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♦ We had another great trip for Christmas and New Years. With the way the holiday fell the trip was spread out over almost two weeks with club members out there the whole time.

♦ The next trip is right around the corner, with the MLK dune cleanup weekend set for January 18-21st, which barely gives everyone enough tie to dust off the toys before going back out again.

♦ Danny Burns was out at the dunes for a day over New Years, and afterward decided to look up the club online. He found us, and has been in contact via e-mail. For newer members, Danny and Pam and their family were very active

members about 20 years ago. Danny had the first long travel car in the club at a time when many sandrails didn’t have shocks at all. You don’t have to hang out with the club for long to hear a story that includes Danny in it. Hopefully we will see Danny in the dunes and back with the group soon.

Christmas & New Years In A RZR!  Since both kids had plans for Christmas Day I left home early and arrived about lunch time. I found Don & Jerry working on Don's car, welding up a few cracks in the frame. As I was looking over what they had done I found a couple more cracks, then a couple more! I was then recruited to help make gusset plates and weld them in. That ought to teach me to bring it up!  The dunes were in pretty good shape the first few days. We rode down to Sweet Marie's to pick up an item Shirley had left on the counter during her last visit, stopping to visit Comp Hill on the way. Steve Sturm followed with his buggy, playing in the dunes and keeping in touch visually, and on the radio.  

Jim split his time between RZRs and buggies about 50/50, and on one ride we headed off to the south with Jeff, Jerry, and Doug & Kris. We worked our way up in to the hills, just looking for smooth sand and some interesting areas until we found ourselves at Hill 5! We were all pretty amazed we had duned all the way to 

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After one newsletter with no new RZRs, Justin Grossmann picked up the slack and became the next club member to get a new RZR. His is

a 2013 900, and looks great in black and green. Duke and Daisy seem to enjoy it as well. The number of RZRs is fast approach-ing the number of buggies in camp.

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January 18th-21st: MLK Dune Cleanup

Weekend at Glamis, Wash 6.

February 8th-19th: Presidents Week at

Glamis, Wash 6. Members will

be staying all week, so the rest

of us can do back to back week-

ends.

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Hill 5 with our RZRs.   As the weekend approached and more people started to arrive we also got some rain. This caused the sand to get very rough with all the tire tracks. The smaller diameter tires on our RZRs don't handle the deep ruts very well when we have to cross over them so we ended up being tossed around a lot in some of the more "well used" areas. This meant we had to choose our lines more carefully and go with the flow of the tracks whenever possible, but it didn't keep us from having some fun rides! We visited Hill 3, Hill 4, and the Flag Pole, as well as a few stops at Olds!  

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 A number of the group left on Monday morning to be home for New Year's Eve which made the turn out for the Spa‐ghetti Dinner a little smaller. The food was still great though, and I ate too much, as usual! Thanks to Pete and Linda (again!) for setting up the food in their trailer! New Year's Eve turned out to be pretty quiet, at least until someone de‐cided to celebrate by blowing the Ride Horn 30 feet from my bedroom window! It wasn't that bad but I certainly knew when the New Year had come!  There was a mass exodus on Tuesday, both from camp and the entire surrounding area. Not too many camps left by Tuesday night. The wind blew with a vengeance Tuesday night which turned out good for those of us still in camp as the dunes were very smooth on Wednesday. Jim, Doug & Kris, and I went for a RZR ride Wednesday morning and found only a few small areas that still had tracks. John and Barry had taken their buggies out at the same time and called us on the radio to arrange meeting at the flag pole. We met them there about 20 minutes later.  

After a break at the flag pole John and Barry decided to follow us back to camp. We had a great ride going until Jim missed a hill and had to turn around. John and Barry stopped to let him catch up. Once caught up John tried to start off only to find his shifter was broken. He was able to get the car in 2nd gear though and the ride proceeded. We were about three dunes from camp when going around a corner we heard a loud bang, and John's car was sitting low in the rear on one side, with a broken wheel! The wheel just broke in half! We all apologized to John for beating up on him with our RZRs, and to soften the blow we even went and got him a new wheel/tire and hauled the broken one back to camp for him. I'm pretty sure John thought we were abusing him, and he may be right! Sorry, John!  

