April Chapter Ride - Joshua Tree/Box Canyon

A perfect day was had by all.  That sums it up. It seems that everyone is getting there earlier and earlier.  Maybe they were really looking forward to the ride – I know I was, the pre-ride was great so I knew it would be a great ride.  It was great to see two new riders (Duane Margut and Steve Dalbey) and Socorro Sandstrum, who was riding with Glenn Sandstrom – oh and Mike Valentine who we haven’t seen for a little while.  All totaled 35 showed up just for the meeting.  

A quick meeting with lots of news.  Chuck Giambitti has stepped down as Chapter Vice-President and Scott Hamilton has graciously stepped in to the position and replacing Scott as Treasurer is Rick Sanecki.  Scott and Rick performed some sort of bump transfer with each other (you had to be there) and all was set.  Evan Brown was presented by Glenn Sandstrom with a long deserved rocker as a Tailgunner.  Congrats everyone on their new positions!  Amazingly, there were no Birthdays this month that anyone would admit to, so we didn’t have to hear ourselves sing.  Lots of news about how we have so many people going on our overnighters that the hotels are selling out.  Going to be great fun.  

A great raffle and 50/50 with Glenn Sandstrom, Mike Fry, Linda Montgomery, Paul McInerny and Richard “Taz” Green winning some really nice raffle gifts. Tod Withey won $49.00 in the 50/50. Congrats!

After a second headcount we broke our 32 riders and 26 bikes into three groups with myself, Scott Hamilton and Dan Dobler leading.  There was some joking that my group was going to Death Valley – wonder if that’s why I had the best group lol.  

We pulled out and headed up the 57 to the 91 and out to the 10 through Banning, then out to the 62 with our first gas stop in Yucca Valley.  When we started out it was a cool 68 degrees, by Yucca Valley it was in the 80’s.  Lots of layers were shed at this gas stop.  We continued down through Yucca Valley, 29 Palms and into Joshua Tree were we stopped at Santana’s Mexican restaurant for lunch.  

I was amazed at how well they handled all of our orders with little issue other than where were the napkins.  The food there is really great.  Mostly though our group was more than entertained by the gumball and goodie machines – many Our Lady of Guadalupe jewelry, temporary tattoos and of course the fake mustaches were purchased.  Now here is where our chapter proves just how much fun we can have.  Both Rick Sanecki and Glenn Sandstrom were brave enough to model the fake mustaches – Rick sporting a short gray mustache which aged him about 30 years and Glenn who put on a black handlebar mustache and added two short black mustaches as eyebrows.  He looked like Super Mario lol.  I haven’t laughed that hard in a really long time.  You need to check out the Facebook page and look at the pictures.  

Now if you rode with us to Vegas for the StarBQ or if you were on the pre-ride you know about the guy in the purple convertible that we always see around Yucca Valley.  Of course we saw him  - actually more of him than we wanted as he decided to strip down to his shorts in the parking lot of the restaurant while we were saddling up.  

Once we were all together we started out into Joshua Tree.  The toll is supposed to be $5 per bike, but they obviously liked the fact that we had several National Park passes in our group and the let us in for $5 total.  We rode about 10 miles into the park and found a great place to stop, park and take pictures.  Could not have asked for a more beautiful day.  Got a great group shot of everyone!  

We continued on through the park and for the most part the road was really great, unfortunately they are doing some road repair and for a good 10-15 miles we were offroading a bit.  Everyone made it through without any issues.  We continued on through the park and then through Box Canyon.  We stopped in Mecca for gas and to see if Glen still had his mustache on – it had melted off since the temps had risen to around 90 degrees.  

Back on the bikes and down the 10 to the 60 to the 57 and back to El Torito!  A little bit of conversation and then the ride was called.   Next stop – Laughlin!!!