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♦ We had quite a good turnout for Easter weekend, and en-joyed some fast riding in the Southern dines. Read all about it in Jim and Allie’s articles, and feel free to send in your own perspectives.

♦ We are still thinking about when to fit in a Dumont trip to close out the season. There is concern that the weekend before Memorial Day, (May 18-20) might be too late and hot, so how about May 4-6? Let us know if one weekend works better for you and you’d be interested in making the trip to Dumont.

♦ The adult Easter egg hunt was another success, and we had lots of people participating and a whole lot of eggs to find.

Many people wound up finding 5-6 eggs each, and some did even better than that. Some notable prizes were rolls of good blue shop towels, cans of brake cleaner, a variety of flashlights, the ever popular candy, and money, including a $5 bill.

♦ River season is coming up, and many members will be mak-ing trips out to get wet this summer. We will have the An-nual Havasu trip in August, but check the newsletters and website for more info as many of us will be headed to Cot-tonwood Cove as well. Post your trips and maybe someone else will join in on the fun.

Nancy and I arrived Thursday afternoon and found Jerry and Linda in the usual spot. We unloaded and while sitting around, Chuck arrived, followed soon by Walt, who came sans buggy, but with the RZR. The Hagen family arrived, all four of them. As I left to get the yellow trailer from storage, the Huggards arrived. I figured it would be a two hour trip, unless I had a flat tire. Sure enough, as I was passing the goldmine head-ing back to camp, I had a flat. It took me a while to change the tire, what with defective power cords, an empty CO2 bottle, and a tire belt entangled with the trailer. The trip ended up taking about three hours. Back in camp the Porters had ar-rived. We had a campfire, but it was cut short by a cold wind. The wind blew quite a bit overnight. Friday- We awoke to strong winds, and found the Loers had arrived. The wind was still strong, so we decided to cancel the morning ride. Nancy and I headed to Yuma to buy a tire and some other odds and ends. When we returned to camp we found Don and Shirley and the newlyweds, Scott and Sandi.

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May 18th –20th (or Possibly

May 4th-6th): Weekend trip to Dumont.

Come out for one last trip be-

fore it heats up. Check the web-

site or e-mail P.J. at:

pkastle@msn.com to confirm.

We would like to make this trip,

we’d just like to have it when

the most others will be able to

attend.

May 25th –28th : Memorial Day Weekend

at the River. The Kastles will be

at Cottonwood Cove.

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27 28 29 30 31

S M T W Th F Sa

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We took an afternoon ride to Patton Valley, the trampoline, and the call Box. While we were on the ride Dale and Rebecca arrived with their newly-wrapped sandrail. It looks great. The Bakers arrived for their first dune trip of the sea-son. We had a large campfire, actually two fires side-by-side, with nearly everyone in camp in attendance. As I walked to the trailer to go to bed John and Anna, Matthew, and Brianna arrived. Matt was towing his recently rebuilt sandrail. The rear suspension was changed from a swingaxle to a Megasand five link. Saturday- The morning ride was delayed a bit as P.J. and Melissa had arrived at 1:30 A.M., and Matt’s car needed a few finishing touches. We headed towards Patton Valley and soon after entering the dunes, I heard a call on the radio that someone’s had car troubles. I thought I heard that it was Barry, but it turned out to be Jerry! Don offered to tow him back to camp so the rest of us could continue our ride. We stopped at the recently found trampo-line, and then went to Patton Valley where the V8 cars showed their stuff. The V8 cars included Scott and Barry’s “high school” cars. We then duned to test hill. Pete reported his engine still wouldn’t rev above 4000 RPM. On one break, John said he’d been thinking about Pete’s car and figured it must be a cam or crank position sensor, and explained his reasoning. When we got back to camp, P.J. looked on line and found the sensors are available, so Pete and I hopped in Nancy’s Subaru and found the sensors in Yuma. We had a quick Sam’s Club hot dog lunch, and headed back to camp. They de-layed the afternoon ride until we replaced the sensors. I’m happy to report the sensors seemed to fix the problem. Pete was quite happy. Speaking of happy, Barry had a huge smile on his face all day, as his car was working the best it ever has. This due to a redesign of his front lower shock mounts. On the afternoon ride, Dale asked P.J. to stop because he saw something wrong with P.J.’s right rear wheel. We found that the bearing carrier had broken. We removed the broken carrier and took it back to camp where Scott welded it up to better-than-new condition. We returned to P.J., along with Barry and Dale and Rebecca who had volunteered to stay with him while the rest of us worked on the broken part. We got back to camp after dark. The late arrival meant we couldn’t go to Pizza at Mama Jeannie’s, despite her having pre-

pared an ice cream cake for us. The day ended with a good campfire. Sunday- We had our now an-nual adult Easter egg hunt. Barry, Pete, and Hayden volun-teered to hide eggs, while Melissa took pictures. This was the first adult Easter egg hunt for Barry and Dale and Re-

