Got Team Anyway (Judy and Tana) some practice time in the sand in preparation for the Rebelle Rally coming up real quick in October.
We got a long weekend in in Florence, OR at the Oregon Sand Dunes. A lovely day driving down on Thursday, got to enjoy some of the finest traffic Portland, Salem, and Eugene have to offer, quality time :-) It was just the 3 of us (to start) as Brad, Tana's husband, stayed home with the twins. He had the hardest job of all.
I ended up renting an ATV and scouted in front of them as they got acclimated to the dunes. Wasn't exactly a high performance one, but it worked.
We spent a lot of time just exploring the dunes and having a good time, expanding the comfort zone more and more, especially going down dune faces. Also learning the sand is never what you think, and it will remind you of that every so often...
(The great part was that because they were training, I didn't have to help dig :-) )
They had originally aired down to about 20lbs, just to see how it would do. So when they got dug in, they started with dropping to 10lbs. No go. So then they tried the shovel, same result. 4 Maxtrax later, and they were easily on their way. You can really see how those shine in the sand, a definite necessary tool.
They got stuck one more time, not enough speed going up a dune face, and it dug in at the top. Maxtrax right away and they were moving in under a minute.
Great day, they did a great job and learned a lot and had a lot of fun.
A video from the dash cam in the Jeep and a little from the GoPro on my helmet. Definitely need to learn how to operate that better, missed out on a lot of good footage because I'm a dumb....
Day 2...
Andy and Mercedes Lilienthal joined us at the campground Friday night after they got to enjoy the splendors of Portland, etc traffic too. A few libations and off to bed. Luckily, unbeknownst to me at the time, the campsites I reserved came with a built in wake up alarm. The ?%@%#!% (fill in your own choice names here..) in the campsite right across from us felt it was necessary to run their generators starting at about 6:15am. For some reason the FS campground allows generators, etc starting at 6. Oh well, why we all typically don't stay in campgrounds...
Headed down to the staging area and started airing down (10lbs this time)
An interested guy started chatting everyone up, and as an avid off-roader was interesting in finding out about the Rebelle. He donated a big bag of heavy duty tyraps to the cause too (definitely a nice donation)
Andy and Mercedes's Delica sure got a lot of interest too (especially out on the sand)
Andy lead down the trail and then we headed out to the beach
Drove around on the beach then back into the dunes, where Andy was kind enough to get the rig stuck
Perfect time and place to do some impromptu classes on winching and pull-pals
It was great having Andy work with them, showing them, not only the what, but the why. He went through a few different scenarios, including doubling up with a snatch block for more power.
Andy got himself out (big surprise) and we continued exploring the dunes. Andy wanted some more excitement and didn't quite top out a dune the way he had planned...
Ended up working the Jeep around to the back side and used it as an anchor to winch himself out.
We ended up heading back to the central dune area, the girls took me to rent another ATV (bigger this time) and then we went back out to the beach to play on that side. A couple more purposeful stucks so they could practice extractions and a great time was had by one and all. The good news is that I was the only one to lay a vehicle over, and the rental place didn't know it :-)
Wish we could have made it
Would have been fun to see the big white whale out on the dunes. You probably would have shot the asswipe with the generators though...
Nah. Just cut the fuel line