California Dunes

Wind blown sand is hard to keep out of your eyes when It's coming from a smooth dune buggy tire spinning down the beach. I loved going with Dad and his friends when they were called out to look for people who became lost. It was a massive area and it was very easy to become lost with nothing out there but white sand. I remember on the fourth of July there were hundreds of people and hundreds of dune buggies hoards camping all along from Pis mo Beach ramp all the way to Muscle Rock which was a stretch about two miles long .

p style="font-family: georgia;" align="left"> We would drive up and down the beach, looking for buggies stuck in the surf or people who ran out of gas, or even needing a jump. Dad had a 56 Studebaker 440 along with a three quarter racing cam I really don't remember what all of that meant but I know it was fast. Dale a good friend of dads painted the name "limping Lena" on the back of the gas tank. The frame of the buggy was 3 inch tubing the same with the roll-bars that ran from the firewall over the passenger area. We had a second dune buggy we pulled out of storage when we finally arrived at the apartment Mom and Dad owned .

Finally with all of us loaded into the dune buggies we headed out to the dunes. At times I got to drive, the Packard once dad had it on the beach I loved it especially at night, sitting around the camp fire listening to the waves crashing, on the rocks as the tide rolled into shore . The next morning on the forth of July there were races against different types of dune buggies the only two types I remember were v8 engines known as water pumpers and the other was air cooled like the VW's which were becoming popular in the early sixties .

I still hear the waves crashing among the jagged rocks and it sends my mind flashing to memories of Muscle Rock.

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