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♦ The Thanksgiving dinner was once again a great success, and the many great chefs in the club put on quite a feast.

♦ The Christmas / New Years trip is coming right up so we’ll have another long trip to Wash 6 coming up very soon. Some members are talking about arriving as early as Friday, December 23rd. We’ll have the traditional spaghetti dinner on New Year’s Eve, which falls on Saturday this year.

♦ There are more and more side by sides in camp, and the Tranthams’ RZR 900 is the latest addition to this growing group.

♦ We had a lot of fun making night rides to Oldsmobile this trip, so pack warm clothes and bring your portable campfire chairs for some night time duning fun over the New Years trip.

♦ We are already making plans for the Presidents Week trip in February, which will be February 10th –20th.

The Thanksgiving trip was once again a lot of fun. There are lots of different stories to tell, but I thought I'd share some details of the trip from my perspective. For the second year in a row I got to take three extra days off and spend the whole week in the dunes, and for us it was the first trip of the season and the first chance to try out the newly stretched sandrail. Despite some minor issues early in the week related to the engine change (and getting the cooling system full and the engine connectors reliably con-nected) the car worked very well. I am surprised how little difference the extra length makes, and the new motor ran well too. Melissa even noticed that the car seems to ride better over the bumps, and it definitely still turns and slides. The first weekend was busier than I expected, with quite a few other camps nearby. I was surprised at how many people went home on Sunday and Monday though, and for a couple days there weren't many people around. One of the best parts of Thanks-giving is the fact new friends arrive all week, and that happened with the group again this year. Besides the group who was lucky

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December 24th—January 2nd: Christmas / New Years

trip to Glamis. Members will be

arriving before Christmas, on

the 24th or even earlier and

staying into 2012.

January 13th—January 16th: MLK Dune cleanup week-

end at Glamis, Wash 6.

February 10th — February

20th: Presidents Week at

Glamis, Wash 6. Members will

once again be spending 10 days

at the dunes, allowing back to

back weekends for the rest of

us.

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enough to stay the whole time, Scott and Sandi, the Olivers, and Tharps made the first weekend and left their rigs to come back out later in the week. Steve and Tanya Sturm arrived early in the week, along with Kevin Fegan. By the time Thanksgiv-ing came around, there were over 25 rigs in camp. We had many rides with 10 cars or more, and during the week there were at least ten different RZRs in camp, and there were many good sized side by side rides, often led expertly by Mike Bacon in his Ranger. It is so neat to see how much fun everyone is having on these rides.

Speaking of having fun on rides, Allie had her first sandrail rides this trip. First we went to the vendors on the flats on Saturday, and then we went all the way to Sweet Marie's on Gecko Road on Sunday. She likes to stay on the flats, and doesn't want to go too fast, but she got to go. Later in the week we returned to the flats and once again got more ice cream. By the end of the week, Allie said that, "It is not scared..." Another major highlight of this trip was get-ting to see Sharon Porter's son in law Chuck

Aaron and his Red Bull helicopter. We have heard stories about him for a few years, and this time we were excited to learn that he would be flying over the dunes since he was spending Thanksgiving with Ron Pratt at his place at Gordon's Well (Duner's Diner). On Wednesday, we saw the helicopter fly over camp, and he even took pic-tures of the camp and e-mailed them to Sharon. That turned out to just be the begin-ing of the fun though, as he returned on Thursday and this time was cleared to do some aerobatics. Just as we pulled into camp to get a front spindle for John (who was broken out near Hill 4) we saw the helicopter make a high speed pass and go into a roll. Yep, a completely upside down full roll, right over the camps at the washes. Then he turned around and did a barrel roll as he headed back South over the camp. The crowd in camp was impressed, and amazed to see a helicop-ter doing things that heli-copters just don't do! It got even better when Sharon said they would be landing by the store and we could go see the helicopters and meet Chuck. We headed up there (while John and the others waited in the dunes for parts) and were able to pull out onto the old drag strip between the store and the vendors, where two heli-

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Click here to read more about Chuck Aaron.

