Kicking it in Waynoka, Oklahoma...
Emails can be such a pain in the ass. I get hundreds and
hundreds throughout the week, most of which I deem so unimportant that I
neither respond to them nor consider archiving for the future. One short
non-emotive email sent a few months ago however, was different.
Sender: Nicholas Bishop Hefner. Subject: Dunes. Body: It’s
on…Don’t be lame, dudes.
I may be taking liberties with Hef's email composition, however his message was
loud and clear. It was time to gear up and head back to the sandy sand dunes of
the Little Sahara in Waynoka, Oklahoma. 1,450 acres of rideable sand that one
amateurish local tourist site claims was created during the Pleistocene Age,
which if I’m not mistaken, was when sleeveless dinosaurs roamed the desert. On
ATV’s.
This trip was more ambitions that the previous two times I
hit the dunes, as the number of invitees grew to ten. Our organizer, patriarch and spiritual messiah, Nick
“Sand Paddles” Hefner, took this opportunity to combine his core competencies:
party planning, shirt making, being a rugged outdoorsman, and having a gigantic
truck and a high dune IQ. These qualities, when stewed together, produce a recipe
for salty awesomeness.
In an attempt to maximize the amount of time spent
shredding, Hef rented us a house for the weekend. Mimicking the traits of the renter
himself, this house was both practical and awesome. Don’t believe me?
Practical: Located less than a five
minute ATV ride from the dune entrance.
Awesome: The driveway was so full
of sand that half our vehicles couldn’t so much as drive by the front door.
(And come to think of it, also awesome, I don’t remember it even having a front
door. Just a garage-bunker entrance).
Practical: Designed for weekend
duners like us, the house had comfortable sleeping conditions for ten adults.
Awesome: Designed for weekend
duners like us, the house had cinder block walls and linoleum floors that
invited you to get them dirty.
Practical: Not only did it have a
washer and dryer in the oversized laundry room, it had a working toilet stuck
right in between the washer and dryer in the oversized laundry room.
Awesome: There’s a good chance that
Osama Bin Laden once used this house as a hideout. I do not know if he used the laundry-room toilet.
(Little known fact about the dryer: it acts as both a toilet paper holder and magazine rack)
Needless to say, it did the trick. And by only adding $50
per person for two night’s stay, it was a much better option than freezing in a
heat-less trailer, spooning with Zach for warmth. Because that’s (more or less)
what happened last time.
So Zach – officially Zach “You like Sand, try some in YOUR face”
Barnes – met me at work on Friday around 5:30, or roughly three hours after I
had mentally checked out from any official work-related activities, sand figuratively
swirling through my brain all day long, gumming up any work thoughts. The plan was to caravan with the other
KC faction, driven and led by Chad “Fifth Gear” Cummings, however they ran into
traffic, so Zach and I took off, our need-for-speed mentality having already
kicked in. We would meet up with Fifth Gear, Jaron “Big Camo” Ruckman and Micah
“The Mechanic” Trotti in our Little Sahara sand bunker that may or may not have
once housed a hiding Bin Laden.
We roll into Waynoka, immediately remembering how tiny and
dusty a town it is. And quiet. 10pm, when we arrived, felt like two in the
morning. It actually surprised us that the gas station was open; also
surprising, that it sold ice (though I'm not quite sure why). Since Hef was unable to provide us with a street
address – he wasn’t unwilling to do this, so much as Waynoka chose means other
than words and numbers on signs and doors to denote its various locations – we
drove through town and searched for the café (amusingly pronounced “ka-fay”),
where we saw his truck and trailer, and then the trail went cold.
He drove out to meet us, and guide us to the bunker, at
which point Zach parked across the street for fear of having to tow his Honda
out of the driveway sand at the trip’s end. Hef’s truck struggled, but
eventually clawed its way through the sand, then down the sharp incline to the
covered pavement by the garage entrance. The city slicker in me asks why it’s
necessary for there to be sand in the driveway, when the house is meant for out-of-towner’s.
