Dune Buggying
Patty's persperctive
Bob
talked me into renting a dune buggy to explore the beautiful Oregon Dunes
just outside of fabulous Florence. It was a wild and white-knuckling experience.
After signing our lives away and getting fitted for thickly padded crash helmets and goggles, we anxiously listened to the 101 rules (i.e. no rolling the dune buggy, no resting on the loose sand on the lip, watch out for others, scout your path if possible to avoid unseen dangers, and many others). We then crawled through the paint chipped steel bars of our neon-lime colored buggy and buckled the shoulder, waist and crotch straps, I was beginning to feel that agreeing to do this was a BIG mistake.
We roared down the bumpy, winding narrow path to the biggest sand dunes I have ever seen. Sitting so close to the ground and looking up at them is intimidating. Actually, riding in a dune buggy with Bob doesn't give one a secure feeling under any circumstances. We raced up and over a few high dunes at full speed looking almost like professionals. Me praying and often screaming; him with a high-testosterone grin on his face. I saw the look in his eyes, he was out of control.
We
flew up and almost over one that looked like certain death. As we slammed
on the brakes and looked straight down into the pits of hell, we knew
we just used up another one of our nine lives. The wheels were buried
in the loose sand while we teetered on the brink of death. In order to
prevent us from unwillingly somersaulting off of the cliff, Bob had to
physically lift the front of the buggy to turn it around. We broke most
of the 101 rules, that was just one of them.
Every time I opened my mouth to scream, my mouth was sprayed with gritty sand . After a few more abrupt turns, drops and airborne experiences our time was up. Bob had the look of a conqueror while I had fear in my eyes and a mouth full of sand. We were both ready to head back down the path to civilization, glad to have survived our first wild ride in the DDD's (Death Defying Dunes).