Well, this years’ TDS get together was really fun…. once again!! Thanks to Dick for securing our favorite camp spot Tuesday afternoon. Thanks to everyone for bringing firewood and for being great folks to camp with!
We had 25 Rigs that made it to camp and 40 people who made it to camp.
The weather was terrific every day – with lows in the low fifties and highs in the mid to upper 70’s. I think it got to 80 on Thursday.
We had light breezes Tues, Wed. and Thurs with a slight pick up Friday that wasn’t too uncomfortable. Saturday the wind did get pretty nasty late in the day and thru to the end of the Raffle but then it died down and by 10 or so…it was back to a gentle breeze…almost calm. We had campfires every night and not much wood stayed behind for some lucky soul to find and enjoy.
Thanks to Tim for taking a small group of us over to Borrego Springs to see the metal sculptures and to Font’s Viewpoint.
Thanks Sam for the great background music around the campfire.
We all got in some really good wheeling – sometimes just a couple rigs together and in good sized groups at other times. What a coincidence it was, that out of the hundreds of square miles of desert…we had two groups of us who had been out playing for hours, somehow manage to link up at C-Clip hill !!! Just meant to be !
We had two night runs. The one on Friday got back to camp after 1am and thanks to Rene for sharing his empty seat with Joe, he had the time of his life – out “Runnin’ with the Boys” !!! We sat around the campfire till 2:30 or 3 that night. Saturday’s night run got back to camp around 3:30 and we sat around the fire till about 4ish…
I think Briggs and I were the only ones who had things break…and thank goodness they were minor things. We had a T-Case mount fail, but we had a spare T-Case mount on board and changed it in the desert. We sheared off all 6 locking hub bolts on the right front over by the Telephone booth and Briggs had to give up his attempt at C-Clip Hill. Steve, Briggs and Austin got the sheared off bolts out of the axle back at camp and big thanks to Steve for giving us his spare hub bolts. (kept us from borrowing one from each of the other Samurais) Art did have a fender flare pop off and another one get loose…but those are easy fixes.
The Raffle was NASTY – the wind was blowing the dust and sand like a blizzard – goggles and a cloth around your face helped – some folks sat with their backs to the wind. No one from our camp won anything this year…. bummer… but there’s always next year !!!!
We should all be grateful that no one got hurt and that everyone made it back home safely!
Well, we all have stories to tell…. and we look forward to telling them…. hopefully around a campfire together.
We hope that everyone had a great time and wants to do it again…. so “calendar” the first weekend in March for next years’ TDS.
Let’s hit many more trails between now and then…….
Happy Trails,
Jeff Wayco