The part of me that knows and is friends with the Hefner family, has spend a
weekend in Sublette and once partied in a hotel/steak restaurant/Mexican disco
in Gardner looks around and sees that the only non-trucks in Waynoka were Zach’s Honda and Chad’s Honda.
We were greeted in our subterranean bunker by Jordan,
Michael and Whitney, who went by the handles, Jordan “King of the Razer”
Hefner, Whitney “No thanks, you drive” Hefner and Michael “Rooster Tail” Voth. They
greeted us with cheers, hoots and hollers, as well as a humorous story about
how they had to kick a family of 4 out of the room hours earlier. The family happily
moved upstairs, however it drives home the point that when a town eschews basic
amenities such as street signs and addresses, the likelihood of renting a house
without incident is all but a logistical impossibility.
We cracked some beers and Wild Turkey, and dug way too deep
into Saturday’s snacks. Learning from our terrible mistakes the last time out,
we decided not to party until early Saturday morning. Spending all day on a
quad is taxing enough on the body, exponentially so when suffering from a severe
hangover and deathly dehydration. We made it until about midnight before we all retired
to our respective rooms, mattresses and couches. By then the laundry room
toilet had been used a handful of times. We learned that though it functioned
properly, it wasn’t cemented to the ground, causing the sitter much
trepidation, and all but assuring we’d use it again the following day.
Saturday morning began with the single worst part of any and
every dune trip: renting the four-wheelers. If Waynoka was the sort of town
that used street signs and addresses, they’d probably have an idea how to
efficiently rent out a handful of quads. Since we know that it’s not that sort
of town, you can imagine how painful and belabored this process actually is. There
were no less than three workers behind the counter, yet all five of us had to
wait our turn to have the same employee fill out our forms. For us. He did so
by asking us the information that’s on our licenses (and Chad’s passport –
that’s another story), we tell him the answers, then he squints to try and
read it off our ID’s, he writes it incorrectly, then asks us for our
information again. Hef, knowing how painful this process was going to be, made
the smart decision to take Michael with him for some early morning duning to
pass the time.
After what seemed
like the entire seven-year run of the sitcom Wings, we had all finally helped the helpful employee fill out our
paperwork. For us. Next up was the talk. Each year we are passive aggressively
accused of being a bunch of idiots and X-Games enthusiasts who are out there
with the sole purpose of putting ourselves, our friends, and anyone on two or
four wheels in danger. Some highlights from the speech:
“I’m telling you now, at least one of you is going to roll
your bike and get hurt”
“There’s always a weakest link; ride to the level of your
weakest link”
“The bikes are replaceable…you’re not”
“Use the buddy system. You should always be within visual
distance of your buddy”
(Four lectures later, we were (almost) ready to roll)
I find it’s best to not say anything and see how long he’ll
keep talking. Just nod up and down mechanically and hope he loses steam soon. Which he did,
at which point we were almost free to go. Next up was 12 minute long
instructional video. Even thought it appeared to be in DVD format, no way it
was produced in a decade in which any of us have been alive. My favorite parts
were the neon Technicolor dune race uniforms the actors wore, the chick with
the poofy blonde hair and wraparound mirrored Oaklies that, if removed from her
head and placed upward on her chest, were large enough to act as a face tanner,
the two dudes playfully tousling each other’s hair, and the actors’ overall
refusal to act.
Unable to keep our laughs internal, we next moved outside
where Larry the Cable Guy’s brother Duane the Mechanic gave us yet another “don’t be an idiot”
speech. Seeing as this was the fourth iteration of the same speech, and that he
didn’t have all of his teeth, I didn’t even to through the motions and afford
him a nod. Had I been able to drive away from there without killing my quad six
times, I wouldn’t have felt like such a jackass for not paying him attention in
the first place.
