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♦ We had a great turn out for the Presidents weekends, with 13 rigs in camp the first weekend and over 20 for the second weekend. We had lots of rides with 15 or more vehicles, and relatively few mechanical issues.

♦ On the first Presidents weekend, the side by sides in camp outnumbered the sandrails by one! There were ten of them, and it looks like everybody had a great time.

♦ Dave Trevett and family joined us for the first time over the Presidents trip. Dave had been looking at buying a sandrail when he found the club website and enjoyed seeing the pic-tures and videos we have posted there. He met us at Thanksgiving, and finally made his first trip with a new pur-

ple V8 powered Raw Motorsports car at Presidents. Look for David, his wife Kirsten, and children Kiara and Matt on future trips.

♦ The next two trips will each be a week long, and to Gordon’s Well. Many of the retired folks will be out from March 8-19th and then again for Easter week April 5-16th. For a map of the Gordon’s Well camping area, see page 4.

♦ The first weekend of the April trip does fall on Easter, so we will once again be having our now traditional adult Easter egg hunt in camp on Sunday morning. Plan to bring goodies to hide for the adults in camp to find. Look for more info in next month’s newsletter.

We had a great turnout for the back to back weekends at Glamis for Presidents Day. The crowds were very light the foirst weekend, except for in our camp where we had 13 rigs. A good number of people took up the retired members’ offer to watch the rigs for a week while we went back to work and returned for the second weekend. There was lots of fun all week, and hopefully we’ll hear about it in articles from other people who were there longer. On the second weekend, the general crowds had picked up, and there were lots more other camps in the area. We had rides on Saturday and Sunday with 15 cars each on them, and we did very well mechanically too, with more stops for refreshments than for broken cars. On Sun-day, Mike Bacon offered to go out early and take pictures of the group as we rode by,

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The Rooster

March 9th — 19th: Another week long trip to

the dunes, this time to Gordon’s

Well.

March 22: First day to call 1(800) 322-3770 to make individ-

ual site reservations for Coral

Pink. You will be able to book

through 7/18, and can book

7/19-21 on or after April 5th.

April 5th — 16th: Easter Week at Gordon’s

Well. We’ll have the Easter egg

hunt on Sunday morning, April

8th.

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S M T W Th F Sa

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and he offered a seat for Melissa to tag along as well. We circled around them four or five times, which confused some people on the ride who weren’t sure why those peo-ple were taking pictures of us, or why we kept going by them over the same track. They got some great shots of each car on the ride, and they are now posted on the club website. We will try this again over Easter, and as long as we can all resist the urge to

go too crazy for the camera we should be able to get some great shots.

Later in the Sunday morning ride, my car developed a knocking noise after a long pull up a dune. I thought transmission at first, but the noise continues with the car idling in neutral, and sounded all to much like a rod knock. We checked the oil, (and added two quarts… Oops) and were able to drive it back to camp, but the noise was definitely there. After getting it home I dropped the oil pan and found that one rod bearing had spun. We caught it pretty quickly, so hopefully there wasn’t too much other damage and we will be able to replace the rod bearings and possibly turn the crank, but I am also looking for another used motor at a wrecking yard that I might be able to get in the car before Easter.

We had a great trip though, and enjoyed the opportunity to be out there with every-body. It looks like the side by sides had a lot of fun, and there were a lot of them on

their many rides. Mike took lots of great pictures of them too, so be sure to check those out on the website as well.

We had pizza at Mama Jeannie’s on both Saturday nights this trip, and we had a particularly large turnout the second weekend. Jeannie missed it because she is re-covering from some planned surgery in San Diego, but we heard that she is doing well and feeling better so we will see her out there soon.

On Monday, we had a retro style ride in that Melissa and I each rode with our Dads. It could have been 20 years ago, except for the V6s, V8s, Mendeolas, long travel, and the overall speed of the ride. It was fun though, and being in the dunes always beats staying in camp and packing up. All in all we had a great trip, and look forward to hearing about it from everyone else. -P.J.

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The Rooster

Without any other Presidents articles ready for this month, I figured I’d fill the space with some of the great pictures from the trip. Please use this as motivation to write up your articles and send them in to tell your stories of the trip.

Walt captured a pic of the mid-week group.

The group at Hill 5

The Monday morning ride from Jim’s passenger seat as we looped through a

bowl.

We enjoyed $2 ice creams at Crazy Keven’s

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We found this after everyone left, and are wondering who to credit with this artistic creation?

Bridge

Camp

Gordon’s Well Off Ramp

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Below is an aerial photo of the flats at Gordon’s Well. We usually camp near where the arrow indicates. Look for Jim’s blue over amber strobe, the yellow shop trailer, and the Fords’ and Trantham’s rigs.

Hello humans, this is Shadow Trantham. It would appear that someone left me some art-work in camp over Presi-dents day. I would suspect the little girl who feeds me lunchmeat, but the penman-ship and vocabulary exceed her two year old level. We are trying to find out who is our mystery artist? See Photo on the right, next to that beautiful specimen of a cat. Who could it be??????