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copters had landed on an asphalt patch. We found that the second helicopter was Ron Pratt's, and Mr. Pratt, his son, and flight instructor were there as well. We got to walk up and look at both helicopters, and met Chuck, Ron, and Jim (the instructor) as well as Sharon’s daughter and granddaughter. It was an amazing experience. Allie had a ball

looking at the helicop-ters and splashing in the puddles, and I got to shake Ron Pratt's hand. He was just one of the guys, hanging out and having fun in the dunes. Very cool, and an neat example of how to be, even when you have enough money for helicopters and million dollar cars. He even smiled at Allison and commented on her new boots. (John Deere ones too!) He is someone clearly above my pay grade who I truly respect. Chuck is just awesome too, and was very fun to talk to and more than willing to pose with us for pictures in front of the helicopter. He is an amazing pilot, and has a job he truly enjoys and it shows. Thanks so much to Sharon and everyone who gave us the opportunity to have an ex-perience we will remember forever. After seeing the helicopters we brought John his spindle and made it back to camp in time for Thanksgiving dinner. We had an-

other great pot luck and served about 40 people from Dale's trailer. The weather was great, and we ate at 3:00 which meant we were all full by sunset and ready for a campfire and later a ride to the hill. On Friday Melissa and I headed to Yuma for some shopping and missed an eventful ride. On the morning ride shortly after a break Chuck and Dave Medlin ended up colliding and doing significant dam-age to both cars. Nobody is very clear on what happened, but Dave was trying to get back in line with the group when he came across Chuck who was also on a different path than the lead cars had taken. The im-pact tore Chuck's left rear trailing arm and broke his stub axle and folded up Dave's tie rod and from a-arms. This is where the real chal-lenge began: how would the group get these cars back to camp about 4 miles away through the dunes? This group was up to the challenge and came up with a plan to return to camp for parts and tools with the goal of driving both cars back to camp. It took until after sunset but the group worked together and both cars pulled into camp at about 6:30 PM. Both Chuck and Dave were grateful for the help and glad to be with a group that makes sure to bring everyone back. For the rest of the weekend there were more good rides that were fortunately less eventful. We went to the hill on both Friday and

Saturday nights, and we even brought firewood (and chairs) to have a fire and stay warm. There was lots to see with Rangers chasing down tail light viola-tions and people racing up the hill. We even saw a new Buckshot car get im-pounded for not having a VIN. It sure feels good to be legal. On Sunday we had a nice morning ride that was interrupted by Jim breaking a CV and damaging an axle. We again went back to camp for parts, and I led the group on what I thought was a fairly slow ride but went up hill 3 to stay in the nice sand. We ended up pulling the axle off of my car to take out to my Dad's and avoid a long tow back. I rode with John and we were able to get Jim's running again and made it back a little after noon. Then it was time to put my car back together and head for home. Some lucky people got to stay till Mon-day, but we are already looking forward to Christmas / New Years. -PJ

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The annual pot luck dinner went very well, and had lots of great food to enjoy.

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Hello to all of my adoring fans, its me Allison again. I’m on my way home from a nine day trip at the dunes. I can count to nine, see, one, two, three, four, seven, six, eleven, see nine! It was really fun this time because I just keep getting bigger and there’s more stuff for me to do. I played a lot with my grandma Nancy in her house with toad and her books and one of my favorite shows called Mickey Fishing Pole. I wore my favor-ite frog boots a lot because they are my favorite and cause I can put them on myself. I like to do lots of things myself. Daddy worked lots on our car this summer to put a seat in it for me so I could go get ice cream with everyone else. My very first ride in my buggy seat we went to the ven-dors to get ice cream and they gave me my very own chocolate ice cream but Mommy’s tasted better I think because I mostly ate hers. The second time I went in a buggy ride with Uncle Sock we went too far and I got scared. It was ok when we got there though because Mommy brought Nummy Bears and then I got ice cream and a new toy dune buggy and Uncle Sock bought me a hat with a kitty on it. The third time I went on a dune buggy ride was my favorite because it wasn’t scared at all. I sampled everybody’s ice cream but my favorite was Daddys because it was green chocolate. Mommy thinks it’s yucky but that just means that there’s more for me and Daddy. I played with my Aunt B and Grandma Anna a lot too. I took my favorite movie Mickey’s House over and watched it a lot and played with Woowoo. I also ate blueberries and cheerios. Grandma Anna gave me my very first haircut too. I was a good girl and sat really still while I watched my movie even though it was hard not to dance when my favorite song It’s a Small World came on. I’ll sing it to you next time I see you, I’m a good singer. Another one of my favorite things to do this trip was play with all of the puppies, and even a kitty cat! Swiffer is a cute white puppy dog I got to hug, I met Foxy who’s even smaller then Swiffer, she’s so cute and I like to give her kisses. She looks a lot like Tara who I got to dress up with beads that Shirley brought me to play with. I dressed up Shadow too, he’s a black kitty with golden eyes and he lives with Cookie Linda. You really should go visit her sometime, she’s always got lots of cookies and water, I always get thirsty when I go visit her.

