Written by our club member Jeff W.
Hello fellow Off-Roaders
Well, the 2023 TDS Desert Safari week is over, and although not many of us made it, those that did had a blast!!
Here is the wrap-up:
Ken got there first on Wednesday afternoon followed by Steve and Trevor that evening and Renee arriving just before midnight. Paul got there Thursday afternoon and Austin and Dylan got to camp on Friday. Bryan Slattery showed up Friday night and wheeled with everybody Saturday and came back to Santa Barbara Saturday night. Bryan took some nice pictures and videos that he has shared on the club website.
The weather was great every day, T-shirts, and shorts once the sun warmed things up a bit.
There was a slight breeze every day, but almost unnoticeable, and the only time the wind came up was Saturday night, about 6 o’clock, but it wasn’t unbearable. The guys that left for a night run at about 8 o’clock that night, said that once they got into the back country, they couldn’t feel much of a wind at all.
For the most part, everybody’s wheeled together, mostly in the north part of the Truckhaven area…. Farther out into that northern area than we normally go. And according to Steve, they never even headed over to the Ocotillo area at all.
Steve, Trevor, Renee, Austin, and Dylan went on night runs Friday night and Saturday night…. Getting back to camp about three in the morning each night.
There were way fewer attendees to this TDS event week than normal, maybe even half as many, which made it really easy to get around and find areas where hardly anyone was.
The T-shirt vendor was set up in the store on the opposite side of S86 from the Am/Pm gas station. And although it was advertised that there would be about 50 vendors, there were only about 15 and those vendors weren’t very interesting according to our group.
Also, this year, the groups that were camped on either side of us the last couple years did not show up and the closest music was about a half a mile away, and they quit playing their music about 9 o’clock at night. So things were quite enjoyable from that perspective.
Our folks brought plenty of firewood and so the time to sitting around campfires was good. Also, good, was that nobody got hurt and everybody had fun. The only mishap was on Saturday night when Dylan attempted to climb the right hand side of the ash cliffs on the front side of telephone booth hill, and he ended up flopping his 4-Runner on its side. Due to where it was, it was almost impossible to get any proper winching points, and it was in such a position that in an attempt to winch it upright, it ended up rolling completely over. It broke out all the windows, and of course he’ll have to decide whether to rebuild it or take the goodies off it and put them on another rig. Again, and fortunately, he did not get hurt, and it was on the last night of the weekend, so he didn’t miss any wheeling and everybody got back to camp safely.
All in all a good time was had by everybody, and we hope that more people will join up next year for the fun!!
Happy trails