5/27/10 -  The next trip is going to be the Memorial Weekend

Where did everyone go?  We had a great start to the riding season last October with new faces and new friends joining us and then we hit 2010 and everyone got busy.  Well let’s see if we can make the end of this riding season a good one by getting everyone out again on Memorial Weekend.  Memorial day is Monday May 31st this year, we are planning on heading out the afternoon of Friday the 28th , to where I have no idea at this point (thinking Johnson Valley / Dove Springs) but we are definitely heading out on a riding trip.    

If you think you can make this trip please let me know, I would like to see you all again before the long hot summer takes our riding time away.

Also, if you are interested some of us are doing a little “surf and turf” trip this year.   We are heading out to Parker California on June 19th – 26th for some desert riding and jet skiing/boating.  We plan to ride in the morning till it gets too damn hot and then cool off in the Colorado river all afternoon playing on Jet skis and boats.  If this sounds like fun to you and you’re interested, join us for a great time.  We are staying at the “Big Bend” resort, we have reserved spaces 128 -134 already, so book your spot now as close to us as possible.  You can call Big Bend resort at 760-663-3755.

One last thing, if you are into racing or like being a spectator there is the Mammoth Motocross coming up in June as well.  It might be a great place to go ride as well as taking in a little racing with the family.  If you are interested take a look at the website http://www.mammothmotocross.com/ and then do a “reply all” to see if anyone else is interested.  I would go up, but it is the same week as the River trip so I will already be out riding, just is a much warmer environment. 

I will keep this update short, if you are interested in any of these trips please let me know or just reply to the group.  Hope to see you all on the Memorial weekend trip!

Dates to Remember:

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE! The next trip is going to be MLK Weekend on January 15th - 18th

Well the next trip is right around the corner, literally in two weekends so don't unpack the RV yet. Change the oil in the bikes and clean the air filters because we are heading out again in 10 more days. The group decided at the New Years trip to head back to Calico for some riding and Jeepin' and I am hoping that everyone will be joining us again and for those of you who didn't make it out for New Years hopefully you can join us on this next trip.

The New Years trip was great; we had a good turn out and had some great new friends join us for the week. Dave it was great seeing you again and meeting your family (Jeanette, Sydney and Riley). Once again there was an incredible fireworks show on New Years and most were able to stay up for the show at midnight, only the little kids and old people fell asleep. The only issue we had was that two more of our Desertriders.org signs ended up missing again, we seem to be losing at least once sign a trip these days. Time to make some new signs up and put some GPS locators on them.

We did not end up in our usual spot, but we did end up on the dry lake bed which I think worked out even better for us. The kids had a great time riding around and we ended up with a couple of stars for the weekend. Lucas and Isabelle both ended up riding from Cuddeback Dry lake to Randsberg, Lucas rode the entire way on the 50 with training wheels and Isabelle rode the 90 quad. I am glad to see I have a little rider in the family and they both made it the 19 miles to Randsberg without any problems. Great job kids!

We made a couple group rides and a few of us ended up taking our bikes down the gauntlet, there are some pictures of the rocks we carried the bikes over and down. It was not a fast ride but it was adventurous and we all had a good time.

I have uploaded the pictures I got from everyone and I am still waiting on the pictures from Dennis, once I get those I will add them to the site as well.

Directions to Calico can be found here. I am not quite sure of where we are going to camp but keep an eye out for the Desertriders.org signs once you get there.

See everyone in a two weeks!

Dates to Remember:

New Years on December 28th - January 3rd!

Sorry it has taken a week to get something on the website, but as I am sure you all know work can be crazy at times especially after being gone for a week. I did manage to get an email out last Sunday to everyone and hopefully you have seen it. I would like to thank Ted and his family as well as Bill and his family for coming out and meeting our group and giving us a try.  It was great meeting everyone and we look forward to seeing more of both your families, that is if we did not scare you off. :)  We had a great time as expected, although we did not predict how busy the Spangler Hills campsite was going to be we still had a great time and everyone was able to find us.  The big group ride to the pinnacles was longer than expected, but when you have that large a group things go slowly, all in all I think everything had a great time and I am looking forward to the New Years trip. 

