The wind grew stronger during the night and by daylight it was getting somewhat uncomfortable. The trail run proceeded, but the dust was annoying. The photos below are what we saw.
Group members assist at the breakfast chores.
There was tons of food and it was good.
There was a nice 404 camper that came in over night, but I did not get a chance to meet the owners.
Rob's expedition camper. Rob is moving to Boulder, so he stopped by on his way east.
A 416 DOKA.
A very clean 404 fire truck rebuild.
Steve and Debra's new (to them) 1300L camper.
A cute Jack Russell terrier mix. This dog was smart.
One of the several Haflingers that was present. You know what they say: "Two hafs make a whole".
These guys were the caterers for lunch. In the back of their rig is a pizza oven and they made hot calzone sandwiches for about 100 folks high on the hill in the blowing dust.
A nice 712 Pinz ambulance.
A clean 710 Pinz still with OD paint.
Michael James' recently refurbished 416 DOKA.
Jed's truck.
Matt and Nancy's 416.
Mark and Wally in Mark's 1300L
Jed's brother's truck.
Chas' 1250L DOKA.
A nice 406 tug with a DOKA and super-short bed.
Steve and Debra's 1300L camper.
The wind was blowing like crazy, turning the dry lake bed into a dust storm. The dust in camp was just as bad and blew stuff down while we were on our trail ride.
Terry's tire restraint came loose on the trail requiring an immediate repair.
I have to admit that this 404 looked pretty good.
Ron's 416 with Alaskan Camper. Ron was my driver for both days. Thanks Ron for letting me ride with you.
We made a beer stop on the trail, but the wind was annoying.
Steve's camper performed well.
We traveled to a place called "Wall Street" that was the head of a large canyon. Lore has it that the old miners had ladders that allowed them to come up and down the cliffs and would do so after a drunk night in Calico.
The group heads to the lunch site. Once we had a quorum, the caterers fired up the pizza oven and cooked our sandwiches. In the wind!!
After lunch, we headed back to camp. The trail of dust tells the story here.
Dave Dunn's Supacat with my camper in the background.
This shot was a special request by Dave. Dave: if you want the full size image (which is big) contact me and give me an email address.
After we finished packing in Calico, we did the boring drive back to San Diego. Upon our arrival, we discovered that the Miramar MCAS air show was in progress. Our home has a line of sight view of the base, so Kathleen shot some photos of the Blue Angels.
This pass was directly over our house. Interesting, but very noisy.
As you can tell, they were pretty close.
One of the pilots forgot to turn on his smoke or the smoke generator failed.
The fourth plane is still not putting out smoke.
A nice coordinated dive maneuver.
One last loop for the crowd.
Going in for a landing. Note that the landing gear is down.
We had a great time at MogFest. Thanks to Alan Draper for his efforts in driving the whole affair and arranging things -- it is greatly appreciated.
As for our road trip, we were out 66 days in total, covering about 8,000 miles. I say "about" since my odometer decided to go on vacation about half way through the trip. Our mileage was an estimate from a PDA's equivalent of Google Maps and overall fuel consumption. We saw some spectacular things and lots of open country. Would I do it again? Hell, yes! Only next time, without the hub failure.
I hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I enjoyed the trip.
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2008, all rights reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.