I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but yesterday, Monday December 14th, we lost a great friend and long time club member, Dickie Bales. Wes talked to his wife Jean today and Dickie had been very sick for a long time and finally lost his battle. He will be missed.
Many of us knew Dickie and some of us spent a lot of time in the back country with him. My Father and I spent countless hours exploreing the Mojave with him. When Dickie joined the Nevada Backroaders he had an old VW Baja Bug he'd built. He had approched other clubs in the valley to see if he could join and was told no because the bug wasn't a 4x4. When he approched Maxine, the Backroaders Trail Boss at the time, and asked if he could join us Maxine said sure why not. And the adventures began.
Dickie went on to show us just how capable that bug was, even though it didn't like to be putt-putted, and he went every place the rest of us went. He even managed to get to places where some of us had to drop into 4-lo and do trail building to get our rigs thru. When he decided to buy a jeep he found a nice used 93 YJ and had my Dad take a look at it. My Dad said it's never been off-road and Dickie snapped it up. The picture above is from his first trip in that jeep, I took him over Wheeler Pass.
I will miss you Brother Rest in Peace