So now on to the New Years trip,  I heard quite a few people ask where we were going and they proposed a new location.  We usually head out to Cuddeback Dry Lake bed for New Years, but I am open to anyplace, so if you have someplace new that you would like to go please let me know and we can put it to a group vote. 

Here are the locations I heard.

Cuddeback Dry Lake Bed
Calico
Dove Springs
Ocotillo Wells
Cal City
Penguin Rock
Charlies Place

As usual if you don’t not send me back an email with a recommendation or a vote on one of the above locations your default vote is for Cuddeback.  I plan on heading out on the New Years trip on the 28th or 29th,  so that gives us three weeks to figure out what the plans are.  I know we all get super busy around this time of the year with all the holidays, but please try and get back to me so we can get everything figured out.   Keep in mind that the MLK weekend trip is only 6 weeks away!

Pictures should be up in the next week or so as long as some video that Ted took of one of the rides. I would haveit up soone, but twith all this snow I am heading to Mammoth Mountain on Thursday! Yeah me, call lme if you want to join me!

Thanksgiving on November 23rd - 29th!

Hey everyone, it's time to find out who will be coming out for the Thanksgiving trip and what the plans are this year.
I had previously sent out an email asking if everyone was good to go to Spangler Hills this year for Thanksgiving and I heard a lot of yes' from everyone, so the plan is to head there and camping out in an area that might be new for some of you. Spangle Hills is north of Randsburg and east of Dove Springs, lots of great riding and close to Jeep trails too. So unless I hear any opposition to this Spangler Hills is the plan. I will send out better directions and locations once I have some more time and it figured out.

Last year turned out great and we had a lot of incredible food and I would like to repeat that if possible. In order to do that we are going to need you to let us know if you are a.) coming on this trip b.) if you would like to participate in the Pot Luck Thanksgiving dinner and c.) what you are planning to bring.

Poker Run update:
Well after almost everyone cancelled on the annual Poker Run weekend event Crash, Ditch'em, Trevor and I did manage to go out to Gorman for a day ride. Other than Trevor getting into a head on and Jason (his new nickname is Ditch'em ) leaving him there hurting, broken down and alone the trip was uneventful. We had to send Jason back to find Trevor and discover what was going on only to have some stranger pull up and tell Crash and I there had been an accident. So things to keep in mind for the next time we ride, if no one is behind you don't have Jason in front of you cause you might just get left behind.

See you in a few weeks!

Poker Run on October 23rd - 25th!

So we have a decision to make, do we attend the Poker Run this October or do we pass it up and go someplace else? Since we (I really mean Aida) are not participating as much as we have in the past due to some indiscretions we found with the donations, do we want to still attend this event or take the opprtunity to go someplace else that is not as busy and dusty? During the last outing we had up at Kennedy Meadows we discussed the next few trips and some suggestions came up that I want to propose to everyone.

October - Instead of going to the Poker Run we go to Johnson Valley for some riding & Jeeping

November - Thanksgiving we head to Spangler Hills (just North of Randsburg).

December - New Years we head to Cuddeback or Dove Springs

January - MLK Weekend we go to Calico

So let me know your thoughts on these trips and where you would like to go. If you don't reply back I will take it that everyone is good with these locations.

Kennedy Meadows Trip - For those of you who could not make the Kennedy Meadows Trip, here is a 360 Degree view of what the area looked like from one of the Fire Towers. The riding was incredible and challenging, we had a great time out there and if you couldn't make it you missed out. I have quite a few pictures I am working to get up on the web site, so keep checking back to see the pictures.

The next trip is going to be on Memorial Weekend, May 22nd - 25th!

Sorry I have not sent out an email earlier, I have been working 70 hours a week and not had any time to update the web site or send out an email. So this is going to be quick post just to see who is coming this weekend to Dove Springs.  We talked last trip about Dove Springs so I hope that is still good with everyone.  I know there are a few of us heading out on Friday, but wanted to make sure we had a good idea of who was going to make it this weekend. 