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becca. A good time was had by all. Thanks to all who provided prizes for the eggs. After the Easter egg hunt we were to go on a ride, but Barry’s car would run for a few seconds and then die. We spent 45 minutes trying to get the smile back on Barry’s face. We gave up and left Barry in camp while most of the rest of us went for a ride, with the plan being to have Melissa take pictures in the dunes. When we stopped, a group of other buggies and quads started circling, and we became somewhat disorganized. I, remembering a few years back when Don and I collided during a photo shoot, was uncomfortable, and sat out the photo opp. We regrouped and continued the ride in the general direction of Patton Val-

ley, with Walt following us on his RZR. Walt soon reported that Dave Huggard’s rear wheel had departed the vehicle. Upon closer examination, we found the right rear wheel’s weld broke, and the wheel split in half. While we were stopped for Dave, Dale looked for the cause of a noise he and Rebecca had been hearing, and found a broken trailing arm mount. Walt, John, Dale, and Steve returned to camp for a spare wheel. Walt; Steve Sturm, who arrived in camp while we were on the ride; and John brought a spare tire back to Dave, and we were soon en route back to camp. Once there, Dale and Rebecca left for home. Then John, Scott, and I decided we were bored, so we pulled P.J.’s transmission, with help from Steve Sturm and Barry, to replace a leaking main seal in his new-to-him shortstar. Barry followed John’s ad-vice, and was able to fix his sandrail. That’s two fixes in two days for John. While working on P.J.’s car we had to remove the old seal. GM makes a $100+ tool to remove it, but we don’t have one. Not a problem for P.J., and Scott. They made a duplicate of the GM tool and were able to pull the rather difficult to re-move seal. They then modified their tool to install the new seal. With lots of help from everyone, the transmission was soon replaced and the car ready to go. To test the repair, Barry, Scot John, P.J., and I went for a night ride. Not our usual run straight to test hill, but a full-blown night ride through the dunes, let expertly by John. There were 5 cars on the ride, all of them high-school cars. All made it back to camp with no problems. Monday- We went for a morning ride, and were moving along pretty well when John’s right front spindle broke. Scott, Barry, Steve Sturm and I went back to camp for a new spindle, while the others on the ride removed the broken spindle. In just half an hour from the time of the break, we were back driving. We headed off to Patton Valley where we met the RZR contingent led by Walt. After a break at Patton Valley we re-turned to camp where Barry had to pack up and leave. He was wear-ing a huge smile, this being the most successful trip ever for his 10 year old car. So far, that has been the highlight of the trip for me. Matt and Brianna Cole left soon after Barry. We got serious about finding what was wrong with Jerry’s car. At this point it appears there was a problem with a timing chain tensioner, resulting in some bent valves. We decided to think about the engine over dinner and 15 of us went to Texas Roadhouse in Yuma. For a change, the service was ex-cellent, as was the food. At dinner P.J. used the internet to find possi-ble replacement engines for Jerry’s sandrail. It’s now late Monday, and it seems we need to pull a cylinder head and straighten or replace some valves to make Jerry’s engine ready for sale. The day ended with a good campfire attended by just about everyone in camp.

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Some action shots that P.J. and Melissa captured of the group. Check out more online at www.inlandempireoffroad.org