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The Rooster

Thanksgiving With The Side X Sides By Mike Bacon

I arrived at Glamis the weekend before Thanksgiving, and AJ and his girlfriend Alex arrived the next day to spend a couple of days. AJ brought out his newly rebuilt buggy, but we had some carb problems and it didn’t see much time in the dunes. Alex had never been to the dunes before so she was having a great time. On our Saturday SXS ride we came across the buggies sitting on the side of Olds where Scott had a broken rear trailing arm. Not much we could do so off we went. Before they had to leave Don and Jerry took AJ and Alex on a club buggy ride which they both en-joyed thoroughly. Thanks guys! A couple days later we had a break down of our own. For the first time in three years the SXS’s had a break down in the dunes, and it was my Ranger with a shred-ded belt. I’ve handled this before though, and had it fixed and we were back on our way in about 15 minutes.

When we got back to camp I decided I’d better check things over a lit-tle more thoroughly and found my front motor mount was looking a little worse for wear. This is a fairly common issue on my model Ranger, and I carry a spare just for that reason. This motor mount from Polaris runs about $30, but we have found NAPA carries the exact same part as a transmission mount for a 1962 Ford Falcon. It’s only $7 at NAPA, and it’s a better quality part to boot! So in went the new motor mount, realigned the pulleys, and a new belt with a good used spare under the hood and we were ready to roll again. One day we went for a ride in the small dunes headed

south. We just cruised the dunes, crossing washes, and back in to the dunes again. It was great fun as the dunes were still very fresh with very few tracks. We made a stop at what turned out to be Wash 21 and as per normal procedure, Shirley got Terra’s ball out for her to play. After a nice rest we took off again eventually making it back to camp. Once back at camp Shirley realized she had forgot to pick up Terra’s ball. That prompted another trip to Wash 21 later in the week on a quest to find the ball. That quest went unfulfilled as we couldn’t find it, but we had a good time trying! On other rides we visited Hill 3, Olds, and Comp, as well as a lot of time running the smaller dunes. On Thanksgiving Day we not only had a great Thanksgiv-

ing dinner, we were treated to an airshow by Chuck Aaron in the Redbull helicopter, thanks to Sharron Porter! We also found another great use for my Ranger, as a trash truck! We ended up taking a huge load of trash up to the dumpsters for everyone.

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We ended up having a great time and the weather was perfect. Thanks to everyone for another great IEOA Thanks-giving!

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New Years With The Side X Sides By Mike Bacon

Ashley and I arrived on Christmas Day to find The Fords, Tranthams, and Darrell Harju in camp. We also found out it had rained pretty hard a couple days prior and the dunes were pretty rough. This would be a continuing thing as despite the nearly perfect weather the dunes were rough with tracks, and just got worse every day. We got some good rides in visiting all the hot spots like Olds, and Hill 3.

On one of our rides out to Hill 3 Darrell’s friend Cody had a problem with his quad and the trans died. This meant the first time I had to tow anyone with my Ranger, not counting the little tug I gave Jeff and his Tracker a couple of years ago. We got everything hooked up and headed out to the wash, then followed the wash out to the Wash Road, that we paralleled back to camp. It’s not too hard to pull a quad, but I was still surprised how easy it went, and with only 24 horsepower Cody was never in danger of getting sanded! Later in the week Jeff led us out on a ride in the big dunes. We were having a great time even though I had to cut off the route a couple of times to keep up. Those RZR’s and 900’s were abusing my poor old Ranger! We stopped for a break and Darrell, who was riding with me, abandoned ship and went to ride with Jeff. He claims it was to make things easier on me, with less weight, but I think he wanted a smoother ride! I don’t blame him either! After our break we had just got started when Linda, trying to emulate the Redbull helicopter, attempted an aerobatic maneuver in her 900. No one seems to know exactly what happened, but somewhere, somehow her wheels left the ground and the passenger side hit the sand, but she ended up on her wheels with only one small crack in the plastic, and although a little shaken, she was fine. We were down in a shallow bowl making sure Linda was OK when a guy in a buggy came by and started circling us. He decided this was a great spot to do some wheelies despite all of us being right in his line. He circled us numerous

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times wheelying right towards us, and since he just kept going around we were having a hard time getting out of his cir-cle. We finally were able to get out of the bowl and as we went by him Shirley went out of her way to right by him and thank him for his show with a one finger salute! THANKS, Shirley!!!!!

Towards the end of New Years weekend Jeff offered me his RZR-S to go for a ride. I thanked him, but declined as I knew better, but he insisted, so I went ahead and drove it. WOW, what a difference. It handles so much better than my old Ranger, and the extra power is nice too. We ended up on the top of Hill 3, and actually saw the buggies go right by us, but they didn’t recognize us. I had driven Shirley’s RZR-S at Ocotillo Wells last year and liked it, but driving Jeff’s in the dunes pretty much fin-ished that off. Thanks to Shirley and Jeff for costing me a lot of $$$!!! I guess I’m going to have to look in to an upgrade.