In anticipation of all that I have going on at work I am including a list of trips for the next year so everyone knows what the plans are for the year, I will still try and send out an email and update the web site as well.  This list includes all the riding trips as well as other trips to lakes and skiing up in Mammoth.  You are all more than welcome on any of the non riding trips, I just had to plan out my the rest of the year for my vacation time and figured I would share it with everyone.  If you come up to Dove Springs this weekend we can all talk more about these trips.  If I have not seen you in a while and you are not joining us this weekend you can email about any of these trips.  If we have not seen you in a while (Addison), I think it’s time you start making time to go riding.  We are not getting any younger! 

Hope to see you all out there!

4/07/09 - The next trip is going to be the Barstow Poker Run

I know I have not been very active in updating everyone lately with what is going on in regards to our riding trips, but I am finally bringing you some news.   Sorry about not getting back to everyone, work has been killing me lately.

The Barstow Poker Run is upon us again (see flyer), the dates are Saturday April 25th and Sunday the 26th. I will be heading out on Friday the 24th and hopefully we get to see you out there.  If you plan on coming out please let me know so we can keep an eye out for you.

Memorial Weekend is May 23rd to the 25th, so plan on going out, where I have no idea since no one has made any suggestions but as always if you have someplace in mind let me know so we can start planning that trip.  You can cast your vote here or just send me an email.
Trip to Lake Lopez, Trevor is planning a trip to Lake Lopez in the near future, it’s a great lake for fishing and Pismo Beach is only 20 minutes away.   There is a water park open during the summer and it’s a great place for the kids to play.   If you are interested in joining him on this trip please send him an email.

A Message from Crash Thompson!   “For the past few years we have been talking about planning a 1 to 1.5 week long trip to Moab, UT.  We would like to actually do it this year.  We are thinking mid to Late June so kids would be done with school for the year.   Who would be interested in going and would those dates work for everyone?  Let Courtland or myself know if you are interested and which dates would work for you, if the dates listed are not options.The plan is to stay at camp grounds with full hook-ups and other family activities with easy access to riding and jeep trails.”

So if you are up for any of these riding times please let me know and keep in mind we are also planning some other camping trips that include riding and non-riding to various locations.  Send me an email or give me a call if you want more information.

2/03/09 - Uploaded Video and pictures from the Dads Ride trip last weekend.

1/07/09 - The next trip is going to be on Presidents Weekend, Febuary 13th - 16th!

For the next trip location I believe we discussed going to Dove Springs, if there is someplace other than Dove Springs you want to go to please let me know. But for now plan on going to Dove Springs, I believe most of us will be heading out on Friday.

We had a great time out at Johnson Valley, I think those of us that had not been there in a long time forgot just how big Johnson Valley really is. In three days I dont think we covered even a quarter of the available riding area. We had no real problems other than a couple broken covers on two bikes which we JB Welded so we could ride the rest of the weekend, you can see the damage in some of the pictures. If you took any pictures or video and want to share them with everyone please get them to me. I think we need to try and make it back out to Johnson Valley before summer gets here if possible, we need to figure out a weekend to go so if you have any recommendations of when please let me know.

I created a new Videos section. I have put up some of the videos that some of us have taken so be sure to check them out. Be patient, I do not have a streaming web server so they take a while to load up.

I also added all the pictures I took from the trip to Johnson Valley, there is a great picture of Jamie going down and Scott... well being Scott.

Upcoming Trips

• Feb 13th - 16th - Presidents Weekend
• March - Open for a riding trip (Maybe Glamis?).
• March 24th - 31st - Colorado River (Parker Dam)
• April 25 - 26th - Barstow Poker Run.
• May 22nd - 25th - Memorial Weekend.
• June - River or Havasu trip?

1/07/09 - MLK Weekend Trip , January 16th to the 19th!