I got to have my very first Thanksgiving dinner this year, I don’t remember every doing that before but it’s because I was sleeping for the other two times. I got to follow Mommy through the line and tell her what I wanted for dinner because I’m so big now. I had a moment when I thought I might need to cry before we ate dinner but then I remembered how thankful I was that Mommy brought me chocolate milk to have with dinner that I decided it would be ok. There was so much food, my favorite things were the corn and the brownies. I didn’t eat any turkey because someone said it would make me sleepy and I wasn’t ready for bed yet. I really missed one of my friends this trip. Walt had to stay home because he needs to get better. I colored him a turkey though and we mailed it to him with some sand and some firewood when we went to Yuma to let him know we were thinking about him. He said he had a campfire with the firewood on his porch. I hope he gets better soon, things just aren’t the same around camp without him. One day while I was playing and minding my own business Mommy took me outside to see a helicopter. It was doing things people said helicopters don’t do but I don’t know how that could because I just watched it do it. Then Daddy put me in the truck when I wanted to go play with Aunt B and we drove to the store where we saw the helicopter. Steve and Sharon’s son in law drives it so we got to go see it. I got my picture taken with it and then I got to splash in the puddles in my new John Deere cowgirl boots. Even Ron Pratt noticed my new boots. I don’t know who he is but Daddy was excited to meet him because he’s seen him on TV buy lots of cars. All I know is he liked my boots so he’s ok with me. Well, I guess that’s about all I have to say. I know there was lots more fun stuff I did on the trip, but I just can’t remember it all at once. Maybe I’m getting old... Anyway, until next time be thankful for great friends, keep your animals well petted, and your tummies all full of cookies. –Allison

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Thanksgiving, 2011 by Jim Kastle

Nancy and I arrived at wash 6 Thursday afternoon, a full week before Thanksgiving. We found Don and Shirley had already arrived. Before long, Jerry and Linda arrived, having left Colorado only a few days earlier. Mike Bacon arrived, but I’m not sure whether it was Thursday or Friday. I don’t think we went on a ride Thursday, but we did go to Yuma for a Texas Roadhouse dinner. It was great as always. As we were leaving Glamis, Steve and Sharon Porter arrived.

Friday Chuck Grossman arrived, followed by Steve and Tanya Strum, Kevin Fegan, P.J. and Melissa, Steve Tharp, Scott Cole and Sandy. I’m sure there were others, and by Saturday there were over 25 rigs in camp.

We went on many rides, with a few breakdowns early in the trip. We usu-ally rode near hills 3 and 4, as the sand got pretty rutted nearer to camp. One notable breakdown was when Scott lost his right rear wheel ¾ of the way up Olds. In true Inland Empire Style some of us stayed with the car, while others went back to camp for repairs, and within a couple of hours, Scott was back up and running. On another ride later in the week, John broke a spindle. We left him and some others for support, while we went back to camp for a spare spindle. As we arrived in camp, the Red Bull helicopter, piloted by Chuck, Sharon’s son-in-law, was putting on an air show over the tracks. He was looping and rolling the helicopter. Sharon said the helicopter was going to land at the store. I decided a chance to meet Chuck (the pilot), and Ron Pratt, (the owner of the large compound at Gordon’s Well), took precedence over fixing John’s car, so I went to the landing site. It was neat meeting Chuck and Ron Pratt, who I have seen on Speed TV’s coverage of the Barrett-Jackson car auctions. We left the landing site and went back and fixed John’s car. It took much

longer than it should have to get back to him, and looking back, I was terribly selfish, but given the same opportunity again, I’m afraid I’d make the same choice.

More and more people arrived: The Olivers, Brandy, Shawn, Rich and Kris, Cam and family, Tim and family, Janece, Janet, and I’m sure many others whom I either didn’t get a chance to meet or will kick myself for not remembering. We all contribute to making this one of the biggest trips of the season.

