The Rooster
March 2018
THE ROOSTER A monthly update from the Inland Empire Offroad Association
What’s New We had another long Glamis trip, with many different members visiting during the weeks surrounding Presidents weekend.
Glamis Presidents Week, Feb 9-20, 2018 by Jim Kastle
Omelette Boil at Presidents We had another great turn out for omelets during the Presidents weekend. We had three pots of water boiling and used them all. We will do this again at Easter, and hopefully the weekend after as well.
Another new Side by Side Lavonne Oliver became the first in the club to have a four seat CanAm, which has room for the grandkids. She joins the Fords as retirees with four seat side by sides, which seems to be a trend.
Mike, Kris and Doug, Jeff and Lavonne, and Walt all arrived by Friday, the 9th. I arrived Saturay afternoon. Lavonne has a new 4 seat RZR 1000, "for the grandkids." Reports are she is doing extremely well adapting to it, even without paddles. On Saturday's sunset ride, Mike's primary clutch locked up. We had a campfire. Sunday morning Mike went to Coyne in El Centro for a new clutch. Jeff and Lavonne headed home. Mike returned with his clutch and
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March 2018 installed it. We went for a great rather mellow ride. We had a campfire.
Upcoming Events • March 15-20th: St. Patrick’s Day at the Salton City Golf Course. • March 29-April 8: Easter at Glamis, Wash 6. We will have an Omelet breakfast and adult Easter Egg hunt on Sunday, April 1st.
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Monday morning we went for another nice mellow ride. Doug radioed that their 1000 made a loud clunk, and stopped to investigate. After a few minutes of head scratching, Mike noticed the passenger side top spring had broken, apparently a common problem on 2014 1000's. We returned to camp for a swap to the Schellinger's 900. The ride continued for about an hour until the sun rose enough to make visibility poor. We returned to camp. Walt took the birds to Jeff the bird man to get Hawkeye's beak trimmed. When he returned all five of us went to Beer and Burgers, a restaurant in ElCentro Mike found on the Internet. We celebrated Doug's birthday with a great meal. We will return to B&B! We returned to camp where it was too windy for a campfire. Tuesday we went for two rides on very smooth sand. When we got back from the afternoon ride Don and Shirley had arrived. Mike headed home. We had a campfire with all of us attending. Wednesday Kris and Doug left early. Don, Walt, and I went for a ride. We were flagged down by two guys, one on a bike, and the other driving a somewhat buried four seat Can Am. Walt hooked up and towed him out. In talking to the driver, I found out he is married to one of my former students. It's a small world! Back in camp, all four of us went to Costco in El Centro for lunch and shopping. Back in camp again, it started raining, eliminating a campfire. Thursday morning Dave and Roni arrived. They, Walt, and I went for a long ride as far as Shady Eve. We took a break at Olds and while we sat there we saw a total of 22 BLM ranger trucks or Jeeps drive up and park on the hill to the left as we faced Olds. One of them stopped near us and I asked if they were doing training. He said yes, that since they have rangers "from all over
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March 2018
the place" they were familiarizing them with Glamis. It was an impressive site. When we got back to camp we found Dave Huggard and Scott, a friend of Dave and Roni, had arrived. While we were visiting with Dave, Pete Hagen arrived. Don and Shirley, Walt, and I went to Yuma for propane, Sam's Club, Texas Roadhouse, and fuel. When we got back to camp we found Ray and Janice, and the Burns family had arrived. Ray and Janice had set up their new "super light'", fully illuminating all of our camp. There was a roaring campfire. Just after I retired to the trailer John arrived. Friday morning Barry and Terry had arrived. John, Barry, Dave Huggard, Pete and I went for a short ride as I had to return to camp to pick up Nancy at Glamis Dunes Storage. After lunch Dean Carver arrived and we were joined by Danny and Pam and went for another ride, this time to the area near Gecko. The sand was in pretty good shape, so we moved at a pretty good clip. When we got back to camp, P.J. , Melissa and the kids had arrived. Jeremy Hagen, Huck and his family, Jim, and I'm sure many others also arrived. We had a campfire and discussed a night ride to Olds, but we didn't go. Saturday morning there were both side x side and buggy rides. All the buggies in camp covered a lot of ground, including Hill 3, Sweet Marie's for ice cream and transferring some gas from my car to Pete's, the old closed area near Gecko, and a return to near Hill 3 where we saw and made radio contact with the side by sides. We returned to camp for lunch, and then P.J., Barry, John, and I went on a buggy ride, and the side by sides went on a separate ride. The rides happened to meet at Hill 3. The buggies then headed to camp via Olds, and then between Olds and camp John got stuck on a ridge crossing and PJ made an evasive turn to the right, I jumped on the brakes and just missed John, and I also got stuck. Barry stopped behind me, then hooked up to pull out John, and P.J. hooked up to me, then Barry got stuck freeing John, meaning three of the four cars on the ride were stuck! Fortunately, P.J. pulled me out, and Barry and John, with help from John's passenger, Dean, were able to free up both cars. Back in camp we had a campfire, and then several buggies and side by sides took a night ride to Olds. It wasn't very crowded, and it was pretty cold. We returned to camp and visited around the campfire until almost midnight. 3
