 80 foot tent structure a two-story art car and water boiler teach us the art of building the dome from the top down as opposed to the bottom up (genius!)…We go through some growing pains. It takes us until Wednesday to build the camp and then we watch in horror as the Wednesday tornado destroys everything. We lose 3 shade structures to the wind storm and take out a neighbor’s tent when our carport flips over. We cry but rebuild everything again. Somehow we manage to pull off our second Sangria SoundClash bigger and better then ever, serving over 40 gallons of Sangria during the party and redeeming our reputations in the process.
2005 - We change our name to Down the Rabbit Hole Camp only to find out that there are at least 2 other Rabbit Hole camps…Camp grows to +20 folks….We build a second bigger dome! We start our love affair with 2:30 and D and become quick friends with our rowdy degenerate neighbors at the Petting Zoo (days since last helivac to Reno: 0) We host the first ever Playa Capture the Flag game which draws 80 participants and kicks off our first annual Sangria Soundclash party on Thursday at 4:20.
2004 - Our first experiment with dome living. 15 or so camp members, a little bit of a remote location, and slightly cramped quarters. We kind of call ourselves Wit’s End and we throw a Margarita party on Thursday afternoon….it is fun. We learn that taking a camp photo at night is not the best idea.