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Tuesday- The morning ride was south of the highway, and Walt followed the buggies with his RZR. P.J.’s car had an electrical issue that took a while for John “Golden Hands” Cole to diagnose and fix. We took a break under the I-8 Bridge and headed back to camp. Melissa had to go to El Centro to return the rented lens, so she P.J., Anna, and Allison headed to El Centro. Walt, Nancy and I arranged to meet with the El Centro travelers at Mama Jeannie’s, as she invited us after we had to cancel Saturday. Jeannie was busy shutting down for the off season, with the help of her crew, includ-ing Bob (the bartender) and Mary his wife. We all enjoyed a huge ice cream cake in the closed restaurant. Jeannie sent the leftovers for those who stayed in camp. While we were at Mama Jeannie’s Jerry finished removing one of his buggy’s cylinder heads, while Steve Porter, Don, and John worked on an electrical issue that has plagued the Ford’s new motorhome. Despite their collective efforts, they were unable to cure the problem. Before sunset Steve Sturm suggested we go for an afternoon ride. The wind had blown quite a bit while we were at Mama Jeannie’s so the sand was quite smooth. Walt again followed us in his RZR. We had a pretty fast ride, and Walt stayed with us the entire time. We spent a good part of the evening removing the workbench from the yellow trailer for the off season. We finished the day with another campfire at which we finished Jeannie’s ice cream cake. It was quite windy overnight. Wednesday- The overnight winds made for some very smooth sand. John led us on one of the best rides of the season on the Buttercup side of the freeway. Walt again followed us in his RZR, and kept up rather well, much to the surprise of us buggy drivers. However, one time we heard Walt on the radio saying, “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” We turned around and found Walt had turned the RZR over, and apparently called to us while it was still in the air. Those RZR’s are tough, as the only damage was a torn fabric top and one debeaded tire. Walt didn’t suffer any injury from the roll/flip, but was complaining he had hit the transition at the bottom of a dune pretty hard earlier in the ride, and was sore from that. He also thinks that the hard transition partially debeaded a tire, which led to the roll/flip. We tilted the RZR on its side and aired up the tire, and Walt drove it back to camp. Back at camp John, P.J., and Steve Sturm packed up and headed for home. Don awaited and RV electrician who, when he arrived, diagnosed the problem as a defective inverter, which was the consensus of the IEOR brain trust yesterday. A cold wind came up in the afternoon, and as of 7:30 we’ve not yet had a campfire. Thursday- The wind continued all night, so we had smooth sand for the morning ride. Don decided to spend time work-ing on the new motor home’s problems. That left just Steve and me with buggies for the ride. Neither of us was com-fortable with just the two buggies and Walt’s RZR. Don, Walt, and Jerry came up with the idea of a guy’s RZR ride. I drove Shirley’s, Jerry drove Linda’s, Steve drove Sharon’s and Walt drove his, and led us on a ride through the very smooth sand. We went all the way to Patton Valley where Jerry and I changed rides, allowing me to compare the S and the XP. Both were a ball to drive, and I’d love to have either, but I liked the XP a little more with its additional power and somewhat smoother ride. I want one, either one. After the ride, Walt and I went to Yuma for lunch and some shop-ping. While in Yuma Shirley called us and suggested dinner at Famous Dave’s. We all thought that was a good idea. Walt and I finished our shopping early so we headed back to camp and switched vehicles to the Subaru and all 9 of us went to dinner. The food was excellent, but the service was slow by Famous Dave’s standards. Still a great dinner. Back in camp, a cold wind was still blowing, and for the second night in a row, there was no campfire. Friday- The wind continued most of the night, so the sand was very smooth for our morning ride. Don was ready to ride, so three buggies, Steve Porter’s, Don’s, and mine, and two RZRs, Walt’s and Jerry’s, went for a ride. I led and thanks to yesterday’s ride, I had a new understanding of RZR driving. We still went all the way to Patton Valley, but not until after I got most of us stuck in some small dunes in the valley just before Patton Valley. We made a fast run down the sand highway to camp. Not wanting to miss any duning over the weekend, Walt and I changed the tire and packed up

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Walt initiated the RZR by going inverted.

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the yellow trailer and Nancy and I towed it to Glamis Dunes Storage for the off season. Thanks, Shawn, for letting us leave the trailer in your space. When we got back to camp I was disappointed to find Jerry still in camp. I hoped he’d be picking up his cylinder head so we could help with the reassembly. Unfortunately, they haven’t finished it so he can’t pick it up until Monday. I was pleased to see my car and the workbench tarped in preparation for the coming rain. Thanks Walt! It didn’t rain too hard, but was very windy. Jeff Oliver arrived reporting lots of wind and some rain on the drive down. I decided to try my luck at the casino after dinner. I had fun, but no luck. For the third night in a row, there was no campfire. We heard that Scott and Sandi will arrive late tonight. Saturday- We awoke to find Scott and Sandi arrived around 3:30 A.M. I hope they weren’t bothered by the lack of a reception. It was still windy, but we went for a ride anyway. Three buggies and three RZR’s went all the way to Patton Valley. I wasn’t intentionally easy on the RZR’s. As there was enough wind I couldn’t see the ridges. The RZR’s just followed anywhere the buggies went. Jerry suggested we go to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and introduce Jeff to one of our Yuma favorites. Everyone agreed. While waiting for dinner Walt led Jeff and me on a good fast ride in the dunes north of test hill. I was able to use fourth gear on parts of the ride, so it clearly was a fast ride. We met at Texas Road-house where the crowd was smaller than usual and both the food and the service were excellent! When we returned to camp it was windy and cold, so again there was no campfire. Someone is going to find a lot of firewood when we leave, as Jerry has declared he will not take any home, and the yellow trailer is already in Glamis. Jeff headed for home. Sunday- We awoke to clear, calm skies. Don, Steve, Scott, and I took our buggies, and Jerry his RZR and we headed across the freeway for a ride on some very smooth sand in Buttercup. Jerry had no trouble keeping up with the buggies. When we returned to camp Nancy and I had to pack up and take the buggy home to Arizona for the first time. I was pleased to hear that Steve is going to stay an extra day or two to help Jerry fix the buggy. Jerry said he’ll give me a call when the engine runs. It’s hard to believe another Glamis season has come and gone. I can’t wait for next season, and have Dumont, and of course, Coral Pink in the meantime. Thanks to all who made this such a great duning season. -Jim

