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♦ The Presidents’ Week trip went well, and we had a good turnout for the quiet first weekend, and an even bigger turn-out for the busier second weekend.

♦ With little interest in an early March trip, the next trip will be Easter at Gordon’s Well from Friday March 29th through Monday April 8th.

♦ We will again have an adult Easter egg hunt on Sunday, April 31st. Bring some eggs and prizes to hide in them or put in coupons for. This has become a fun annual tradition, so plan on joining in.

♦ Fortunately there were no more thefts in camp during the Presidents trip. Everybody was pretty watchful, and many

of us got up in the middle of the night to check on false alarms.

♦ On a brighter note, listening to the Rangers on the radios is really catching on. On Sunday night, I programmed six ad-ditional radios to receive on the frequencies the rangers use. It is pretty funny to see other people in camp carrying a handheld to listen to the action. It makes me feel just a little less dorky about it...

I had the pleasure of spending twelve days in the dunes, including the President's Day holiday and had a great time. Here are a few pictures and stories. These guys were camped near us. There were six of them in all. They were there most of the week and buzzed camp a few times. Frankly, I think they were looking for Jeff's motorhome as a bombing target, but Jeff had left early to do Grampa things.

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March 29th-April 8th: Easter Week at Gordon’s

Well. Plan on an Easter Egg

hunt on Sunday, March 31st.

April 19-21st or 26-28th: Weekend trip to Dumont.

Let us know which weekend

works best for a late season trip

to Dumont before it gets HOT!

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Here's a shot from the hills by Osborne Park. This is early in the week and note how smooth the dunes are! It was cold and windy during most of the week, but it kept the dunes in pristine condition. Usually the only tracks we came across the entire week were our own!

During a break in the big dunes. Again note the condition of the dunes.

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Jim had a little OOPS one day. We tried pull‐ing him forward, but all we got was my RZR stuck too. Jerry kindly pulled me out, then I went around behind and pulled Jim out backwards. Quick and easy.

On a break. Note the all the tracks are ours!



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One day while running the big bowls behind Comp Hill we took a break at Osborne Park. Thursday and Friday saw more people arrive, the wind die down, and the temps go up. We had three 80 degree days. How‐ever with no wind and more people the condition of the dunes suffered greatly. It got very rough, especially in the popular areas. I had some friends arrive on Friday. Janice, Ray, Vic, and Don came to play with a RZR and some quads. Here we are on the ridge at Olds Hill. Note all the tracks!



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The firebugs in camp decided they couldn't leave the five Christmas trees Pete brought out untouched so they piled them up and lit them off. I was in my trailer 60‐70 feet away and I could feel the heat through my closed door! I had a great time, with great friends, great weather, and great dunes! Looking forward to the next trip! Mike Bacon


By Jim Kastle I arrived Thursday around 2:00 P.M. To find Mike Bacon in our usual spot. I did the trailer shuffle and got the yellow trailer, our buggy box, and the RZR trailer in camp and started wir-ing the buggybox for its new motion sensing light. This involved removing the refrigerator and running wires through cabinets. Mike helped but I worked until nearly 10 o'clock, when I decided I could finish it tomorrow. I did set up my new motion sensing alarm, and went to bed. It got quite windy and sometime around 3:00A.M., I felt the trailer rocking in the wind. This movement was sensed as motion by the new alarm. I should've been pleased that it worked so well, but it sure woke me up. This kind of ruined the rest of the night's sleep. Friday morning Steve Strum arrived. Steve offered to help with the light installation but I was nearly done by