I had another great time with great friends and can't wait to go again! See you all next time!  Mike Bacon  

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I arrived it Glamis on the 26th at about 2 PM and found Don and Shirley, Jerry and Linda, Mike Bacon, and Steve Sturm. The yellow trailer was already set up in camp as Walt had been there the previous weekend . Don said some of my favorite words, " We're going to Yuma for dinner tonight." I asked when, and he said as soon as you get your other trailer. I quickly unloaded the RZR and went to get the other truck and trailer from the storage yard. Don , Shirley, and I were soon en route to Cracker Barrel in Yuma. After a good dinner we did a little bit of shopping and re-turned to camp to find that PJ Melissa and Allie had arrived. Thursday we went for the first of many buggy rides. I don't recall any special events on that first ride. On Friday morning I decided to take the RZR for a ride which was expertly led by Mike Bacon. I'm still learning to drive the RZR and I'm not that comfort-able as I always feel I'm going to turn it over. Other club members with more side-by-side experience whom I consider to be more careful than I, have turned theirs, over so I am very concerned about turning mine over. Mike and the others were very patient with me as I chickened out on some hills. I had a ball! Saturday it was back to the buggy. We probably had a dozen or more buggies on the ride. I heard Chuck

make a radio call that they had trouble back there. When we got to the spot where there was trouble it turned out that Pete's car had broken a trailing arm on the rear suspension. Those of us with the high school cars were pleased it wasn't one of ours! That didn't stop us from doing what we could with Pete's car.

Bob Amador realized it was pointless for everyone to wait when we worked on the car and he suggested that some of the cars go for a ride. Given the circumstances, this was a great suggestion. John and Scott took the lead in the repair and Chuck and Dave Huggard stayed around to help and at one point went back to camp and got several ratchet straps. After a lot of tying things together and doing using John's jack, we were ready to head back to camp. We had to stop a couple of times to tighten the ratchet straps but we made it back to camp before long. Lots of people helped remove the broken part so that Scott could weld it back together. Everyone was surprised at how thin the material was. Scott decided to brace the part so it will be better than new. When Scott went to get dinner, Barry finished welding on the part, and John finished it up by applying a coat of

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green paint, "Just to keep it from rusting." Sunday morning Pete reattached the part and the car was ready for a ride. The car worked flawlessly the rest of the trip. Good job guys! One of the highlights of the trip was Bob Amador's enthusiasm that has been building up during years of not duning. He was like a kid with his first bicycle. During his off time Bob did not forget how to drive the sandrail, as on each break he gave us a demonstration of his driving skills. He once got

a little too enthusiastic and broke a front end component. But he took the part off the car, came back to camp and we welded back together, and he reinstalled on the car and drove the car the rest of the trip. I don't think anything could dampen his enthusiasm. Speaking of enthusiasm, John Cole continues to love his new V8. There was really only one significant problem, and that was a bro-ken steering shaft u-joint. As we have come to expect, John made a temporary repair on the ride and came back to camp and replaced it with a newer better part. More on a couple of less significant prob-lems later in this report.

We were pleased to see Barry back in the sand. With the exception of a minor overheating issue, and some switch failures, Barry had a trouble-free trip. If anyone deserves a trouble-free trip It's Barry. His car has had much more than teething issues. In fact, it's had several new sets of dentures! We are really glad to have Barry back in the dunes. Dave Medlin also made his first trip of the season. He was not as for-tunate as Barry, as his engine made some very uncomfortable noises. None of us are exactly sure what the noise was, but it doesn't sound good. Dave ended up leaving early. Brandy's car continues to impress us all as he made several rides with no problems at all . His car is extremely fast and very reliable, at least so far. I hope this report doesn't change that! Speaking of fast trouble-free cars, Chuck Grossman's has to be very high on that list. Dave Huggard's car also on that list. Dale Downsworth's car belongs on the list as well, with the only reservation being that someone neglected to properly torque the left rear wheel causing it to nearly depart the vehicle on a rather fast ride. Ea-

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gle eye Eli spotted the wobbly wheel and made a radio call for Dale to stop. When Dale didn't stop, John made a more enthusiastic radio call and Dale stopped before the wheel came off. Steve Porter's car is proba-bly the ultimate trouble-free fast car. It seems Steve never has any trouble. That being said, this trip was the exception that proves the rule. On a ride late in the trip Steve got on his new radio and said he was going to have to go b ack as his car would not stay in second gear. The last time any of us recall Steve having trouble was four years ago. That's a record we should all aspire to meet. We had our traditional New Year's Eve spaghetti dinner and although the turnout was somewhat low due to the midweek holi-day, it still turned out very well. The Hagens again volunteered their trailer to host the dinner. Thanks much guys, we all appreci-ate that. It was good to see Eli and Mary and the kids, along with Eli's sister Fawn and her husband Roger join us again. Roger is a great passenger who wants a buggy so bad he can taste it! Although we didn't see much of him, Dave Trevett and his family camped next to us and he joined us for one ride. I think it was the ride on which John's steering broke, shortening the ride somewhat. I hope he'll join us again, hopefully for a longer ride. The arrival and departure days for the members were all over the place due to the midweek holiday. Some did not arrive until Friday the 28th while others had already departed. Mike, Kris and Doug, and I were the last to depart. Before Barry and John departed they went for a buggy ride while Mike, Kris and Doug, and I went for a RZR ride. While we were on the ride John give us a radio call and suggested we meet at the flag. That was a good idea, so the two buggies and the three RZR's all met at the Boardman box. Someone, and I'm not sure who, suggested that the buggies follow the RZR's back to camp. RZR's and buggies take differ-ent lines through the dunes so following the RZR's with a buggy is not an easy task. The task is especially difficult for Barry, whose car has a turning radius just slightly tighter in the Queen Mary's. Barry was up the task, however, and followed us uneventfully. John, who is definitely not a RZR fan, was not so fortunate. Early in the ride John had to stop and put his car in second gear manually as his gearshift broke. As we got