Update: On Tuesday, 4/17 Jerry was able to fire up his repaired Northstar. Steve Porter and Don Ford extended their trips to help get it running. Now that’s a dune fix. What a group! -P.J.

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Hello my adoring fans, it's me Allison! I just got back from another trip to the dunes, and a lot of you were there too! As soon as I got there I told Mommy and Daddy that I wanted to go see Shirley. They said no because it was 1:30 in the morning. So I asked if we could go see Linda... They convinced me to go to sleep, which seemed silly to me since I had slept all the way from Riverside and now I was ready to play. My new puppy Shelby felt the same way. For those of you who didn't get to meet her yet, I got a cute little puppy named Shelby. She is brown and cuddly, but she likes to bite and chew on things. I just tell her no, and Stitch and Diesel do the same thing, but all of my three dogs get along pretty well, and we took all three of them to the dunes. The next morning we got up and I found that I had two Grandmas and Grand-pas out at the dunes, and lots of other friends like Jerry and Linda with Shadow, Don and Shirley and Tara, Steve and Sharon, Dale and Rebecca and Wiley, Sock and Sandi, The Hagens, The Loers with their Puppies, Chuck without his Puppies, Dave and Cindy and their Puppies, Barry and his family and puppies, and others. It took me quite a while to ride in my yellow wagon all around the camp. Daddy took the dune buggy for a ride with its new motor, and it worked well for him. I played in the sand with my bucket and shovel, and it worked well too. That afternoon Daddy went for another ride, and he must have done something wrong because the rear tire tried to fall off. My Grandpas and Uncle Sock had to take the tire off in the dunes and bring back the part to weld it back together. They did a good job, because they were able to put the part back on Daddy's car and the wheel didn't fall off anymore. They fixed it! I love fixing things. It must be in my DNA or my jeans or something. I like wearing dresses though, but I do like fixing stuff too. The best is fixing things wearing dresses, but I don't know what that has to do with jeans... Any-way, it took so long to fix Daddy's car that we couldn't go to pizza and see Mama Jeannie. I was sad because I wanted cake. Mommy said it would be ok, and we would get cake later, and boy she was right. The next morning I got up really early because my puppy wanted to get up, and because the Easter bunny had visited our

trailer! I was afraid he wouldn't be able to find me out at the dunes, but he did, and left a bunch of eggs and a whole table full of toys that I call "my Easter party". It has bracelets and necklaces and jumping toy bunnies and candy raisins and toy cars and a swimsuit and lipstick and more. It is a whole lot of fun to play with! Then we went outside and I got nice Easter bunnies from Dale and Rebecca and The Hagens. My two new bunnies are friends, and they rode with me in my wagon while I watched all the silly adults in camp try to find eggs that were hidden on the dune buggies. They got all excited and ran around like little kids, it was really funny and silly. Then Mommy and Daddy went to take pictures of the dune buggies on their ride. After that they went to Yuma, but I stayed back at camp and played with Grandma Anna and Aunt B. It is a lot of work hav-ing two grandmas to play

with, and there just isn't time for going in to town when there are toys to be played with and videos to watch. Besides playing with my Grandmas, I played with my other dune friends too. Shadow kitty sat on his chair, and even let me dress him up all pretty with a beefull purple necklace. I also got to play in Don and Shirley's new motorhome, where I would run back into the bedroom and into the front room, until that sneaky Shirley snuck into the bathroom to scare me. It worked, and it was fun even though she really surprised me.

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We all went to dinner on Monday, and we had fifteen people at Texas Roadhouse. I loved the applesauce. Daddy and Grandpa joked about practicing being retired, since it was Monday and they should have been at work instead of at the early bird special with everyone else. Oh well, they will have a while to practice because I have lots of things I am going to make Mommy and Daddy work for. Maybe they could work and I could be retired... I'll have to talk to GiGi about that...

