When I was a kid, maybe 7, we had dirt bikes for everyone in the family. I had a little Kawasaki 75 I think. My older brother had a Yamaha 125, my mom had a Yamaha 250, I think, and my dad had this big beastly 500. We used to go out and ride fairly frequently in the summer - we'd camp out I think but I don't really remember.
My bike looked something like this I think.
I have fond memories of riding the bike but they are mostly just fuzzy memories of zooming along, in my big helmet and my equally large elbow and knee pads, across the desert. Some of the stuff we rode on was really fine sand and other bits were full of scrub brush and were hard packed dirt. It was an awesome thing for our family to do.
I don't remember if any of our family friends ever went with us though I wouldn't be surprised if my dad's buddy and his family came along some times. Mostly I just remember the four of us out there having a blast.
We weren't the only ones out there of course. There were plenty of other bikers and there were a lot of dune buggies of all shapes and sizes. I mostly remember the buggies and some of the adult guy bikers who were out there hanging out in a huge bowl. The bowl had an easy way to get in and out of it but it also had a really hard way to get out of it. At least one end of the bowl was really sheer - like, to my kid eyes, it looked totally vertical and it was really tall - I would have guessed it was over 100 feet tall. It was massive and intimidating and yet people would try to ride up that wall and get out of the bowl.
In my memory not many people escaped by going that route. I did see some motorcycles get up there but I don't remember ever seeing a dune buggy reach the crest. Instead they would get anywhere between half way and ninety percent up the wall before flipping backwards and cascading down the wall. It was crazy to watch. I can't imagine the thrill that the bike riders had when they launched over the wall's edge - or the terror the guys in the buggies had when they started to flip backwards knowing that they had lost all chance of success.
I don't remember if the big bowl had a name - though I imagine anyone that spends time in Little Sahara today knows the bowl I'm talking about. There are probably still people trying to test themselves against gravity (and failing).
When I look back on my childhood I realize I was pretty damn lucky to get to do some of the awesome stuff we did. My brother and I learned to ski in the mountains of Utah, we dirt biked in some of the best dunes in the country, we camped and fished on some amazing lakes, and we were able to travel to a bunch of amazing places. Sometimes I think my kids are really missing out.