I was second to choose a bike – my receipt came up second on
Joe Bob’s clipboard – and obviously chose the white and black one by
announcing, “duh…the Storm Trooper”. With no recognition to be seen on his
part, I sheepishly specified, “the white and black one”. Since I’m not a
gear-head, it always takes me some time to re-introduce myself to
four-wheelers. As such, the first half hour usually consists of me killing the
engine multiple times, not remembering where neutral is, not remembering where
first is, shifting when totally unnecessary, bailing on attempts to make it up
some of the larger dunes, forgetting how to properly bail on a dune attempt,
crashing into thickets, then struggling through the difficulties of pulling my
four-wheeler out of the sand traps I’ve created, filling my shoes with sand,
trying to find neutral, then first, not to mention reverse, hold in the clutch,
turn while shifting and hitting the engine, try to drive out of the rivets I’ve
created, and back to the bottom for a second go at it.
So when I killed the engine that first time at the rental
place, I all but magically fast-forwarded to my second attempt at the large
dune, with all aforementioned fun stuff in-between. I did manage to make the
five-minute ride from the rental shop to the dune entrance without killing it
too many times. Zach had to cover the $10 fee to enter the dunes, since I left
my cash in the bunker on accident when he gave me his card and ID to store in
my zipper pocket. I tend to lose focus of the details when I entertain thoughts
of the dunes. Luckily, Hef, Zach and others don’t suffer from my tunnel vision,
and we all made it through the familiar gate, announcing our presence with a
loud “whap” from the flagpoles on the back of our quads as they struck the
metal overhang.
Down the slalomy, yet narrow path and into the dune
entrance. We gathered our bikes and strategized our next move. It would take a
while before we were able to communicate with Hef – we were playing phone tag
ever since securing the bikes – so we decided to head for the side trails where
he and Michael likely were. Our journey there would see us attempt and fail at
some of the largest dunes since the Pleistocene Era. And by “us” I mean “Jaron
and I”. It was just the first large dune, actually, that caused us so much
trouble. I went up it with excitement and hubris, and wound up in the bushes,
stuck, with my nice North Face hiking pants charred shriveled from resting on
the hot engine. Jaron made his attempt patiently cautious since it was his
first time out there, and would up grounding his manual camouflage tank to a
dead stop 75% the way up. It was not a great start.
(First run of the day and I was on fire. Almost literally)
Micah helped Jaron reverse course and slide down first,
before hopping over to me and pulling me out of the ditch, righting course and
shoving me off back down. Ten minutes in and all three of us had a small
beach’s worth of sand inside our socks.
My second attempt fell short once again, this time because I
unnecessarily shifted to third for an extra push near the top (yes…this makes
absolutely no sense at all). Come to think of it, this tactic doomed my initial
traverse as well. Not wanting me to feel singled out, Jaron made it to almost
the exact same spot as the first time before losing steam and cutting the
engine once again. We were quite the pair.
With yet another dose of assistance I made my way out and
eventually shot up the dune with enough power to sustain the full trip to the
top. Trotti drove Jaron’s beast around the larger dune and up a series of
smaller ones until our group was again whole at the top of the mountain. And I
feel I must explain: Jaron’s automatic quad was significantly heavier than our
manual’s, and as a result slower uphill than ours. In wide-open flats and
winding through the side trails, Big Camo could keep up just fine, but going
straight up a dune was a challenge. Finding ways around that proved easy enough
throughout the rest of the trip, and for his first time at Little Sahara, Jaron
proved extremely capable in keeping in line with the rest of us.
(Filling his shoes with sand, Zach comes to our rescue)
Finally perched atop the dune, it became evident that the
weather was not going to be our ally this day. The sun was out and for late
October the temperature was great, however the wind had lived up to the
prognosticators warnings, and was whipping our asses with gusts of greater than
35 miles per hour. Thinking ahead, Zach bought out Wal-Mart’s supply of
bandannas, one of which I borrowed and used to cover my mouth,
Sandinista-style. Along with the $20 goggles we all bought at the rental shop,
the bandanna provided enough protection from the flailing sand, which came at
our faces from every direction, whether we were riding or resting. If Forrest
Gump were with us, he’d describe it as he did rain during the Vietnam War.
