The Rooster
December 2017
THE ROOSTER A monthly update from the Inland Empire Offroad Association
What’s New
Veterans Day at Glamis
It is that time of the year, people are getting new toys for the new season. Check out the new rides on page 6.
Thanksgiving (and earlier) at Glamis The Thanksgiving trip is underway, since some members are staying from Veterans Day through Thanksgiving. If you want to do back to back weekends they will be watching camp the whole time. We will have a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday November 23rd.
Christmas is Coming The next big trip of the year is coming up quickly, with people arriving before Christmas and staying through at least January 2nd.
The group had a good size turn out, with some people staying the whole time between Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, and others coming out for both trips. The highlight of the Veterans Day trip over recent years has been the gathering at the flagpole, and from the pictures posted online this year’s gathering was the biggest ever. Many members were proud to get to participate, and the rest of us are glad that the group was well represented.
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December 2017
Mona Bacon Poker Run 2017
Upcoming Events • November 10-27: Veterans Day through Thanksgiving at Glamis, Wash 6.
By Mike Bacon Jim and Nancy and I arrived on Thursday afternoon, followed shortly by Walt. It was a little breezy but we had a small camp fire anyway. Friday arrived with the wind! It blew hard all day, and I mean sand storm hard! The Huggards and The Fords arrived during the day Friday and we all went to the Alamo for dinner Friday night.
• November 23: Pot Luck Thanksgiving Dinner. • December 22? or earlier to January 2nd: Christmas / New Years at Glamis, Wash 6.
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Saturday dawned nice and sunny. The wind had tapered off to a 2
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December 2017
breeze and the temps were just right, mid 80’s. After breakfast we got everybody lined up and headed out. Dave and Cindy took the Jeep in to Borrego Springs to explore and we headed up Techtonic and Gettysburg Canyons to the west end of the park, then took Tiera Del Sol Canyon to find the Honda Monument.
After drawing cards, and Shirley picking up any rock she wanted because Kris wasn’t there to stop her, we proceeded on to the Pumpkin Patch, where we partook of the bathrooms and drew another card.
Once we left the Pumpkin Patch we took Lost Lizard Trail over the hills to Little People. This is an area we had found last year where people had created “little people” out of stacks of rocks. There are hundreds of these stacks scattered around the area. Here we drew another card, and then decided we should detour to the Blu Inn for lunch.
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December 2017
We had a great lunch at the Blu Inn then proceeded on across the flat area to the Pole Line Road, which we took back to camp. The young Kastles arrived after we got back and we all sat around and relaxed for a while. Jim wanted to take PJ over to the 4x4 training area so I offered PJ my RZR. He came back with proof he had climbed the big tubes! I’ve showed a lot of people the picture of MY RZR on top of the tubes, I just forget to mention it wasn’t me that drove it there!
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December 2017
We then set up dinner. The food was outstanding, the conditions perfect, and the company couldn’t have been better. After dinner prizes were handed out. For tax purposes I won’t mention who won the very valuable prizes. We then sat around a camp fire until bedtime.
Sunday we went for a shorter ride up through some canyons and hit some of our usual landmarks. We all fiddled around camp Sunday afternoon and ended up going to the Alamo for dinner Sunday evening. A few were going on down to Glamis for Halloween and Camp RZR on Monday, but I had to work so I packed my stuff up and headed out right after dark. It was another great Poker Run and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I thank everyone who attended and can’t wait for next year!
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December 2017
New Rides! With all the changes in the toys in the group, it might be hard to tell who’s driving what, so we thought we’d provide this guide to show you the latest in “who’s driving what” as the season gets into full swing. Walt Fisher traded in his RZR 800S on a new CanAm that he debuted at the Mona Bacon Memorial Spook Run, then took to Glamis for a week:
Ray also upgraded, selling his RZR 1000 that he bought last year and buying a new CanAm. Not to be outdone (at least by too much), Janice picked up A.J. Bacon’s RZR 1000 to serve as an upgrade from her RZR 900, which is now for sale.
Finally we have some late breaking news that Danny Burns, a long time club member who has been out of the sport for at least ten years has bought Barry’s neighbor Shawn’s Suspensions Unlimited 5 seater. Shawn is looking for a hard desert toy, so hopefully we will see him out with it soon, and it will be great to see Danny and family back in the dunes. Congratulations to all, now lets go duning!
