Rough Wheelers Trip Report for Labor Day Weekend 1996

PISMO = FUN!!!! We got all our gear stowed and headed out Friday afternoon up 101 making quite a few pit stops along the way. First was Mission Buenaventura with its church painted with colors made from the earthy pigments available and patterns made from animal skins. Animal protested this stop until he had the opportunity to buy an old horn in an antique shop. MMBA (motor mouth with a bad attitude) was in agreement with me that we should also take advantage of the fact we were in no hurry and had no commitments so we raced up the road to Mission Santa Barbara. Got quite a few pictures around the fountains (my weakness). We got there just before it closed and had just enough time to take the tour before getting back on the road with some ambition to get where we were going. Animal entertained the traveling crowd by blowing his new horn out the back truck window. Sounded more like a moose call so we told him keep it up and he would see the mule eared deer pop their heads up in the grass.

Arrived in Pismo about seven hours later after all the sightseeing tours and entered the beach without airing down. Mistake number one. Got stuck about half way down the beach, got out and aired down. Some young kids came by with their strap already out so we let them pull us out anyway. Did their egos good. Five minutes after we arrived at camp the rest of the people started showing up. Rooster, Pappy, Nancy and Inky, then Sandman, Fidget, Sean and Sparky. We all set up camp and settled down by the campfire to relax and eat.

Iceman, Chicken Hawk, Kevin, and Oozie showed up the next morning and off to the dunes we went. My truck got christened, first time I've driven it into the dunes. Sandman slowly broke me in on the little hills and then off we went to do circles around the bushes. Did pretty good there for awhile and then got stuck and had to be strapped out. Oh well!! Chicken Hawk did a great job out there showing up both his dad and Sandman on given hills. Pappy got stuck and Rooster broke some-thing pulling him out. Rumors have it that Nancy drives better than Pappy, at least that's what my notes from MMBA say. We all took turns going into town that day for various reasons and on our way back we figured it was a good idea to be nice so Pappy and I both pulled out some poor souls that were stranded by the water. Good carma. And by the way they do take down the bird fence. When we came back from one of the runs it was gone! Our camp looked kinda funny all strung out along the invisible fence. Paul seemed to be the "good?" luck charm of the day. In the afternoon I stayed in camp to get some school work done and he rode with Rooster. Rooster had a bike land on his front tire and the rider flew over his jeep. After a near heart attack Rooster recovered and luckily the biker wasn't hurt either. Although I'm sure by the next day he had to be pretty sore. Some body damage to that new Wrangler though did not leave Rooster very happy. That night we went to idiot hill and had a good time watching all the fools play around. No major events/disasters to speak of. Rooster, Pappy and Nancy left Sunday morning. The rest of us went back to the dunes to play. And the luck continued, Paul was riding with Robert and after a nice climb up a steep dune Robert got broad sided by a dune buggy. Again no one hurt but a nice dent to Robert's front rim. We let the youngsters practice driving quite a bit on this trip. Animal, MMBA, and Sean all took their turns behind the wheel and did pretty good. Rough Wheelers in training. Back at camp both Animal and Sean kept Sandman busy wrestling. We hoped he would wear them out but it seemed to work in reverse. They wore him out. We all ate dinner and got ready for another night run. I was convinced to leave my truck at camp and was glad I did. Bobbo (Sandman) and Chicken Hawk were racing up Idiot Hill with Chicken Hawk winning. (He was also carry-ing less weight.) But Chicken Hawk also beat a V8 up the hill. Chicken Hawk perfected crabbing at the top of Idiot Hill and most spectators thought he was crazy and couldn't believe he was doing that on pur-pose. We all had to move from our birdseye viewpoint because some fool couldn't drive and almost slide into us. So off into the dunes to play we went. Chicken Hawk broke two motor mounts pulling Sandman's truck off the top of a hill. Animal rode with Iceman this time and shortly thereafter Iceman had to change his fuel filter out on the dunes. Fidget's jeep was a little low on gas and at one point just died. Iceman started towing us and at a level spot the jeep started again so we did make it back to camp on our own accord. We wearily arrived back at camp and burned off the last of the wood and dropped into bed.

Monday morning was the disp-leasure of having to tear down camp. Bobbo was giving MMBA lessons on how to get in the way of fixing a jeep (Chicken Hawks). I told her to forget those lessons and all the other ones Sandman was teaching her this weekend. All in all we had a sunny (no wind) wonderful weekend at Pismo! You should all join us next time!"

Written with the joint efforts of MMBA, Animal and Patti

Back