(Sand blowing our flags on top of a dune. 35 mph wind gusts turns soft sand into metallic darts)
It looked magnificent, though. Something we’d appreciate
much more no doubt, if we weren’t in danger of swallowing it or having even the
tiniest fleck of it touch an eyeball. Due to the wind, so much sand
had been displaced that the tops of the dunes were constantly being reshaped.
Instead of being on relatively solid ground, this was the type of sand you’d be
up to your ankle in when off of a bike. The gusts were so bad at the dune apex’s,
and so much sand was being blow in every which direction that you could see
your shadow sneak from the peak of the dune’s surface to out where there was no
solid sand at all, but only a mirage of freshly blown sand being funneled down
the side. Total mind-freak!
The only positive the wind blew in is that it prevented the
park from being overly crowded. Nearing the end of comfortable dune season in
terms of weather, we were fortunate to not share the grounds with too many
others. This made the side trails even more enjoyable than usual, as the
possibility of blindly crashing head-on into an oncoming quad was slightly less
than to be expected.
(Standing tall, maybe shaking some sand out)
We spent a total of ten hours from the moment we first
entered the park until we exited it for good at night, alternating from riding
in the sand, eating lunch and resting in Hef’s trailer. If you’ve never been to
the dunes before, there’s a number of ways you can pass your time while out in
the sand, all entertaining as hell.
The side trails are narrow paths that crop up on the
outskirts of the entire park. There’s no specific spot to enter or exit them,
but there are enough access points that it’s unlikely
that you’ll crash head on into another duner. Unlikely, though not
impossible, I imagine. Once entering the side trails, you’re usually funneled
down a specific path until you reach a spaghetti intersection, where you can
navigate any number of paths. Some are long straight-away’s with slalomy bumps
to prevent you from going too fast. Others are shorter, requiring sharp turns
with bursts of speed in between. Yet some others have high half-arcs (similar
to a skateboarding halfpipe) on alternating sides of the trail, where you can
whip your ATV and roostertail some sand at no one in particular.
(Hanging out in the trail system)
General rule of thumb is you take turns leading the others
through the side paths. Depending on the skill and creativity of the leader,
this generally leads to some of the more fun and satisfying runs of the day.
With such a large group, fracturing may occur, as it did a handful of times, at
which point we generally regroup at the mouth of the particular trail.
When we weren’t on the side trails, we made for the larger
dunes, banshee-style. We daisy-chained it to certain areas, where two or even
more large dunes intersected. Some of the more interesting places we hit up
were essentially bowls: two or three large dunes next to each other, rounding
out a circle, with a flat entrance in the middle. We would take turns burning
it up the side of a dune, only to skid out, throw sand upward, then angle
down the other side of the front face.
Not needing to stop, we could keep on going and repeat the
same motion on the second dune, again racing up and down the front face. This
was great because you could practice new techniques, or in my case, not killing my
quad or getting stuck. You could also take a short break on the flat surface,
watch the other members of the group, and rest your thumb from all of that
accelerating (like a jet-ski, the large and powerful ATV’s are propelled by a
single lever, operated by your right thumb; dudes with small hands like myself
thus sustain great amounts of pain throughout the day. If you want to more
about this, I describe it in detail in my write-up from the previous year). We
would spend ten to fifteen minutes at a time doing this; taking turns traversing the dune
faces, resting, maybe perch up to for a birds eye view of the action.
(Shot of the group from atop a dune. You can see the paths we've created practicing our skills)
The third way we played on the dunes was simple: haul ass
over a straightaway. We had to get from the trails to the larger dunes somehow,
right? Using my GPS device, I registered a top speed of 48 mph, falling just
short of my goal of 50. Still, considering that sometimes sand was getting
kicked into my helmet and ripping through my clothes (felt like this, at
least), that’s not too bad. I’m sure my record run wasn’t into the wind,
though. Sometimes I’d get going so fast that my quad would vibrate violently,
and I’d have to slow down for fear of ejecting my face into the sand. Clever planning
had me wearing my padded bike shorts, as last time, near the end of the day, my
rear end hurt so badly it almost forced me to turn in my bike early. The best pain is that which I'm able to avoid.