Speaking of great food, on Tuesday we went up to see Mama Jeannie because we missed out on cake on Saturday night, and I wanted CAKE! Her restaurant was closed for the season, and they were clean-ing out the freezer, but since we are special they let us go up the back stairs right into the kitchen. Then we saw that Jeannie had made a giant chocolate cake with ice cream on it! It was even bunny tracks ice cream, with Reeses candy and chocolate and stuff in it. It was sooooo good. I had a lot of Mommy's cake, and Jeannie gave me my own spoon to eat it with, so I could eat with both hands! We all had a great time visiting with Jeannie and her workers, and I can't wait to go see them next sea-son. The next time I go there I will be three years old, and then I will be a really big girl. When we left I did the stairs all

by myself, and we rode in my truck all the way to camp, which this trip was a long way from Jeannie's. Back at camp we had a fire, and I took a bath. The next day Daddy went for another ride and the sand was really smooth because it was windy the day before. Daddy and my Grandpas drove really fast, so I am glad I stayed in camp and played with my sand toys. I like nice slow rides to ice cream, but this one sounded like it was really fast, but at least I didn't miss out on any ice cream. Then we had to pack everything up to go home, so we put away all our toys and put our three puppies in the truck and headed for home. We followed Grandpa John and Grandma Anna, and we had burritos with them before they went on to their house. Grandpa Jim and Grandma Nancy got to stay at the dunes for a few more days, and I was jealous, but I am looking forward to playing with them on Tuesday night. I want to say thank you to all my duning friends for a great year at the dunes, and I can't wait to see a lot of you at Coral Pink. Until next time, stay nice and cool for the summer, keep your sand toys all fixed, and your bellies full of cake. -Allison

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Original Chevy Wheels for sale: Chevy stock aluminum rims from a 2005 3/4ton subur-ban. They are 16x7 with a 8 lug on 6.5 bolt pattern. They came with the caps and lug nut covers. They are in mint condition, no scratches. Asking $200. Contact Pete at 760-451-0845

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This month we’d like to thank Jim Kastle for writing an article that covered the spring break trip in detail. As we head into summer we will be short on newsletter content, so if you have anything 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. Thanks for a great “regular sea-son” and we’re sure looking forward to Coral Pink and other post-season fun. -PJ, Melissa and of course Allison

Thank you to those of you who had such a positive reaction to the ini-tial iOS tips last month. Since it was met with such a favorable reaction, we figured we would try it again. Let us know what you think, and if you have any tips or tricks to share with everyone.

Apps and Gadgets: Since Apple didn’t release a new iPad this month, we figured we’d use this space to talk about some other things you can buy for your iOS device, and we’ll focus on an app and the camera connection kit: The app we chose this month is a game, and even though it is a little silly (like Angry Birds isn’t?”) it can be a fun way to kill time. “Where’s My Water” is a cute little app from Disney where you try to direct water through physical mazes so Swampy the Aligator can take a shower. There is a free version, but the paid version with more levels is just 99 cents. Another super useful gadget for the iPad (or even iPhone) is the Camera Connection Kit. It is an adapter to USB or an SD card from the Apple iPod charge connector. The Apple version is $30, but Shirley found one on Amazon for $5. With it, you can plug in your camera or its card to transfer pictures to your iPad, and that’s how we posted all the trip pic-tures from Easter to the club website.

Simple Tips Tap the clock to scroll to the top: This is a new one we just learned about, and it works in many apps on the iPhone and iPad. To scroll back to the top of a long list (like a list of e-mail messages or a tall web page), just tap the clock at the top of the screen. The window will jump back to the top, saving you all that man-ual scrolling. Re-Open Recently Closed Web Browser Tabs: This only works on iPads with iOS 5, which most iPads have and is a free update and probably worth doing. In Safari (your web browser), just press and hold on the "new tab" plus sign on the right, and you'll see a menu of your recently closed tabs. This way you can re-open a web page after accidentally closing it. Get Holidays in Your iOS Calendar: To plan dune trips, it is good to know what day the holiday falls on. Apple provides its own Internet Calendar containing all of the U.S. holi-days each year. Here is how to add Apple’s calendar of U.S. holidays: Tap the Settings icon, then Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Scroll down and tap Add Account under Accounts. Tap Other, then Tap Add Sub-scribed Calendar. In the server field, input the following text: ical.mac.com/ical/US32Holidays.ics then tap Next. Finally, Tap Save. No other entries are needed and you will have holidays in your calendar.