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December 2017
6th Annual Mona Bacon Memorial Spook Poker Run and Weenie Roast By P.J. Kastle On the weekend of October 21st, Mike Bacon once again hosted a poker run and weenie roast at the Salton City Golf course. We drove out for the afternoon and found Mike, Jim and Nancy Kastle, Dave and Cindy Huggard, Don and Shirley Ford, and Walt Fisher out having a good time. Mike put together a nice ride as usual for the poker run, which included lunch at the Blue Inn. We joined up with everyone in camp, and spent the afternoon sitting, talking, and generally being happy to be in the desert. Just before sunset my Dad wanted to show me the Truckhaven OHV course, so Mike let me drive his RZR and I followed my Dad over there. It was quite impressive, and made even more so knowing that it exists in California and was funded by OHV registration money. It is neat to see something where money is re-invested for the OHV community to use. There were a few Jeeps there, but any side by sides exploring the dierent levels of obstacles. Mike had told me about one obstacle in particular, which was made from giant concrete tubes and stands at least 30 feet tall. The path was so steep that I couldn’t climb up there on foot, but I did
climb into the cubes to get a picture. Mike also asked for a picture with the RZR on top, so I obliged (with some help from Photoshop). Then we headed back to camp and hit some golf balls for fun before having dinner and then a campfire. Walt had the best poker hand with a pair of Aces, but the real competition was for the worst hand. 7
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December 2017
We all walked away happy and with nice prizes that Mike collected so that nobody went home empty handed. We had a great time as always, and this has become a great start of the season tradition for us, even though we have yet to camp there. Thanks again Mike for putting together such a neat event. -P.J.
Halloween at Glamis We didn’t get a write up about this trip, but I found some pictures on Facebook and it looks like it was a good sized group, with 8 RZRs and 2 CanAms. The Camp RZR event was quite large, and they gave away multiple new RZRs.
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December 2017
Campfire Permits? We included this in the last newsletter, but it seems to be a hot topic (get it…bad pun intended) so I figured we would add it again this month. There has been renewed conversation online recently regarding campfire permits being required at Glamis. While nobody seems to have been questioned regarding the campfire permit over the Halloween weekend, the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area is federally managed land under stage 1 fire restrictions, and therefore permits are required to have an open fire or use a BBQ. Fortunately there is no charge for these permits, and you can even obtain one online by watching a short video and printing out a certificate. While it remains to be seen how much this will be enforced, it does give the Rangers probable cause to approach any fire, whether in camp or out at the hill. For a few minutes time it is worth printing one off and carrying it with you. It is also worth noting that the permits expire on December 31 of the year they are issued, so you will need to get a new one for 2018. The website to get one is:
http://www.preventwildfireca.org/Campfire-Permit/
SEMA Show The annual SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show was held October 31November 3rd in Las Vegas. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it is a massive trade show for the automotive aftermarket industry. This year I was able to attend thanks to Mike Bacon, and since I have some room in the newsletter I thought I’d share some of the neat off road related things from the show. Having heard about the show for most of my life, I expected it to be primarily street cars and muscle cars, but I was impressed at the large percentage of off road vehicles at the show, and in particular how many custom truck and OHV combinations there were. Like it’s not enough to have one modified vehicle, you have to have the modified side by side to match. They definitely got my attention.
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December 2017
There were also a lot of other neat off road related displays, ranging from a tire changing competition on a four seat desert car presented by B.F. Goodrich to multiple Monster Trucks, including the original Bigfoot. The overall size of the show was amazing, even after hearing how big it was for many years. It took up the entire Las Vegas convention center, which included four major hall buildings. Besides that, there were four large tents set up on the South side, the entire Westgate hotel convention area North of the convention center, and many large displays outside of the buildings, including ride along demonstrations from both Chevy and Ford. These were both impressive, and included both street car and off road demonstrations, as GM had an impressive articulation ramp and Ford was actually making jumps in a Raptor. It made for an impressive demonstration, and some gave an exciting experience to some lucky participants.
Overall it was an incredible experience as a car guy to get to go and see such a legendary event that isn’t open to the public. We walked over 20 miles in the two days we were there, and still didn’t quite see everything. It really is that big! -P.J. This month we’d like to thank Mike Bacon for writing about and putting on the spook run, and Kris Schellinger, Janice, and everyone else who posted trip pictures online for contributing to the newsletter. If you have anything that you want to share, please send it to me at pkastle@msn.com. We always need newsletter content, so please share what you can. 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. 10