near camp, John's left rear wheel broke into two pieces. Al-though the wheel was one that had been repaired earlier, it was up to the stress of all the week's buggy rides but failed on a RZR ride! John, you knew that was coming! I was able to go back to camp in the RZR and take a spare wheel out to John. After John and Barry left, I went to Yuma for propane, gaso-line, and of course, Texas Roadhouse. By the time I got back, Mike, and Kris and Doug were already asleep. Early Thursday morning I heard Mike leave before sunrise. Kris and Doug we're still there when I awoke but soon left. I had decided to

stay an extra day and perform some maintenance tasks on the buggy and trailer. I accomplished several things that needed to be done for some time and spent the entire day working. That means that the next trip can be devoted to duning and, of course, the cleanup. I wrote this report while still at Glamis after my day of work. I'm sure enjoying our new iPad. -Jim

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This month we’d like to thank Mike Bacon and Jim Kastle for writing New Years articles so quickly after (or during) the trip. With such a big trip we’re sure there is more to cover, so send in you own stories, we'd love to hear them. Another trip is just around the corner for MLK, and then the club will be in the dunes for over a week for Presidents, so we hope to see you all there. If you have anything else you think might be of interest to the group, write it up and send it in. Also if you have plans for upcoming trips that we don’t have listed let us know so we can put them on the calendar and on the website. -PJ, Melissa and of course Allison

2007 Suzuki Boulevard C50, 800cc, fuel injected, liquid cooled with only 5600 miles. LIKE NEW! $3,900 Bike has thousands of dollars in upgrades: removable full front fairing with Jensen Marine stereo and speakers, chrome trim. Shorty black windshield, Quick disconnect Saddleman Tatoo Profiler seat, show chrome side covers, lockable hard side load saddlebags, K&N air filter, battery tender, engine lighting, lockable leather bags, new battery . Always garaged. Never dropped. Perfect condition. Contact Steve Tharp at setharp@verizon.net

Simple Tips Send a Message to Multiple People: This is basic, but can be useful. When you are writing an e-mail or a message (text or imessage), you can write it to multiple people by adding additional names in the “To:” section. In Messages to get there from an existing conversa-tion, go back to all messages then hit the “compose” button on the upper right, which looks like a pencil in a box. Then you can pick a whole group of people to get the message.

Zoom the Camera: Jim helped Shirley out with this one over New Years, but it is worth mentioning that to zoon the camera, place two fin-gers on the screen and pinch them together or slide them apart. Then a zoom indicator bar will show up on the bottom of the screen, and you can also zoom by dragging the little ball across that slider.

Send Multiple Pictures: This is one that confuses a lot of people, and it doesn’t help that they changed it a little with the latest version of iOS. From the Photos app, when you are in an album and can see thumbnails of multiple pictures, click the Edit button on the top right, then select the pictures you want (only up to 5 for an e-mail), then on the bottom left click the Share button and choose either Mail or Message from the list of icons that comes up. You can also always add pictures to an e-mail by holding a tap in the text field, releasing it, and choosing “Insert Photo or Video” from the menu that comes up, but you will have to repeat that for each picture to send.

What’s Up With Maps? By now a lot of people are familiar with the prob-lems that occurred with Apple’s latest release of iOS and their decision to switch from basing their Maps app on Google maps to their own program using their own data. While the Apple Maps aren’t really that terrible (unless you happen to be trying to get direc-tions to a place that it has incorrect data for) users were left with no real alternative if they did the iOS 6 update, since it removed the old Google based map-ping application. It added turn by turn directions and some 3D panning features, but that isn’t very helpful if the core data is flawed. Apple has been working quickly to fix flaws, and the CEO even issued a pub-lic apology. In mid-December, the Google Maps app was made available for download from the app store. It installs as a separate app, so you can have it and the default Apple maps. It uses Google’s huge database of map data, includes turn by turn navigation (which the old version didn’t), and even allows you to access street view data to see a street level view of a particular address. The Google Maps app is free, you just have to go download it from the app store. Then you will have the best of both worlds, and a choice of which app you want to use.