Santiago Canyon 1 day run, Sat Aug 20, 1994

Who was there:
Montego
Terry & Mary Allen (New Full size green Chevy truck)
Grumpy (Rory) -Jeep
Some other guy
Bob & Rhonda
Roger & Yvonne (and 2 dogs) Toyota Land Cruiser
Paul (& his dog) (Bronco II)
Fred – Jeep
Ed & Mary Bruckner
Gary, Wayne & another
Craig
Footloose Hector & Ginny (but only for breakfast & BBQ, not the 4wd)

We left Winchells at 6:02 am. Craig showed up as we were getting on the 405, but caught up. We picked up Terry & Mary along the way, didn’t see them where they were supposed to be, so Montego was just turning off to go back & look for them when word was radioed from the front that they were spotted & joined the group. Montego made his own onramp, jumped a curb & was back on the fwy. Terry had just put a CB radio in yesterday, & the antenna wasn’t tuned, but it worked OK.

We had breakfast at The Pines, a small place with great food, & too much of it. Evidently graffiti is encouraged in their bathroom. One writer said “The only thing wrong with eating at The Pines is that 2 or 3 days later, you’re hungry again.” Hector & Ginny showed up a little late for breakfast, but said hi before going back home. We met Gary & Wayne, Roger & Yvonne, Paul, Grumpy, Fred there too. We got gas & headed off to the end of the pavement. Bob’s trip brochure has described today’s run as there’s only one good hill at the beginning, but no big deal.

It took 3 hours for all of us to make it up that hill. Bob & Rhonda went first, showing us that the tough part began about halfway up. Bob kindly spared Rhonda the danger of rideing by letting Rhonda walk the rest of the way after she had helped stuff rocks under the tires. Of course, he had to stuff his own rocks after that. Somehow all the people with lockers went first, leaving those without to follow. Roger & Yvonne in their 71 Toyota Landcruiser made it halfway then Roger winched himself the rest of the way up. He only pulled over one tree, actually just tilted it 30 degrees. After he got to the top, he turned around and anchored the Landcruiser behind a boulder to winch up the rest of the group. With help, everybody made it up. Except the guests, Terry & Mary, who opened up the throttle & roared up the half mile hill with out stopping. It sounded like a finely tuned powerboat as it took advantage of the long wheelbase & stomped up the hill. A cheer, a standing jumping ovation came from the crowd.

Montego was the last to go. As we were hooking up the Montero to the winch, a dirt biker pulled to the bottom of the hill. He started up the steep hill, falling over several times on the way up. Even though Montego & others told him at least 3 times to wait, and to not be behind the Montero on the hill, he was an impatient jerk & pulled up alongside then fell over into it, leaving a good-sized dent in the door, and breaking his clutch cable too. After Montego copied his CDL info, the dirt biker went down the hill in defeat and without a clutch. Then the Montero was winched over the dusty spots. Just before the top of the hill, yet another place where everybody kept saying “Stay left, Left! Left! Left!”, Montego broke off his CB antenna on an overhanging tree while staying extremely left. Surprisingly, the antenna still worked, but only for short range. At the top of the hill, there was a “rock garden” that we drove over. Terry was bottoming out the big Chevy on every rock, so he wanted to air up. As it turned out, the front driver’s side suspension was shot. Apparently, when it stepped in a hole at the top of the hill, it hyper-extended the left front driveshaft which popped out. It took some time, but we amputated the axle shaft that had become dislocated at its shoulder, and put the torsion bar more or less back where it belonged. This solved the seized front wheel, but with no suspension on one side, the steering was pretty bad.

Grumpy & Roger (among others) were very helpful in performing this surgery. The Chevy was able to limp along, but I wouldn’t want to be driving in the lane next to it. The (or some) dirt bikers had refused to leave the locked gate open so the injured vehicle could get out of the park, but Gary’s team found that besides being jerks, they didn’t know how to close that kind of gate, so we were able to get out there, instead of attempting to get the Chevy down the Big Hill, the way we came in. As soon as we were outside the gate, Mary parked the Chevy. and we all aired up & unlocked our hubs. We left the Chevy there, and everybody went to Hector & Ginny’s house for a great BBQ with hamburgers and beer. What great hosts!

Later in the evening, the Chevy Dealer’s tow truck came to the door & picked up the keys to the Chevy, & I drove Terry & Mary Allen home. In spite of the badly installed or badly engineered lift kit, everybody had a good time and we made some new friends.

Montego

ROUGHWHEELERS PISMO RUN 1994

Being a bird isn’t all that bad. Being a Snowy Plover happens to be great. We even have our own private fenced land at Pismo Beach. I guess we may be a little spoiled, but what we really want is some peace and quiet … Well listen to this—

It was coming up on Labor Day weekend. All of a sudden, that Thursday it started innocent enough. Three vehicles pulled in. I later found out their names were Rooster (a near relative), Gadgetman, Partsman (my contact), Mariana, Victor (Hugo), and Daisel.

