A few of our members coordinated with the Cars & Coffee which happens pretty much every Sunday in Montecito. Thanks again to Kirk for coordinating the efforts and Jeff who has been coordinating the Cars & Coffee event for 4+ years now.
Thank you everyone ( Jerry and Linda, Kristina, Sebastian and Swifty) who made the effort to support and go to the Pour-Overlander Fundraiser Event on Saturday and display your rigs & trailers on behalf of our club.
It was also great to see those who came and supported by checking out their displays & purchasing some coffee and baked goods. I can attest that the homemade cookies were awesome and Bobby gets the MVP for standing out at the entrance of the parking lot for hours passing out fliers.
Thank you Darrel for organizing and Jerry for the entertainment. That was a great way to start a Sunday.
The Santa Barbara 4WD Club joined the festive spirit of the Goleta Old Town Holiday Parade on Saturday, December 2, 2023. The parade attracted over 1400 participants and more than 70 entrants, including floats, bands, dancers, and of course, Santa Claus.
Our club members decorated their rigs with lights, garland, and Christmas-themed inflatables, creating a dazzling display of four-wheel drive vehicles. Some of the highlights were a Jeep Wrangler with a giant snowman on the roof, a Toyota Land Cruiser with a reindeer antler and a red nose, and a Ford Bronco with a sleigh full of presents in the back.
We had a fun evening joining in the holiday parade festivities, waving to the crowd, honking our horns, and spreading cheer along the traditional route on Hollister Avenue from Orange Avenue to Kinman Avenue. We also enjoyed seeing the other entries, such as the Rockin Double RC Ranch with their horses and wagons, the YARDI SYSTEMS float with a giant snow globe, and the SUMMER SKY dance group with their colorful costumes and choreography.
The Goleta Old Town Holiday Parade is a wonderful community event that celebrates the season and brings people together. We are proud to be a part of it and look forward to participating again next year. Thank you to our member Kirk who organized our club’s participation and the Greater Goleta Santa Barbara Lions Club for organizing this event.
Happy Holidays from the Santa Barbara 4WD Club!
The Santa Barbara 4-Wheel Drive Club again showed support for the City of Santa Barbara and the 99th Annual Fiesta Parade by participating in Friday’s main parade. We had 8 of our club members volunteering to pull the 8 major sponsored floats for the parade.
The Santa Barbara Fiesta parade is considered to be one of the largest equestrian events in the country and is one of the main fun activities for the community during Fiesta week. The parade is attended by thousands of families and tourists lining the Cabrillo parade route along the beach-front.
There were ornate horse-drawn carriages as well as approximately 500 horses in this year’s event. There were also mounted law enforcement officers, dignitaries from around the state, the fiesta Grand Marshal as well as our local Fire Department participating in the parade pulling their usual shenanigans by spraying down the crowd with water at the conclusion of the parade.
All in all, it was fun for everyone.
A few of our club members did an impromptu trip to Pismo State Beach Oceano Campground and Ocean Dunes OHV. Here’s a summary from Sebastian who coordinated the gathering
Saturday we went early had the place mostly for ourselves, we drove around for a couple of hours having a lot of fun
Mid morning or so Jerry and Linda showed up, we spend some time at our break room (we set up the easy up), they went to get a flag and we went to get some more sand. The way over to the drive area was super foggy, but it was clear on the dunes.
We drove around for another couple hours or so, got stuck twice!
Couple of learned lessons: air down to 15 (we were around 18), and take the hills and loose sand with a more speed. Lucky for us Jerry has a winch. The 2nd time we used a rope and that was good enough.
We headed to more compacted once we were mobile again, another Jeepster (new 4xe) joined the group, going around having fun for his first time (with his daughter), he said he got stuck once and some quad folks pushed him out.
For some weird reason he thought we knew our way and he followed us. In any case, we drove around some more, and made our way out towards the beach, avoiding the big hills and drops.
At that point we had enough, so we went to have lunch (and Margaritas). On the way out we saw one of the state park trucks stuck into a huge hole.
The beach area was taken a lot by the high tide. Lots of people around though. On the way out, we saw more emergency vehicles (including a giant tractor, maybe to pull the truck out)
Jerry and Linda drove home after that, we went to have a siesta at the trailer, for dinner we went to a local brewery. It was a lot of fun!
We spent two nights at a campground right at the entrance of the dunes, on Sunday morning we drove to Oso Flaco Lake for a walk around, then packed up and came back to SB.
The Oleson’s hosted our annual club Summer BBQ event again and it was another great event. The weather was awesome up in Buellton that day and good times were had. Many thanks again to Art and Cory for working the grills!
Shared by one members Dick from a recent trip
For those of you that have done my Owens Valley runs I thought you might be interested in seeing what your camp site looks like this year. In the 50+ years I’ve been going there this only the second time I’ve seen water and never this much.
Calico, CA is a great place to go wheeling — plenty of mining history, mild to wild offroad terrain, and also the Calico Ghost Town within a few miles from camp. We had 5 rigs in total — Rob & Dorothy, Doug, Dick, Richard & Christina (and family), Bryan K. Everybody arrived Friday afternoon and evening before dark. It was a pretty mellow night but before sunset went and explored one of the nearby washes to west of camp. That night there was some sounds of thunderstorms and a bit of pitter patter rain.
Saturday was the main day for offroading. The original goal for the day was to complete the “Phillips Road Loop” which would lead us back to our camp where we started. There were some obstacles that were harder than expected, but we all stayed in 2Hi/4Hi most the day. The canyons around Calico are very cool, with varying rock formations, and LOTS of mines everywhere to explore (or drive you vehicle into by accident).
The first stop was at the Kramer Arch. This is natural rock/sand arch that can be driven under but is harder than others in the area — nobody decided to attempt it this trip. After that stop, we were lead into a very cool looking red rock canyon with high walls on both sides. That canyon and road after led us up to Bismark Mine. While at the Mine we spent some time exploring and got a group photo.
From Bismark Mine we decided to finish the loop, which led us clockwise east and then south back towards camp. At least in it’s current condition, this loop is something that most/all 4WD could do as long as vehicle has decent ground clearance.
GPS Stats 11.7 mi Distance 3 hrs 35 min Total Time 2 hrs 17 min Moving Time 1 hrs 18 min Stopped Time
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