And that’s how we did it throughout the day. Up the big
dunes, over the straightaway, into the side trails, back over the straightaway,
up and around the big dunes, hit another side trail, head to the trailer,
repeat, repeat, repeat.
This year Hef and I both brought GoPro action cameras, so
some of the you-had-to-be-there shenanigans were captured on film. Still…they
merit explanation. Some of the highlights were:
·
- Ashley was driving the two-woman Razer with Whitney in the passenger seat. Somehow, and I’ll blame nature for this one, they ended up in a patch of thickets at the bottom of a hill near the entrance to a side trail. Having not seen the incident myself, it became apparent they ran astray of the trails in an errant attempt to avoid running over an armadillo or some other toothy creature. As it was, they were pretty well up in there. Jordan and Hef had came to dig them out, Trotti joining the fray shortly after. It took a significant chunk of time before they were even able to turn the engine on. That’s the thing about getting stuck in sand – first you have to physically lift the ATV out of the rut you’ve created by spinning your tires both forward and reverse. If you’re legitimately stuck, trying to spin your way out never works; you’re just as likely to make the elevator arrive faster by pressing the button multiple times. But you always try. So the Hef dudes pulled the Hef gals out of the sandtrap, and they angled the Razer away safely. Hef, taping everything from the vantage point of his helmet cam, walks uphill and starts his new four-wheeler once again. He kicks it into gear, then immediately begins sliding into the tracks his sisters laid upon their entry into the thicket. As if being pulled by a magnetic force, he slowly glides into the exact same spot he rescued the Razer from. Cut the engine. Dig out the ATV. Kick it into neutral. Slowly slide away from the tarantula of branches and sticks threatening to scratch his new toy. The footage isn’t quite Red Bull and Doritos material, but what it lacked in awesomeness, it completely made up for in hilarity. I’m hoping it made the highlight reel.
- Speaking of highlight real…while I wasn’t there to witness it personally, both Trotti and Zach ran afoul of gravity and tipped their ATV’s. Zach, for his part, was practicing donuts on flat ground and cut one a bit too tight, causing his four wheeler to tip slowly at first, then accelerate past the point of no return, and laboriously, as if guided by a gigantic invisible hand, rotate from four wheels, to two, to none. These ones lack the satisfaction of fast turnover, yet are much safer. They’re also the ones that make you feel silly. Last time I was the only one to drop mine in this manner, so I empathized with my friends. It’s as if we take turns forgetting how to not be idiots. Trotti’s was a bit more violent, and he has the resulting bruise to prove it – a nasty dollar bill size purple reminder on his side. While (sadly) I was unable to witness the event that caused him to turn his ATV, I was fortunate enough to witness him eject his person (all of it) backwards off his quad in an errant attempt to pop a wheelie. As if yanked back by a bungee cord, he shot straight back, while the quad settled in the sand, resting on its back two wheels. The photo below acts as proof for any potential doubters.
- After lunch Jordan decided to pilot the Razer, with Michael acting as navigator, sand surveyor and that guy who throws the peace sign to everyone they burn past. And man did they go fast. Jordan had that thing cooking. On some of the flats, he’d race past me as we approached the trail bottlenecks, and I’d always, happily, cede the path. If I had a rearview mirror, it would have had the following disclaimer: “Objects in this mirror are more terrifying than they appear”. It was a blast following those two as they shredded the trails, kicking up sand indiscriminately and without concern for how far it was displaced from its home.