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that time. Steve and Mike went for a ride. The Fords and the Tranthams soon arrived, followed shortly by Jeff Oliver and his mom. Steve and I made a trip into Brawley for some water and groceries. We had a good Carl's Jr. dinner. By the time we returned to camp it was too cold and windy for a campfire. I retreated to the trailer to watch TV and waited for P.J., Melissa, and Allie to arrive. They ar-rived shortly after 10 o'clock. I spoke with them briefly and then went to bed. Saturday I awoke to find that Scott and Sandy had arrived overnight. Steve, P.J., Jerry, and I went for a buggy ride. This was Jerry's first buggy ride of the season. We found the sand to be very smooth and extremely soft in places. We had a good long ride, however. Back in camp it was very cold and windy so I spent a good part of the afternoon in the trailer watching TV. P.J. did take advantage of this time to install a new mobile radio in his Sandrail. Several of us went to Mama Jeannie's for dinner and were joined by Jeannie for a short visit. The day ended with a cold and windy campfire. Sunday morning we went for a buggy ride with five cars. P.J., Scott, Don, Steve, and I went for a long

enough ride to nearly run Scott's car out of gas. Back in camp, P.J. Melissa, and Allie; and Steve headed home. P.J. and family left their rig, and will return Friday. Scott and Sandi went to Yuma to visit her family, while Don and Shirley went to Brawley to pick up some things that were forgotten in Havasu. Monday morning it was windy, and cold, but that didn't stop Scott from getting up early to weld a motor mount on Jerry's sandrail before Jerry and Linda headed off to Yuma to pick up some essentials. The cold also didn't stop Mike from leading Doug and me on a 30 mile RZR ride to the flag, hill 5, hill 4, Olds and back to camp. The sand was as smooth as I ever recall. 95% of the tracks we hit were ours. Back in camp we said goodbye to Scott and

Sandie, who will return Friday. Don, Shirley, and I went to Yuma for a quick Sam's Club run for supplies and gas, and a Cracker Barrel dinner. We finished the day with Mike, Doug, Kris, and me at a campfire. Tuesday morning Mike led Jerry, Kris and Doug, Don!, and me on a rather fast RZR ride. We traveled through the big dunes between Olds and comp. Don usually passes on RZR rides, but in following him it was obvious he has a lot more RZR time than I do. That afternoon we went for a nice sunset ride where almost all of the tracks we could see were ours, but there weren't many tracks. It was a memorable sight. Wednesday morning the same crew went for another fun RZR ride. John and Anna arrived, followed over the next day or two by Pete and Linda Hagen, Dave and Cindy Huggard, Matthew Cole, Walt, Dale Downsworth, the return of P.J., Melissa, Allie, Scott and Sandi , and Brandy and Shawn.



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Either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon ( I got busy at the dunes and stopped making daily entries in this re-port, and it's now a week later) John and I went for a buggy ride. As we got to the top of Olds, I heard John call that he was broken. Right at the top of the hill his right rear bearing carrier failed, folding the tire under the car. Shades of Scott from last year! John and Matthew, with a little help from me, removed the broken part. Matt stayed with the car while I took John and the broken parts back to camp. When we got to camp, Mike and Doug went to join Matt at the hill. That was very thoughtful, thanks guys! We were able to weld up the bearing carrier, and return to Olds. With everyone's help, the car was soon repaired. We returned to camp well after dark. Friday John, Dave, Pete, and I went for a buggy ride through the big dunes near Olds and comp, to Crazy Kevin's for ice cream and then back towards camp. We were duning through the big dunes near Osborne when I heard Dave make a radio call that John had rolled his car. I turned around and saw John being helped out through his windshield by Dave. John was unhurt, except for his pride. Apparently I went down a hill, and hit a ridge at the bottom rather hard. John hit the brakes and the car slid sideways. It then slid into the ridge and

rolled 3/4 of a turn , ending up on the driver's side. The four of us tried to roll the car over, but it was too heavy. We decided to use a tow strap and have Pete pull the car onto its wheels. About this time another group stopped and helped us right the car. They stayed around and took the pictures you've probably seen by now. One of them mentioned that we shouldn't try to start it until the oil had time to drain out of the cylinders. That was good advice, as when we tried to turn over the engine, it wouldn't turn. We pulled the plugs, and oil sprayed from several of the cylinders as we cranked it over. Had we not pulled the plugs, we could have damaged the engine if we had just tried to start it. We spent some time examining the car and found it survived rather well, with just a few bent tubes and slightly torn welds, and a lot of damage to the lightbar. It didn't even flatten a tire. John was able to drive it back to camp. Later that day he was able to repair nearly all the damage and drove it the rest of the trip. Saturday we went for a multi-buggy ride. A couple of miles from camp Scott had a five link bar break, and he and John re-turned to camp to make repairs while the

rest of us continued on the ride. Later on that ride, my right rear tire went flat again, and I ran out of CO2. We made a radio call, and John, Scott, and P.J. spent some time finding us, and when they did, my tire was too far gone to hold air. John and Scott went back to camp for my extra tire. When they returned we installed the tire. We stopped at Olds by Brandy and Shawn who had been making tuning runs up the hill. That evening



