The Annual Dune Buggy Vacation

Every year for the past 11 years, we have loaded up the Dune Buggy with our camping gear, luggage and a few spare parts and driven to Big Bear Lake, California for the Manx Dune Buggy Club's "Big Bear Bash." This is not only our favorite event of the year, it is also, usually, our only vacation of the year. The Big Bear Bash is a three day event, starting Friday at 2:00 p.m. and ending the following Sunday at around noon. In those few hours, we set up camp, go out to dinner, take in a movie, do some shopping, drive around on the back roads above Big Bear Lake, talk to other buggy enthusiasts, have an awards presentation and raffle, go for a walk, enjoy the mountains, breathe the fresh air, breathe the dusty air (when we're on the back roads), tear down camp, repack the buggy and drive back down the hill. We always have fun.

Part of what makes this a fun weekend, is that I have almost always succeeded in making the car mechanically reliable for the trip. To do that, I change the oil, check the wheel bearings, give it a tune-up, install the skid plate, replace the fuel filter, clean out the crankcase breather system, and try to anticipate whatever else might become a problem and fix it before that can happen. As I said, I almost always succeed. One year, the rear brake shoes where too thin and I ended up doing some serious damage to the brake drums before I got back home. Another year, as we were driving up a washboard road, the muffler fell off of the car. I quickly stopped, ran back and grabbed it, threw it into the car and kept going. During the lunch stop that day, I reinstalled the muffler. Most years, though, we've not had any mechanical problems at all.

We also have to get our camping gear ready for the trip. For the first 9 years of this annual event, we took along an old tent that has been in my family for 40 years or more. It was a great tent in its time and served us well, but by now it has seen its better days. So, for the last two years we've been trying out some new tents. Last year's purchase, an inexpensive dome-shaped model proved to be too small for the air mattresses we bought at the same time. Oh, they fit inside the tent alright, but that's all that would fit inside. We had wall-to-wall air mattresses last year with no room inside for anything else, which meant that all our other gear had to be stored inside the car for the night. Since we don't trailer the dune buggy, but instead load all our gear onto the car and drive it up to Big Bear, this meant lots of transferring back of forth of all our stuff. This year, we found a bigger tent at just about the right price and we're going to give that a try. I set it up in the yard the other day and it looks like it'll be just the right size.

We always take lots of pictures at dune buggy events, so we pack cameras, too. Two years ago, we learned that the trail dust can somehow find its way inside of the expensive camera lenses, so we use the good camera for shots around camp and when we're not moving, and a less expensive camera for shots on the trail. My wife, Carol, takes action shots from the passenger seat while I drive. We've gotten some really great shots in years past. Those years where there had been recent rains gave us especially good shots of the cars splashing through puddles and shallow creeks. We don't mind getting the car muddy, but we do try to keep the photography equipment dry if we can. Last year, we got some nice, if short, videos from the trail with our FlipVideo camera. Unfortunately, the batteries went dead on the trail. This year I will be sure to pack lots of extra batteries for the video camera so that we don't have a repeat of that problem.

The weather for the Big Bear weekend this year is predicted to be sunny and mild with no rain in the forecast, but you never know when it might rain in the mountains. Sometimes an afternoon shower shows up and wets down the dust. We always pack a couple of fold-up plastic rain ponchos, just in case. They've come in handy a couple of times and we were glad we had them when they did. So far, the upcoming weekend is shaping up to be one of the best ever. We're looking forward to seeing old friends, making some new ones, getting the car dirty, and having lots of fun in the mountains. I'll let you know how it went when we get back.