sand chick

Another great weekend down in the books by the look of it! Love those off weekend trips!

Great report and photos! Congratulations on the upgrade! We were out there as well Friday - Sunday. We arrived Friday after work for a quick off weekend! Camp wasn't in our usual spot, we were tucked ally the way up by Memorial Hill. Camping with Burt, we all said. I liked that spot much better then others we've had. We could overlook everything on the hill. We were joined by our SoCal family. We unpacked, and set up a minimalist quick weekend set up, one couch, two tv trays... boom, done! We immediately began the campfire festivities! There was great laughter to be had and we forgot all about our early to bed rule. The shots were flowing, the conversation rolling and the laughter was loud! And bed time didn't arrive until the wee 2:00 AM hours!! We left my dogs at home, since @wa.statecrew and his girlfriend have moved down and are gratefully watching the pups. My old pup Shasta's dune days are sadly over. It's better for her to not be stressed out if we end up in a camp with a lot of other dogs. However for whatever reason, Mike's dog decided I was the one to take him out at 5:30 AM! Once I am up, I am up. We walked around in the dark and the cold. I made coffee and watched the sunrise over the dunes. Finally Mike got up, breakfast down and it was time for the breakfast run! We were in the dunes before 8:00 am! Guess we are still early to rise! But you have to make the most of those short off weekend trips! @NE14SAND wasn't quite feeling it yet and motioned for us to go on, he'd break in his belt and take the wifey and dog for a mellow ride to check out Mista Black. The sand was silky smooth, buttery on top, but still damp underneath. We rallied through the dunes from one end to the other. Mike and I stopped to take a break and it was just chilly. The breeze was chilling and rippling the dunes nicely. We rallied back to camp to see if Aaron was ready yet. I was feeling a little hangover nauseous, so once we got back and let the Turbo out. I made a bloody mary with some bacon jalepeno infused vodka that I made and was dying to try out anyway. It was delish and just what I needed! We hung out for a minute, filled up the gas tanks and headed back out! Aaron's wife wanted to try to dune again, she gets sick and didn't have anything in their new to them toy hauler. All I had was regular dramamine, which she declined. She was a trooper and tried to go any way. She made it to about the second big dune on the backside and Aaron turned around. Mike and I continued on and rallied for a little longer, before going back to camp to pick up Aaron. Then we were off again! Sliding through the sand, wheelies, jumps and having a great time! When we finally stopped to take a break. We hung out and chatted, watched a huge group of SxS's running the dunes. There was a plane flying super low, then would go up over the dunes and then drop to almost ground level again over the flat area between North and South Poles. It was fun watching the air show, but it was too low to get any decent shots. The guys decided to put on their own show and I wanted some camera practice. We were all getting hungry, breakfast for us was, after all, at sunrise! So we rallied back to camp ate lunch and visited. Then it was time for another run, back to camp, fill up, load a cooler and back out again, as the sun was getting low, I wanted to get a couple of jump shots on my favorite jump behind camp, as we rally. It always seems like I am catching great air (for me anyway) but after looking at it , not in the middle of a run, it wasn't that spectacular, but still fun as hell! So we hung out there and took turns playing for a few. The sun was starting to drop, so it was time to get to duning!!! We returned in time to watch the sunset in camp, get the fire started and have some dinner. I wanted to try more stuff with my new camera, like long exposures, Aaron had a new laser he wanted to play with too, so that made for some interesting photos. I made more attempts at star photography, but the moon was way to bright, so I ended up with some freaky weird moon glow star photos with an airplane flying through the middle. I'm loving playing with that camera. I was able to get an ok photo of the big dipper. Can't wait for two more weeks, when we are out there again and it's going to be a sliver moon!

ROOOOST!

It's a chilly morning! The dunes are empty and so is camp! I love me some off weekend dunes! The dunes have a few tracks, alot of virgin sand, some drop offs and razors. It's dry on the top and still wet under. The tops have a lot of the wet sand that the recent W has blown the dry off of. View full dune report

