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 :-)