This trip was the debut of P.J., Melissa’s and Allison’s recently stretched 3 seat sandrail. Allie went for a few slow rides, even as far as sweet Marie’s and seems to be getting more and more used to the car. The car ran the entire trip with no problems, and looking at some video, with seemingly no ill effects from the extra 12 inches.

Thinking about new things in camp, Gary and Young Stump brought a new Jeep and Linda Trantham her new 900 RZR. Dale Downsworth has a new engine in his sandrail, and it sounds great and runs really strong. We missed Rebecca and Wiley, but Dale still managed to squeeze in some fun.

Also missed were Walt Fisher and the Hagen’s. Walt is recovering from pneumonia, and Linda’s mom was ill, and because family HAS to come first, they missed the first Thanksgiving trip in years. We all wish Walt and Linda’s mom well. We want you all back next year.

Mike Bacon continues to lead the ever-increasing number of side by sides on rides. Everyone I’ve heard talk about Mike’s rides has raved about how much fun he makes them. Good job, Mike.

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Another notable ride was Friday after Thanksgiving, when we were out near hills 3 and 4, when we stopped to repair Dave Medlin’s flat tire. As we restarted the ride, Don called on the radio and said, “We’ve got cars running into each other back here.” I turned around and found Chuck and Dave Medlin had collided, extensively damaging both cars. Again, in true IEOR style, we managed to get both cars back to camp. It took until after dark, making it the longest morning ride I can ever recall, but we got them both back. Everyone helped, but special com-

mendation has to go to Scott and John who took the lead in repairing Chuck’s car, and were helpful with Dave’s.

I spent my time waiting for help when I broke a CV on Sunday’s ride. I had just lubricated it before the ride, but must have done something wrong, because it exploded with no warning, also out by hills 3 and 4. P.J. and John decided that borrowing an axle from P.J.’s car would be the easiest fix, despite my not wanting to disable his car to get mine back. As usual, they were right and the axle swap was relatively quick, probably because they resisted the tempta-tion to go look for a helicopter or a celebrity. Thanks guys!

This WAS the Thanksgiving trip, so of course we had our annual feast, and I think it was one of the best ever. I believe we had approximately 40 people at the dinner. Everything was great and I thank everyone who participated. I never got the chance to give special thanks whoever prepared what I would call the creamed corn casse-role, but I should have. I really enjoyed it. I also love Sandy’s meatballs. While I’m hinting at what I hope people will bring next year, I have to mention Mona’s Mona-Roca. It’s a long-time Thanksgiving favorite of mine. I really appreciate the fact that Ashley Bacon, one of our resident vegetarians, cooked two turkeys for the club! I also appreciate Dale letting us use his trailer in the place of the Hagen’s.

Being retired, Nancy and I took full advantage of our lack of a schedule and waited until Monday to head for home. John and Scott, despite not being retired, also stayed, not wanting to fight the crowds. The Fords and the Tranthams also waited until Monday or later to leave. We pulled my transmission as it was making a bearing noise, and I didn’t want it to progress to a ride-stopping failure. We took advantage of being only an hour from Texas Roadhouse, and went to dinner again Sunday night.

I can’t believe how quickly the 12 days went by. We really enjoyed the trip and I’m looking forward to the Christmas-New Year’s trip. It’s only four weeks away.

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Two child’s helmets for sale: Both were purchased at Chapar-ral, 3 years ago. Both are full face with visors. Exterior is in good shape, minor scratches. Inside is in perfect shape, foam intact, no tears. Black one is a child Small and the Yellow one is a child Me-dium. $50 each Contact Pete Hagen at: (760) 451-0845

The Rooster

This month we’d like to thank Jim Kastle for sending in an article. With 25 rigs in camp, I’m sure there are lots more stories to tell, so please send them in. 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

As has become tradition over the past few years, let’s have our New Year’s Eve Spaghetti dinner. This year it falls on a Saturday, which means there should still be a lot of people in camp. (And there should be a nice night ride to watch the happenings at Olds afterward…) It will mean going to pizza on a different night, so many of us will be planning on visiting Jeannie on Friday night in-stead. This year we should be able to do the dinner as a pot luck, with some people bringing the sauce of their choice, some of us bringing and cooking a lot of pasta, and as be-fore others bringing sides and desserts. Some people have

already began signing up on the club website, and anyone else who would like to join in just feel free to bring what-ever you can. We’ll see you out there on Saturday night, Decem-ber31st!