09/02/2026
DUNE GOONS DAILY — Tuesday, September 2, 2026
NEW CAMP, SAME GOONS, MORE FIREWOOD THAN SENSE
Labor Day weekend is here, some of you are already on the sand, and we’ve moved the whole operation. Read this part twice so we don’t have four rigs circling the old spot at dusk with their high beams in everybody’s eyes.
Where we’re at. Same entrance you always use to get on the sand. Instead of going straight out, hang a right and stay along the bark path. Follow it down and we’re on the right, in the trees, by the grass. If you hit sand you went too far and you’re now on a scenic tour. Turn around, come back, look for the fire and the flags.
Payton McKnight took one for the team and is already parked out there with a couple of Goons holding the spot down. That man is out there sleeping in the trees on a Tuesday so the rest of us can roll in Friday afternoon like we planned anything. Buy him a beverage. Buy him two. He is currently the most important person in this organization and he knows it.
Firewood: we’ve got more than a cord. Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night. We are not rationing. If you show up Sunday and the fire is small, that’s a personnel problem, not a supply problem.
The party is Saturday night. Rides all weekend, but Saturday is the big one. Bring a chair, bring something to share, bring the friend who says they’re “not really a dune person” and let the sand handle the rest.
Weather: it’s the Oregon coast in September, so Friday may try you. Expect grey, expect damp, expect somebody to say “it’s not really raining” while standing in rain. Then Saturday and Sunday clear up into the low 60s and that’s the good stuff. Coastal fall riding, cool sand, no heat, no dust. Anybody who only shows up when it’s 85 and sunny is missing the best weekend of the year. Bring a tarp, bring dry socks, bring a second pair of dry socks because you will lie to yourself about the first pair. Camping in the rain with people you like beats camping in the sun by yourself. That’s just math.
And in the news. Banshee Hill got stomped by an XJ this morning. Payton watched the whole thing go down from camp, and says the guy flattened a few of the plastic markers on his way up. We don’t know him. Never met him. Payton couldn’t pick him out of a lineup of two and neither could the rest of us.
For the record, and we mean this one: that closure order runs through October 14 and carries fines up to $5,000, and knocking down closure markers is its own charge on top of the trespass. We just spent this week making the case that the Forest Service is the one littering plastic across the dunes. That argument gets a lot weaker when there’s a rider doing the flattening for them. Judge Aiken is writing the fall ruling right now. Let’s not hand the Center for Biological Diversity a highlight reel. Take the pictures, leave the stakes alone, let the sand bury them on its own schedule.
Also still in effect: the 10:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew across the whole Middle Riding Area. Wheels down by 10:30. Which is fine, because that’s when the fire gets good anyway and nobody’s ever regretted the 6 a.m. drop on cold sand.
See you at the bark path. Right turn, trees on the right, look for the smoke.
Dune Goons. United by Sand.