For the next trip location we decided to go to Johnson Valley for MLK weekend, it’s off the 247. Here is some info from Google Maps "Johnson Valley is run by the Bureau of Land Management. Johnson Valley is the second largest OHV area in the California desert and contains some of the most diverse landscapes. Elevations range from 2,290 to 4,640 feet above sea level. The rolling hills, steep mountains, open valleys, dry lake beds and sand dunes of Johnson Valley invite exploration by OHV riders. Johnson Valley is easily accessible. From I-15, take Bear Valley Rd eastbound. Travel east to hwy 247 and then north on Camp Rock Rd. The entire trip is paved roads until you go the last 4 miles. That is on a well groomed (bulldozed) dirt road. 5th wheels and toy haulers can get in/out with no problems."  So if you can make this trip please let me know so we can keep an eye out for you.

The New Years Trip was great, I hope everyone had a great time and enjoyed the fireworks show. I have added the pictures I took from this trip and if you took pictures or videos please make sure you get them to me so we can share them with everyone else. Other than once again losing one of our DesertRiders.org signs to thieves we had no problems and no breakdowns. It was another great trip and I look forward to seeing everyone on the next trip.

We are looking at going to the AMA SuperCross in Anaheim on Feb 7th, of you are available and interesting in going please let me know so we can get tickets for everyone in the same seating section. We are planning on getting tickets in the next week, so if you could let me know soon it would be appreciated.

The next trip after this MLK Weekend trip will be the Presidents weekend trip Feb 13th to the 16th.  I believe we are also looking at doing a Kennedy Meadows and Ocotillo Wells trip this year and trying out some other riding spots we have not been to in a long time.  So keeping checking for more trip information.

Added more pictures from Tiffany from the the Thanksgiving trip. Make sure you check them out.

12/04/08 - Added more pictures from the Thanksgiving trip. Make sure you check them out.

12/02/08 - The New Years Trip to Cuddeback Dry Lake is 12/27/08 to 1/3/09!

The next trip will be over New Years at Cuddeback Dry Lake bed. Hopefully Larry and/or Jerry will come through with some more fireworks so we can have another spectacular show for New Years Eve. If you plan on coming out please let me know so we can plan accordingly. More details will be coming shortly about this trip.

Thanksgiving trip details - We had another great Thanksgiving trip and I wanted to say thank you to everyone for making it a great trip with an incredible Thanksgiving dinner. We ended up with about 40 people for dinner, but we had more than enough food for everyone and everything was delicious.

We had a few new faces this trip, hopefully we did not scare them too much and they decide to come out with us again. It was a pleasure meeting everyone and we hope to see you again soon.

Unfortunately we did have one accident, Cali was airlifted out and ended up with a broken collar bone but I hear he is doing fine. There were a few other problems (Trevor’s Suburban took a dump, Larry forgot his trailer keys, I forgot the Jeep keys), but we got them all sorted out, everyone made it out and we ended up having a good time.

If you took any pictures please send them to me and I will get them up on the website to share with everyone. I have the pictures up that I took as well as the ones Aida took, so make sure you check them out. Tiffany took some video and as soon as I get that I will figure out how to put it up to share with everyone.

Well we finally really tested the Jeeps out by going up some canyons and down some really tough canyons with some good size drops. We all made it out after dark with no broken parts, just a few bent pieces on Bill Jeep. Time to start upgrading Bill!

See you over New Years and have a Happy Holidays everyone!

11/03/08 - The Thanksgiving Trip to Calico is 11/25/08 to 11/30/08!

Since we can no longer camp on the or by the dry lake bed Larry offered to head up and scout out some areas to make sure we get a good spot that can accommodate everyone coming.  So if you plan on coming please let me know so we can ensure we get a spot big enough.  As far as when everyone is heading out I know some of us are going out early Thanksgiving week and some will be coming on Friday after Thanksgiving. 

I will be heading out on Tuesday 11/25, and we will put up the DesertRiders.org signs to make sure everyone can find us. In anticipation of our usual Thanksgiving feast we are trying to get everything figured out so we know who is bringing what for Thanksgiving dinner, so let me know what you are bringing or would like to bring.

I sent out an email to the group, but in case I missed someone please make sure everyone knows about this trip and if you have any questions please eihter call me or send me an email.

Old News