8/6/2019 Crazy Sand Rail Ride

8/6/2019 Crazy Sand Rail Ride

Well Sandy did it again :-)

One of the reasons I married her is that she will do some of the craziest things, yet she wouldn’t ride on the back of a Motorcycle with me???

Today she decided we needed to travel to Dune City Oregon and ride a Sand Rail at 80 MPH a crossed the Dunes.   In addition, as we approached the driver of this beast, she started egging him on to give us the best ride that he has ever given.  She let him know that we are thrill seekers, that we have ridden 4 wheelers, go karts, speed boats, etc... in many different locations and this had better best all of the previous rides.

I have a couple of simple rules:

1. If the vehicle has an engine that is hopped up on steroids, I want to be driving it!!  And I certainly am not going to egg-on the driver to make it his best ride yet!!
2. If it needs a 4 point harness safety belt and has a roll bar, I am not real interested in riding, unless I am driving.  If someone else is driving, I’d rather be a spectator.
3. If it has custom tires that allow you to go vertically up at 80 MPH, then do a 1/2 donut to flip around to go down at 80 MPH, I am not real interested.

The “DRIVER” after receiving Sandy’s heroics had a sh_t eaten grin (I knew this wasn’t good).  He said let me put you both in the back. Directly over the rear tires.  Hmmm??  I wonder what that means.  As we entered the dunes I figured it out.

Well first it means when he does the donut you get the most whiplash of anybody in the vehicle. Second, when you go airborne you get the full feeling of the landing.  

Also, the rear tires are custom designed for sand.  That is, instead of tread, they have 2” deep paddles (similar to a paddle wheel boat) that dig into the sand to lurch the vehicle forward.  These same wheels launch sand all over the people in the rear seat (which is us).  

It was a 30 minute ride for which I have sand in my mouth, eyes, ears, nose, face, hair, arms, and legs.  Of course, if you take a good look at Sandy’s picture, you will note that she has leggings (which we had to stop at a store and purchase for her prior to the ride), a complete face/hair snow baklava, long sleeve jacket etc....

You got to love it.  Yup most of the time my wife is calm and a non-thrill seeker, but every once in a while “HOLD ON”, I am in for a ride :-)

8/1/2019 My Pretty City Girl

We are in Northern California along the Pacific Coast just below the Oregon border. 

Today we went on two hikes. The first one was in a remote state park along a dirt road that abutted a large cattle ranch. The trail was to be 3 miles over to the beach and is shared with horse riders.  As we started down the path my beautiful city girl started to say I don’t no why the horse riders don’t have to clean up after their horses.  After all dog owners need to cleanup after their dogs.  I had to smile.  You see the horses had left horse crap all over the trail. As we moved along she was jumping back and forth across the trail dodging the deposits. I kidded her saying that we would be doing twice the mileage since we were zigzagging back and forth across the trail as we walked.  It was a fun hike and when we made it to the beach we found the beach to be completely undeveloped. As I looked along the surf I saw a seal feeding on fish.  The marine haze was in making it a little chilly but we could still see for approximately 1/2 mile in each direction.  We walked down along the beach.  Interesting thing is that we only came across one shell.  The balance were small rocks and driftwood that had washed up in the surf.

As we hiked back to the car much to our surprise a dozen Big Black Angus cattle had escaped their fencing and had entered the trail blocking our exit.  They looked at us as if they owned the trail and they were not interested in allowing us to exit to our car. As if to say, You are not getting by us until we are done eating. Needless to say the group was as tall as I am and my guess many 100 Lbs heavier. Initially we stopped in our tracks so that if they started to charge us we would have a head start.  

Of course, the rancher was no where in site!

Not sure why, but I started walking towards them clapping my hands figuring one of us was going to have to give and my car was beyond them.  The show down was on!  After the first 10’ I could tell they were hesitating and starting to think about turning and running. At the same time I turned to see if Sandy had followed. She was still frozen in place. I motioned for her to follow me as some of the cows were starting to circle around behind me getting between her and I. As I continued forward the cattle turned and bolted! Thank Goodness! We were able to get to the car. As I approached the car,the cows kept a close eye on me until I started the car and we drove away. 

Lucky guess on my part.  I am not sure what I would have done if they decided to call my bluff :-) 

As we drove away we came across a couple more cows that had escaped and had decided to take a casual walk down the road.  

We then continued further North along the Ocean road Rt 101 into Southern Oregon. The visitor center recommended a trail to the beach at mile marker 146. This trail turned out to be a little challenging because in some places it was 12” wide with a quick drop-off.  Sandy was in the lead as we descended along the cliff trail toward the beach when she did a quick about face when a black snake slithered across the trail directly in front of her. 

It was an eventful day.

Attached are some of our pictures of the hikes

7/31/19. California Redwoods

Sandy chose a campground directly between the Jedidiah Redwood State Park and the Redwood National Forest. It is a great location with HUGE Redwood trees all around. Some of the Redwoods are so close to the road that if you are not careful you can break-off your side car mirror as you drive around the bends.  We are just outside of Crescent City California. 

We took a ride down to Lady Bird Johnson Grove trail. The Redwood trees are massive (10+ feet in diameter). Pictures of the Redwoods do not do justice to how massive these trees are in person.  See pictures below.  Well worth the trip!! 

On our way back to the campground we came across a small family business where they charge $5 to drive your car through the middle of a Giant Redwood tree. Sandy and I both did it.  Yes I realize it was the tourist thing to do but it was worth the $5 to do it 😀.  As we left we both laughed and thought what a great retirement gig.  Set up a toll booth, and collect money from all the tourist.  What work and overhead can be involved. After all the tree has been there for 1000+ years and the property has probably been passed down in the family for many generations.  There was a steady stream of cars paying the $5.   

Attached are the pictures