Another great trip with special friends, a great potluck dinner, and another airshow (Thanks, Sharron!). What more could you ask for? See you all at President’s!

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Hi Everybody, it's me, Allie. I am sorry I didn’t get to spend as much time with each of you as I do sometimes at the dunes. I was a very busy girl over Presidents day. First of all, my silly parents didn’t spend the whole week at the dunes, so I had to fit all of my fun into two weekends. At least one of them was three days, but seriously, how can I see everybody and get ice cream and play in the sand, and wear pretty dresses, and visit the kitty, and say hi to Tara and Foxy puppies, and dress up my friends with beads and of course visit my grandmas all in just a couple of weekends. That is serious work, and it takes at least a week to get it all done!

I did have a lot of fun though. The first weekend I spent a lot of time with my Grandma Nancy and we read books and I saw Toad too. Toad likes going to the dunes, but she just stays in her cage. I don’t think toads like to get sandy. When we came back out for the second week-end, my other Grandma and Grandpa had gotten there too. I went to visit with Grandma Anna and Aunt B and I got to watch a movie about a Lady and a Tramp. I am not sure what a tramp is, but I do like puppies so it is lots of fun and a good movie to watch. Speaking of puppies, I got to play with Foxy and Tara too. Foxy got to play with Woody, and they are so funny to-gether. They run and play and chase each other, just like Diesel and Stitch, only smaller. I also learned that Shadow kitty likes sandwich meat. I got some from Linda and shared it with him, and we both liked that.

My Mama got to go out on the dune buggy rides this trip because I didn’t need her to keep me busy. Since I was often over visit-ing with one of my Grandmas, she must have gotten bored and decided to hang out with Daddy and my Grandpas out in the dunes. She came back all sandy, but that’s ok, it is part of the fun. Then she would make lunch for me and Daddy, and I would be off to the next event on my busy calendar. She did make sure I found some time for naps, which meant that I was much happier in the evenings. On both Saturday nights I got to go to Mama Jeannie’s for grilled cheese, and I got to see lots of my friends there. On the second Saturday Mama Jeannie wasn’t there because she had to go get fixed. I guess

the doctors out at the dunes aren’t as good as the ones in San Diego, so she had to go in and have an operation to make it all better so she feels good and can make me yummy grilled cheese. We missed seeing her, but were glad to hear that she is doing well and will be feeling better.

On Sunday, my Daddy went out and broke the dune buggy. I’m sure he did-n’t do it on purpose, but he had to come back early from the ride and it sounded like a little person was inside the engine banging on it with a ham-mer. This didn’t make Daddy very happy, since I guess there wasn’t enough oil in the engine, and that’s what made the little person with the hammer mad… I told Daddy, “You can go fix it, I promise!” He thought that was pretty cute, and we both smiled. Then

we got out the little RC trucks and I watched Mommy and Daddy drive them. They are cute when they play with their toys.

Speaking of cool toys, Brandy has Rapunzel Lanterns, which are the coolest things ever! They are from the movie Tangled, and you light them on fire and they go up in the sky and you watch them, at night. I got to see him launch one, and it was pretty neat.

So that is about all I can think of to write about for the President. I am not sure why we go to the dunes for the President, but I will take any excuse. I just think we should go for the whole week like we do for the Turkey and for the New Year. Maybe if we get a new President, but I don’t want to get the adults started on that subject… Anyway, until next time keep your Grandmas close by, your toys free of hammering noises, and your eyes open for beeful lanterns. -Allie

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Original Chevy Wheels for sale: Chevy stock aluminum rims from a 2005 3/4ton suburban. They are 16x7 with a 8 lug on 6.5 bolt pattern. They came with the caps and lug nut covers. They are in mint condition, no scratches. Asking $200. Contact Pete at 760-451-0845

The Rooster

This month we’d like to thank Mike Bacon for writing up both Thanksgiving and New Year’s from his per-spective. As his articles show, it is always nice to relive the fun of a past trip from a different perspective. So, now is the time too writ up your Presidents week trip stories before you forget… If there’s anything else you’d like to see in the newsletter, hop on a computer, write it up, and send it on in. Also, if you have any plans for upcoming trips that we don’t have listed let us know so we can put them on the calendar and on the website. -PJ, Melissa and of course Allison

Recently we have made a sport out of watching the Rangers at the hill at night, particularly chasing down tail light viola-tions. We have learned that it is a “Citable Offense” to not have a red light visible from the rear, and according to one Ranger at the hill, whip lights do not count because the light must be rigidly attached to the vehicle… Definitely something to be aware of. Another interesting case of interacting with the BLM came when Christopher McKenzie got a ticket for speeding near camp during an off weekend in January, because he was exceeding 15 miles per hour within 50 feet of his own trailer. He did a donut the Ranger didn’t like as he pulled into camp, and got a ticket for 20 miles per hour. Something to watch for. Finally, we saw a sandrail get impounded at Oldsmobile one afternoon for not having registration or a VIN. They loaded it on a flatbed right there, and the owner had to watch as they spun the paddle tires on the ramp loading it. It is nice to be legal...