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March 2018
Sunday morning we had another successful omelet boil, followed by both buggy and side by side rides. The buggy ride included Walt in his CanAm, and took a break 2.7 miles from the swing set. Barry said it would be fun to dune 20 miles to the swing set, and P.J. said it would take an hour. I disagreed, and said we could do it and average over 30 miles per hour. Without getting everyone's approval, I set out to prove it could be done. At the break, Jeremy Hagen took over driving the buggy, and handled the long, fast paced ride very well. After about 35 minutes, John, who didn't know what I was trying to do, said it was time for a break, I just kept going until we had traveled 20.4 miles in just over 40 minutes, averaging over 31 miles per hour. Not everyone was impressed! Between the swing set and camp P.J. ran out of fuel. I was able to give him enough gas to get back to camp. I like having a big gas tank and a little V6. We had a campfire after some strong afternoon winds let up, but there was no night ride. Monday morning dawned with some very strong winds. Overnight Ray and Janice were called to a fire and loaded up and left around 4:30 A.M. Most camps broke and headed for home. John, Walt, PJ. and I decided the winds weren't THAT strong, and the sand HAD to be very smooth, so we went for a ride. We saw a few vehicles at Olds, but saw no other off roaders the entire ride. We covered the big bowls near Osborne, where the ONLY tracks we saw were ours, and then headed though the old closure towards Gecko. We saw very few tracks, and headed to the swing set. We were the only ones at the swing set, despite this being Presidents Day! Then we headed towards camp and en route stopped at the flag, where again we were the only ones there.
Before we got to Olds, John ran out of gas. I was able to give him some. At Olds we were the only vehicles. After Olds, P.J. again ran out of gas. We were all puzzled by the significantly lower than usual gas mileage.
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March 2018
P.J. joked it must have been the wind! We made it back to camp with no further problems. John, and P.J. and the kids headed for home. Walt, Dave Huggard, Pete and Jeremy, Don and Shirley, and Nancy and I stayed until Tuesday morning. By 10:30 we were all headed home. The great turnout for this trip was a big, but very pleasant surprise, as only six people posted that they were coming. It does help those of us who arrive early to have some idea of how many are coming, so we can decide how big a circle to make and TRY to defend. But if you forget to post, PLEASE don't let that stop you from coming, THE MORE THE MERRIER! I'm looking forward to a big group at Easter. I plan to arrive on Thursday, March 29, and will stay through Sunday or Monday, the 8th or 9th. Let's boil omelets on Easter Sunday and then have an adult Easter egg hunt. For those of you who haven't participated in one of our adult Easter egg hunts, load some eggs with things like chap sticks, miniature flash lights, CASH, of course candy, or notes with names of gifts too big to put in an egg (It goes without saying you should include your name, so the finder knows where to claim their prize, and be sure to have the gifts in camp!) possibilities include things like car chemicals such as brake cleaner, carb cleaner, WD40; oil; shop towels; paper towels; snacks; or whatever you think would be fun.
MLK at Ocotillo Wells by Mike Bacon I met the Schellingers at the Salton City Golf Course for the MLK weekend. We had amazing weather and some great riding. Here are some of the highlights!
A visit to Little People! There are about 200 stacks of rocks looking like Little People!
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It’s not a trip to Ocotillo Wells without stopping at Bin Laden’s Cave!
Also a stop at the Honda Memorial and the Pumpkin Patch.
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March 2018
The California Rangers set up a great display at the Pumpkin Patch and at the Gas Domes showing different aspects of the Ocotillo Wells area. They had different displays each day of the MLK weekend. One day they actually had a telescope with special filters aimed at the sun to allow viewing of solar flares! We had a great time and are looking forward to our next trip!
More Presidents Week Pics Here are some more of the pictures we took during the long Presidents Week trip to Glamis. With the trip spread over 11 days, we missed out on seeing many members who came out during the early days of the trip, but hopefully we will see you soon.
This month we’d like to thank Jim Kastle for writing about the Presidents Trip and Mike Bacon for writing up the MLK trip to Ocotillo. We love reading about different trips or what you are up to, so please share your articles. If you have anything that you want to share, please send it to me at pkastle@msn.com. We will publish what content we have and a calendar of upcoming events in every month’s newsletter, and we look forward to your contributions to expand it beyond that. -Paul, Melissa, Allie, and Marshall. 7