They were driving around like people with their heads chopped off looking for a place to park. I hoped they would go away, but when I saw Gadgetman putting up that big bird roost, I knew they were here to stay.

I saw Partsman leave and come back mad saying that something was wrong with his vehicle. I was hoping he would leave, but he said he could still drive in the sand, just not that well. They didn’t make much noise that night, and were all asleep by 9:00.

The next day another person arrived early. They called him Sundance. He said he had left before 5:00 A.M., I like this guy, he gets up with the birds. Later that morning Rooster and Partsman left to town to see about fixing that ugly truck of his. While they were gone, 2 more showed up, Zookeeper and Lynn towing their nest. I don’t know why, but I thought I smelled my cousin who lives somewhere in Los Angeles, I guess it’s just my imagination. As soon as they got done fixing their nest just right, more humans came. They called the man Fearless Leader and his wife Rhonda, along with Jason and his friend Brandy. They brought an old bird house with them. When I first saw their vehicle had eaten Garfield I really liked them, but they brought that terrible wind with them!!!

In the middle of the sandstorm, someone named Iceman came with Wayne and Jolene. They were pulling a birdhouse too. All of a sudden, they all left to drive around in my sand. Finally a little peace and quiet!

No sooner did they get back that a bunch more came in. Snoopy, Tony, Nikki and friend, followed soon after by Sandman, Sparky, Diane and Sean. Sandman had a nice birdhouse, and kept yelling “Look at me, I’m camping”. It was funny watching everybody trying to put up their tents in the wind Fearless Leader had brought with him. About that time Rooster had started to try to cook over the fire. I don’t know if he had more sand or chili in the pan by the time he was done cooking. He’s a nice guy, I’m just not sure how much he has upstairs (if you know what I mean).

They did good at the fire that night, I made sure the fire wasn’t over 3 feet in any direction. They were telling jokes about some-thing called an O.J. and worrying a lot about something called cholesterol in their food (they must be old people)

Montego and Shiftless were there when I woke up. It was a perfect morning – sunny and warm at Pismo!! The nearest I can figure, God felt sorry for what he had done to us the day before and gave us a great morning.

Around 9:30 almost everyone went out to play in my sand. They came back talking about how much fun they had, except Sundance. He left right after they came back, I don’t know if it was because his front locker wasn’t working, or because he felt bad because Jolene kept punching him in the arm every time he scared her. They also found a possible new member – I think Rooster may have found a new friend as this guy’s Bronco had problems starting, just like Rooster’s!! As quick as they came back, everyone left again to go see a Blazer that had flipped over just over the first few dunes outside of camp.

People kept coming in! Cutri, Pattie and Paul showed up and went right out to play. I saw them coming back on a tow strap about 30 minutes later – everyone said not to worry, it was normal. Jason, Brandy, Wayne, Jolene and Nikki kept taking turns driving around in the Jeeps. I’m glad I have a nice, safe, fenced in area! That evening Hot Shot and Magpie (another relative) showed up and set up camp.

A couple of the Roughwheelers got tired of the ATCs running through the middle of camp and decided to dig a deep hole to trap them. I didn’t see them catch any ATCs but I did count at least 6 Roughwheelers that fell in (And they call us birdbrains). Later that night some of the wilder ones left to go driving around. They met up with Mike, Dianna, and paddle tired Isuzu – we think with one more engine it would be unstoppable. They came back talking about Fearless and Shiftless getting in an accident on Idiot Hill. I wondered what those 2 were doing in a place called Idiot Hill in the middle of the night.

Sunday morning was finally a normal Pismo morning – cloudy. They were all telling different stories about how Rooster had ended up on his back with Wayne holding on to his feet. It had something to do with Rooster getting sand on his blanket, Wayne having his head in the sand for a second, and Rooster ending up on the bottom. This is how Wayne got his new handle- Chicken Hawk. Everyone got off to a quick start when a guy ran into camp asking if anyone would winch his truck out of the bottom of a big bowl. Of course everyone had to go see. Iceman and Sandman made quick work of it with the help of Iceman’s winch. Sunday was peaceful enough, everyone was in and out of camp all day. At night the fire got a little higher than 3 feet, but I didn’t call the ranger, I was having fun watching these humans. Magpie seemed to be the smartest one, she kept exchanging back scratches for quarters from the drunk people.

By 10:00 Monday morning just about everyone was gone. No matter how crazy it was, I hope they come back again next year!

PARTSMAN PS: Elan, sorry for calling you Magpie!