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During the Presidents trip, my Dad e-mailed me that someone was asking about the shortstar ad on Glamisdunes.com. I e-mailed him, and we worked out getting to see the motor the Tues-day after the trip at the elevator shop. If everything went well, we would be able to pull the motor out of the car and deliver it to him that night. On that Tuesday, that’s exactly how it happened. I hauled the car up to the shop, fired it up, and backed it out of the trailer. The guy looked at it, and said he wanted it and was ready to start working on pulling it out. Within a couple of hours, and with the help of a forklift, we had the motor out and in the back of his pickup. I really appreciate John letting me borrow the motor for Coral Pink and most of this season. Now that we got the motor sold, we are ready to move forward with installing my V8. We got the motor down from the rafters and started putting it in the car. Soon, we found that the center bars were too narrow for the V8 oil pan, so we started marking them for removal and re-engineering the bottom rear portion of the

car. After holding the motor in place for some measurements and plan-ning, I returned to the shop on Saturday with 40 feet of steel tubing and began cutting and notching. By the end of the afternoon I had the tubes tacked in place.

The next step was to set the motor in place and fabricate the motor mounts. Before I got to the shop on Tuesday my Dad and John got the adapter plate mounted and used the forklift to set the motor in place. Barry welded up the tubes I had tacked in place, and Dean Carver helped finish fabricating some tubes. Right at one week after pulling the V6, the V8 was in the car. Then we worked to weld bars to the motor mount plates, which meant that the motor was held in place. We wrapped up the night with John and Scott holding an engineering review session where we de-cided how we would further strengthen the frame. Now my plan is to finish adding some structural re-inforcement this weekend, and move on to headers next Tuesday. If everything goes right, we should be in good shape for Easter. Look for another update in next month’s newsletter. -P.J.

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This month we’d like to thank Mike Bacon and Jim Kastle for writing Presidents day articles. There isn’t another planned trip before the next newsletter, so in order to keep it from being short and boring please send in your articles. It is fun to hear about trips from different perspectives. If you have 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

the Fords; P.J., Melissa and Allie; Mike and Ashley Bacon; Dale; Walt; and Nancy and I went to Jeannie's for our usual Saturday night dinner. Jeannie gave us a large plate of brownies and stayed to visit for a while. That night several of us took a buggy/RZR ride to Olds. It was much quieter than most of us expected based on the crowds at the dunes. Sunday we went for a buggy ride with several cars out near hill 4. On a break Dale noticed P.J.'s left rear wheel was at an odd angle. It turns out his bearing car-rier had begun to crack. We took the sand highway to Crazy Kevin's for some ice cream, and then returned uneven fully to camp. P.J. Already has a new set of bearing carriers almost finished, and will have them for Easter. He also should have a new V8, as he received an offer

for his old engine just before this trip. Monday P.J. Suggested I try his tires as I have to buy a new set for Easter. They worked well on the morning ride, and gave me confidence that they are the ones I want to buy. P.J. Stayed in camp and cleaned the engine up a bit before putting it in the trailer. The ride was uneventful as far as I recall. Most people packed up and headed home. a few of us lucky retirees stayed around and the Tranthams, Fords, Walt, and Nancy and I headed to Yuma for a Texas Roadhouse dinner. Mike stayed behind and kept an eye on things for us. Tuesday morning Mike was up and gone by sunrise, followed quickly by Nancy. The rest of us packed and left one by one. It's gonna' be five and a half weeks until Gordon's Well, but I've got enough to do before then the time will fly by. I hope to see everyone at Gordon's Well. -Jim


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