- Night Moves. As dusk approached, with all but four of us retired to Osama’s bunker for showers and beer, we savored a few final trail runs, Bob Seger-style. The wind was still whipping aggressively, and the fine Oklahoma sand had found a way through my shoes, clothes, goggles and bandanna, and into parts of my body I seldom used. It would take weeks for my body to feel devoid of sand. Still, in an attempt to feel like we got our money’s worth, Jaron, Zach, Hef and I gathered together for one final shebang. I recorded the final 17 minutes of our trek, and it began as the sun was fading and the dunes were orange and yellow, then ended in pitch black, the veil between day and night in Oklahoma apparently as thin as worn out t-shirt with it’s sleeves ripped off. We saw virtually no one during this final run, and the feeling liberated us into some of our most technically brilliant and satisfying attempts of the day. Not unexpected, a full day of duning had left my right thumb (the accelerator) all but useless, forcing me to once again change my grip, use the heel of my palm, other fingers, my left hand and every other band aid remedy I could think of. While my hand hurt (significantly), my mind was as finely tuned as it had been all day. This was by far the fastest we had been racing through the trails all day. Without trying, I perfectly sprayed sand behind me at all the appropriate turns. I accelerated rapidly coming out of the turns and into the straightaway. When necessary, I kicked it up a notch so as to not lose my companions. And I wasn’t alone. All four of us were on point. The leader would legitimately try to lose us, to no avail. It wasn’t that dissimilar from The Matrix, though instead of reading the environment in green and white code, we were seeing everything as one giant sand mirage. Then burning through it, violently kicking up sand, getting major air in the process. That last part might be a bit of an over-exaggeration. We stopped for ten minutes or so to take it all in. Bikes lined up, tired bodies resting on them or in the sand, sun rapidly fading, we had what you might call, “a moment”. Similar to camping, we reached the point where it made sense to stop all activities, take a step back and gush sentimentally over the fact that we’re men, we’re outside in nature, we’re not watching TV, we’re doing something badass that requires a helmet, creating stories for the water cooler. We didn’t need to say all that, really. Just needed to take off the sand-encrusted bandanna, remove the helmet, take a gigantic deep breath and stock up on the mental photography of our surroundings. My destruction-proof digital camera will fill in the gaps. Our broment fading like the sun, we flipped on the headlights for the first time and headed home. By the time we reached our bunker, it was dark as death, headlights bouncing a mesmerizing cadence as the four of us rolled in. The quads were parked in two neat rows under the open-air garage – as we navigated up to the bumper in front of us, it signaled the end of an exciting and physically demanding day.
(Hanging on to the fading sunlight)
- While the aforementioned stories were a grab-bag of great, hilarious, touching and entertaining, nothing was as spectacular as the moment that one Nicholas Bishop Hefner provided for all of us. Sometime after mid-day (on the dunes, you can get away with telling time in general terms, as I’m sure Moses and crew did) there was a split in the daisy chain. Like we always do, we continued riding and assumed we’d run into our forgotten crew as some point. I can’t remember everyone who was behind me (Jordan and Michael were for sure), but I was following Hef like my life depended on it. And it did. OK, it didn’t, but I didn’t want lose sight of him. He guided my Storm Trooper through the trails as he had so many times before, looking ever the professional in his fancy helmet that separated him stylistically from us “renters”. His turns were precise. His rooster tails resembled actual rooster tails. He was in the zone. I’m not sure how I even kept up. Maybe it was fate, because he could not lose me. We ducked through some low-hanging branches and were shot out of a trail at what can be no less than light speed. Hef gunned it instinctively as we approached a steep incline, his motor so loud it made me shudder, and I’m pretty sure I saw a bird fall out of a tree from heart failure. What’s that at the top of the hill? Sitting pretty, no doubt waiting for us to arrive, were Zach, Micah and Chad. Three dudes taking a break from the rigors of the sand, hoping their buddies were close by. We were. Hef shot up and gave them an Oklahoma greeting, working his way dangerously close to them, then quickly cutting the handlebar left to avoid physical contact, leaving a glorious double-rainbow quality arc of sand in their faces. Judging from the replay – yes, miraculously this incident was recorded on the GoPro rigged to my handlebars - you can see the sand cover all three of them at face level, Micah apparently getting the worst of it. I laugh, but not for the last time. To prevent his new quad from hopping over the dune – remember, they were at the top of a crest – Hef tried to stabilize the competing gravitational forces that were now attacking him from all angles. Fail. He went from balancing on two wheels on the right side to two wheels on the left side, and back again – what we call the tipping point – past two wheels, upside down. Hef ejected himself to the side instinctually, luckily not catching a leg, arm or similarly important body part in the process. Inertia on full display, Hef rolled once and caught his back flat on the sand, and as gravity pounded his body deeper into the fine dust, his legs flayed forward, then straight to the sun, saluting it for a brief moment, then came crashing down in resignation. He was not hurt at all, other than some bruising of his pride and feeling sad for his new quad, which, as you can imagine, had never previously situated itself on it’s saddle. I had to lean over and check to ensure I was recording. Oh sweet relief, the on-light was on, capturing the single most awesome moment of the trip.
