Ugly background colors?
Tom moving through the sand at high speed. While taking these pics I rode it hard wide open for about 1/2 mile while Lisa snapped the pics. When I came in to rest the machine and myself, Lisa asks me about the smoke from the Pilot!?! SMOKE? FIRE?! Seeing how she was to be no help in the situation, I made an exit from the Pilot that DunePilot would have a tough time topping! It turns out to only be the naugahyde on my new seat heating up from the pipe. BTW: This new seat is very comfy for us larger folks. It is made by Beard and I got it from CW Racing(408-371-0644). Worth every dollar(275 of them).
And YES! We did tango with the Rangers at Little Sahara this time. There are two camps there, a south(the main one) and a north(the overflow). After most folks clear out on Sunday afternoon, they close up the north one and lock up the bathrooms. We rode into the north camp to use the restrooms(The pilot can really rattle your bladder around) and find them locked up already. There were people still camped there but they were locked up. No problem, we could just go to the Ampride(we needed gas in the Lakota anyways). We took it slow along the trail beside the road and found the snake run to the gas station/Millers cafe to be closed. We saw the sign that prohibits ORV from using the highway and figured we would just loop around it and head through the parking lot. No problem, we gas up and Lisa finds the always needed potty. Going back in was a different story. The ranger is blocking the road with his truck and hops out with ticket book in hand! He starts his rants about the fines and vehicle impoundments. I knew we had screwd up and went along with him, agreeing to everything. Luckily this was a younger ranger and I explained the low gas/full bladder/locked bathroom problem. He eventually smiled and let us go. Apparently the snake run is on private property and the owner got greedy. Jr ranger told us the owner wanted $5000 a year from Ampride and Miller's to keep the gate open. Apparently they told him where he could go because the gate was locked up tight!
We had a lot of fun, we did not freeze/crash/ or go to jail so it was a good outing.
:-)