Sunday morning found the Alpine SoCal family enjoying another continental breakfast courtesy of our fine rally hosts.  Another warm and sunny day was on tap.

After our continental breakfast, coffee, and chit-chat… folks started  heading off to begin their individual planned activities for the day.

As we headed back to our coach, we met a couple of our fellow Alpiners returning from their morning hike.  Jack had returned to “The Crack” to conquer the route he had attempted the day before.  I reported in my last post that Jack turned around yesterday when confronted with the dry waterfall “cliff” that I wrote about.  This time, he reported that they had conquered the canyon and had basically taken the same return route that we did.

This park has some very neat trails, hopefully we can get the opportunity in the future to check out some of the others.

However, we had already decided to spend the day checking out the ATV trails on the east side of US 95 that we’d heard so much about.  There was reportedly a massive network of riding trails waiting to be explored.

David Guhse took a photo of us – all geared up and ready to go…

We put little “Coach” in his doggie back pack and after a short drive through the residential area across from the SARA (Special Activities and Recreation Area) Park where we are staying, we soon hit the network of trails and were on our way.

Luckily, we had taken our hand-held Garmin GPS so we can find our way back by following our “bread-crumbs”.  Otherwise, with the many forks and criss-crossing trails, we might still be trying to find our way back 🙂

Lots of beautiful desert scenery:

After stopping at a particularly difficult section – deep in one of the many valleys.  We decided to stop to eat the lunch (sandwiches) that Stilla had packed for us.

We were soon joined by another couple that were out exploring on their Can-Am ATVs.  They are also staying at the SARA Park to enjoy the fireworks.  Since we also have a Can-Am ATV, we already had something in common.  We chatted with them while we had lunch and they shared the location of a mine that they had just found.

They were also carrying along their own little dog, so Coach had someone to talk with as well, while we ate lunch.

After our lunch break, we followed the directions our new acquaintance(s) had given us and soon found the abandoned mine.

It turns out there were at least three separate mines in the immediate vicinity.  We walked a little ways from the ATV to check them all out.

Here’s a few pics of some holes in the ground… in case you didn’t know what those look like 🙂

I dropped a rock into this one and never even heard it hit bottom.

More holes:

We used the GPS to keep us on somewhat on track but took an alternate route to get back near our starting point.

What a cool area… so much to explore… definitely have to come back here.

We made it back without incident with plenty of time to spare before our scheduled chicken dinner, also courtesy of our rally hosts.

Here’s some fellow Alpiners enjoying their chicken dinners.

Looks good, doesn’t it?  Tasted good too!

After dinner, we had our general membership meeting to discuss old and new business.  We successfully dodged (I think) being nominated to  host any future rallies.  Unfortunately, we just don’t know what our long-term plans are until we can get the house sold, and can’t afford to make any commitments just yet.

Our rally hosts (Nick & Ramona Escamilla) and co-hosts (David & Nicole Guhse) now officially get an A+ rating for their outstanding performance… after the meeting they broke out “make-your-own sundaes” with all the fix in’s.

Everyone crowded in for the dessert.  No one was to be denied.

What a treat!  I topped mine with the Snickers crumbles as well as the Butterfinger’s chips… yumm.

And what better way to enjoy our dessert than with some more fireworks!

Yes, it’s official… you can get tired of fireworks.  After 4 nights – they were still spectacular but were wearing on us just a little.  Even little Coach hardly noticed them at all tonight.

It’s been a great rally!  A big thank you to our host(s), co-host(s), and all the great Alpine Coach Association members!  Tomorrow morning everyone will be going their separate ways… see you down the road 🙂

Stay tuned to see where we end up next… even we don’t know.