(Hef's wipeout in all its glory)
There were many other stories throughout the day, and we
recounted them with many a laugh in the sand-and-wind protected trailer,
sipping Frappuccino’s and beers and snacking on granola bars. As always with
Waynoka, in spite of the nasty elements (well, “element”, wind) it was a
glorious day. Our bodies were beginning to tighten up, even before dinnertime,
yet there were nothing but smiles residing on our faces.
(panoramic shot of our crew)
We went to this tiny Mexican restaurant for dinner, and all
but closed them down. The food was great, the beers delicious and American, and
again, we spent our time recounting the day’s various achievements, failures
and everything in between. Ashley told what may be the funniest story of all
time about Hef. So funny, in fact, it can only be communicated through spoken
word. Typing it could cause my laptop to blow up. Don’t believe me, ask him
about it.
(All of us as seen through Trotti's iPhone)
After dinner we didn’t buy any more beer or liquor (in
Oklahoma, liquor sales stop at 9pm), but still had a few to share back at the
bunker. We downloaded the days videos, fast-forwarding through hours worth of
action, searching for just one nugget: Hef’s wipeout. We found it and promptly
watched it no less than 387 times. Like looking at a handlebar mustache, we
laughed harder each time we saw it. Epic.
One by one, we retired to our spots for the night. It would
have been nice to party, yet the combination of a day’s worth of getting thrown
around on a four-wheeler, a couple of beers, heavy Mexican food, and a whole
lot of calories lost laughing proved too much. For me at least; I passed out
with my legs hanging over the side of a reclining chair.
(3/4ths of the Hef clan close to passing out)
Breakfast at the café was delicious as always. I had a nice
conversation with Jordan, Ashley and Whitney about biscuits and gravy, and why
they have to be made a certain way, how most people don’t make them properly,
and that if you’re trying to make a good impression in the Hefner household by
making breakfast, please, for the love of God, do NOT make biscuits and gravy.
Luckily for the staff, they were out of biscuits. We all enjoyed our breakfast.
Hugs and the t-shirt Hef designed were handed out as we
gathered in the café’s parking lot. The possibility of a spring dune trip was
vocalized, and all were on board. Whether or not it stays that way is to be
seen, but after this last adventure, I’ll do my best to not let another couple
of years pass before the next one.
Sand needs to be shredded. Dunes need to be conquered.
Trails need to be created, or at least followed properly. The ten of us know
how to do this better than any ten individuals that I’ve ever met. So why not
us? Why not again? We’ll see you once more, Little Sahara. We’ll ride again. And
in the meantime, we’ll look at the pictures; we’ll watch the videos; we’ll
think of you fondly. And then, when you may have forgotten about us, we’ll be
back. With the $20 pair of goggles we bought. Ready for some action!
(Will he or won't he?)
Also, to read a product-centric viewpoint of our trip on the Garmin blog, click here: http://garmin.blogs.com/my_weblog/2011/11/garmin-products-created-for-your-adventures-and-ours.html