We had a great weekend as well! Nice quiet camp of 4 rigs. The older I get the more I seem to enjoy these small intimate camps. We rolled in on Friday night and made quick work of unloading and campfire visiting. I received a new camera for Christmas from both sets of parents, I have had my eye on getting an upgrade for several years now, it finally came into price range for everyone to contribute to. So I was excited to get it out and take some starry sky pics..... I read a ton of stuff online to see how to set it up.... people online aren't always right... EPIC FAIL!!! But there was always tomorrow and Sunday to try again. I was now a bit worried on action shot set up!! We visited around the campfire for a couple more hours before turning in. Excited for the next day of riding. Mike was up in the early morning, and I slept a little later, after breakfast, we headed out on the morning ride, with Joe Duner in the lead! We were waiting for everyone in camp to be ready, so we stuck to the big stuff behind comp. This has become my favorite side now! I got a nice jump, and then immediately got a transmission light! NO!!!! But then it went away. Something to do with jumping, belt spinning, landing, no gas, belt needed to engage...???... Only had one other problem and that was backing up and then she got stuck in reverse and wouldn't go into gear, but this was also explained in the above manner and nothing to worry about, but just in case I am having clutch serviced. I made a joking comment about having another shop work on it and paid for that comment, with roosting all the next ride. All in good fun of course! The rest of our group was finally ready and we were off rallying through the dunes. Mike became known to knock riders off quads and dirt bikes this weekend with his Tatum roost!! As two different people fell victim to it! We took a lunch break and Neal came over to visit and wanted to check out my new camera. He then spent a great deal of time setting it up correctly and giving me some awesome pointers and lessons! I can not thank him enough for his time and assistance, It was time to get some hands on lessons, so Mike was happy to oblige! We all loaded up and went on a cruise, hitting every single speck of sand in Dumont, in one run and a couple twice. Or so it seemed. Joe Duner was stepping up Sarah Duner's game! Kid has some serious skills. But that is to be expected being Joe Duner's daughter! As we rolled back into camp, we pooped over the dune to see some double wheelie action going on. Since we hadn't stopped for me to practice my new skills, I grabbed my camera a took a couple shots myself. Afterward Mike joined the buggy's for a good buggy run, so I kicked back in camp and worked on some homework. Everyone else was working on projects, or napping, so we didn't have a sunset cruise. I was still itching to get these guys doing some action shots! But that will have to wait until tomorrow. Between Neal and my friend, who has the same camera, I was finally able to get a couple decent start shots. I know this camera is capable of better, so I still need practice. But still way better then the epic fail of night one. More campfire fun and laughter. Then we walked over to Pete's camp to watch the super cross and visit before turning in. The next day was a repeat of the previous day, but this time I convinced everyone to stop for a photo shoot. Of which I took Neal's advice about getting up in the action, a little to seriously and Mike almost wheelied over me! I felt the air on my leg as he dropped down! But it made a great couple of shots! There was lunch, and more rally's and then the last sunset of the weekend, before more campfire antics and science experiments. We got up early on Monday to do one more ride of the weekend! We made that the longest ride of the weekend. We lingered at the north pole for what seemed to be an eternity no one wanting to leave and go home, so we made the ride back to camp as long as the ride to the pole! Even though the sand was wet and the dunes tore up by the end of the weekend, it was still one kick ass weekend in the sand!!!

Yep that is exactly why I didn't see it, hiding behind the pole! Haha, I was looking for something larger and just did a drive by!

Yes!

Haha or maybe hiding behind the pole. I didn't stop, I just cruised by coming in from the back after visiting the Memorial Hill.

How on earth did I miss it? We drove by on Christmas eve.

It's my favorite time to be at Dumont! 9 days at Dumont over Christmas until New Year's Eve day! I think I could live at Dumont and never tire of being there! This year also included my dog, Shasta's 15th birthday party, complete with a dune walk and photo shoot. Making great memories of her time with us. As this will be her last year with us. I decorated the hauler this year with some Christmas cheer, and there was a great deal of Christmas traditions, cookies, blintzes, peppermint cocoas and It's a Wonderful Life, to name a few. There were great rally's all weekend! There was a rotating friend spot, with @NE14SAND and family joining us for a short weekend, and Karl coming in for Christmas eve and staying through Weds. On Weds Mike left to grab Justin and bring Shasta home for a less stressful rest of her week as the crowds started to arrive on Weds. Weds also brought in our extended family. And there was plenty of dune rally's and sand shredding, adrenaline pumping fast as hell runs chasing down Mike in his Tatum! LOVE seeing that rail smile on his face and hearing that motor roaring! I even jumped in it for a ride to comp hill! I hope each and every one of you have a wonderful 2018! We only had one casualty.... Mike ran over his corn hole board

OMG! I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS! I must find out where to go to do this!

No he's gone. We finally made it over that direction.

I was thinking the same thing, but many have never heard of memorial hill. I hope no one messes with it being on the pole. Sadly not everyone is respectful.

I'm not sure who this kid is, but he was having a blast jumping and roosting as we were watching the sun go down at the "top of the world" dune on Friday night NYE weekend. Sunset dune play.

I have never met Mike Oakley, but I just happened to be there when his family was putting up a 5 year memorial of his passing on the memorial pole at the North Pole. I pulled out the good camera and took some photos. I am sharing them on here in hopes that they will get to his family. It is a beautiful memorial.

We wished we would have camped with the group. I'm happy that Mike was able to do a couple of runs with you guys. His only frustration, is that yes the SxS's need to be in the back, because they can't run as fast as the big cars in general, but the last run he tried to do with the group, he was stuck behind a beam car and in the big long travel car it was just to hard to try to run behind them, without running them over and he didn't want to be "that guy" and pass in the line, so he just dropped out. Poor guy, it's the second year in a row he's been stuck behind a buggy that just can't move like the long travel cars. Maybe the beam cars need to also stay back behind the long travel cars? Just a suggestion after listening to his frustration. He still had fun. We also stopped for a little photo shoot with his Tatum and this guy jumped in the fun. I got some great photos of him, I'd like to share with him, maybe someone knows who he is? I assumed he was part of the buggy round up...

Come on 4:00!!!!

Weather looks PERFECT! http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.6987&lon=-116.2539#.WiWVIlWnHm4

That is great news!!!