HIGH DESERT ROUNDUP 1994

The run started for me on Thursday. I was to meet Partsman off the 91 Freeway and go out to High Desert together. He finally showed up and after a little CB work, away we went. We got into Barstow and picked up another CB since the new one he bought wouldn’t work. After grabbing some dinner, we went on out to the campsite and found Zookeeper and Lynn. This year we stayed on the other side of the registration booth. No campfire that night and to bed fairly early.

Friday everyone started drifting in. Iceman and Wayne; Cutri, Patty and Paul; One Eyed Jack and Sandy (and 2/3); new member Vic and his stepdaughter Jennifer; Jason and his friend Brandy in Jason’s new(old ?) flat fender followed by Fearless and Rhonda; Kingfish, Grandpa and Kingfish’s friend Su; Tater and Kathy; JJ and Joan; Gasman and Mary; and Footloose and Buzzard Bait. The horseshoe court was set up and a little practice was used to figure the right distance since Partsman had lost his directions on how far the stakes should be apart. When Fearless arrived, and claimed he knew the right distance, it turned out it was right on the money. A card game was launched as well as some water balloons. The card game was marred by a Zima fight with the wrong person getting Zima’ed (the Rooster). The balloon launch was marred by the launchers getting mooned (Partsman). Also, Fearless’es Excedren took a little swim in the Outhouse. You ask “How did they get there?”; well, they were inside Rhonda’s blouse. You ask “How did they get there?”; well, we’re not quite sure. Don’t even ask how they were rescued (but they were). The fire was kind of quiet that night (for Roughwheelers) as if in anticipation of things to come.

Saturday was the day for the runs. The club as a whole decided to do the Achy Breaky run and lined up early to be in front of the line. The Roostermobile acted up again and lost his place in line and ended up at the rear behind 78 vehicles. Due to a series of unfortunate events (including a very, very minor tow by Ray Leuschner, and being just a little bit lost) I reached camp slightly before the rest of the group. Alright, so it was three hours. Another card game was started, but this time I decided not to wear the sunglasses that everyone was watching my cards in the day before. Before dinner we pitched some horseshoes, and the champ is still the champ. That evening they served the Bar-B-Que. It was really good and we had some fun fooling with people in the line. The whole time I was there, I wasn’t able to get anyone to cash my million dollar bill, even though I tried to buy everything including raffle tickets with it. After dinner, we had a good fire talking about Snipe hunting and kissing people when they stink. I know, I know, that isn’t exactly what we were saying, but sometimes people with at least a little class read this newsletter. Sometime that night Tater managed to do major damage to his nose.

Now I know there was all kinds of talk about different accident scenarios, but the word I got was that he had already taken his eyes off and when he took his nose off to go to bed, he dropped it and not being able to see, he stepped on it.

Sunday was game day and the Roughwheelers were determined to repeat the triumphs of other years at High Desert. Zookeeper, Footloose, Partsman, Fearless, One Eyed Jack, Kingfish, Vic S, Cutri (who may be getting a new handle that has to do with radiators), Rhonda, Lynn, and Patti were in a competitive frenzy. Tater was determined to erase the stain on his record by conquering the Potato Stab race (which is the only way he will ever get ride of that name since that is how he got that name). Everybody else was ready to support them by screaming meaningless encouragement’s at them when they couldn’t hear or see due to the noise and dust. It is unfortunate that the Ace Driver award may go to a brand new member since Vic apparently ran over One Eyed Jack’s foot although it seems that One Eyed Jack was directing him. When the smoke (or dust?) cleared, we had some winners and some losers. Zookeeper, Lynn and Partsman won big time. Even the Roostermobile won a prize by going backwards. Unfortunately, Tater is Tater for another year until he learns to put his Tatermobile in four wheel drive when he starts out. Then, back to camp for another card game before the raffle. I was losing badly, but fortunately I was able to do some very effective whining and crying toward the end of the game to get back some of it. When we first got back, Cutri stunned (?) us all with another trashed radiator. Seems his motor mount bolts backed out and the engine moved enough to cut the lower hose and put a few dings in the radiator. Of course it was Patti’s fault, since she was driving it and noticed the engine heating up. The raffle was a major disappointment mainly because I didn’t win anything, but Paul won a couple of times, Zookeeper won once and Fearless won a half set of tires (unfortunately, they were not Yo Mama tires). During the raffle, the Roughwheelers were sitting in the back acting like their usual unruly selves (we’re not allowed to sit in the front because of our behavior), but Rhonda happened to add a new dimension to unruliness with Papaya Pills. I wish I could explain the wonderful effect they have on you, but words fail me. After the raffle we went back and started our last fire. Lots of fun — 1 M80, puppy jokes, and papaya practice.

Monday was time to pack it up to go. Cutri (Mr Rad?) with a skill born of practice, was able to epoxy the radiator and move the engine back where it belonged, so it was drivable. We were on the road around 9:30AM and with little holiday traffic and one quick gas stop were able to zip right home through a few quick drops of rain. I call it a good trip.

ROOSTER