Getting back to playing in the sand

MOSES LAKE — Rufino Gonzalez wanted to make sure his son knows proper off-road etiquette.

“When you come through here, you come slow,” he said. “People are eating, and they don’t want to eat your dust.”

Gonzalez stands on a big dirt path just off Sand Dune Road, surrounded by campers, RVs and various off-road vehicles — dirt bikes, four wheelers and side-by-sides, an off-road vehicle that can seat anywhere from two to six people in an automobile-like arrangement — some parked silently on the sand and some going “vroom!” in the distance.

With his helmet on, his son’s nod of understanding is almost imperceptible. The boy revs the motor gently and slowly drives off, kicking up as little dust as possible.

It’s the Gonzalez family’s first weekend out at the Moses Lake Mud Flats and Sand Dunes Off-Road Vehicle Recreation Area to drive off-road with his family since the COVID-19 outbreak prompted the closure of businesses, churches and even county parks.

“We try to come out here maybe once a month, or every other weekend,” said Gonzalez, a Warden resident who works at CHS. “But sometimes work gets in the way.”

Gonzalez was hardly alone at the Sand Dunes on Saturday. Even the morning’s thunderstorm, along with the looming threat of more later that day, couldn’t keep the off-roaders away.

“We come here a couple of times a year,” said Amanda Sullivan of Snohomish. “We didn’t want to come out on Memorial Day because it was so busy. But we’re really surprised at how many people are out here right now, with everything that’s going on.”

Sullivan and her husband, Tom, brought their dirt bikes and their side-by-side to meet friends they haven’t seen since the pandemic began.

“I’m a stay-at-home mom, and I’ve been cooped up for months and months,” she said. “We’re finally able to get out and get some sun, see our friends. This is our first time getting out.”

“I’ve been doing this all my life, and I’ve been coming out here since 2007,” Tom Sullivan said. “Everybody’s so friendly out here.”

Gonzalez also said that it was good to finally get out.

“The kids have been locked up pretty much for 11 weeks, and they were eager to get out,” he said. “This gets us out, and it gets them outdoors.”

His whole family is out, Gonzalez said, with other family members on their boats in the lake.

“Everybody likes to come out here. It’s fun, and it’s a good time,” he said.

Outside a parked fifth-wheel trailer, Wayne Snyder and Tim Banks, who come to Moses Lake from Seattle, sat with friends and family in the late afternoon sun after a day of riding.

“I work so I can play in the sand,” Banks said when asked what he did for a living.

“We come to play in the sand,” Snyder said. “There’s also good fishing in Moses Lake.”

Banks said the Moses Lake Sand Dunes are closer to Seattle than some of the good off-road sites in southern Oregon, and a trip to Moses Lake takes a great deal less planning and preparation than mounting a major expedition to Oregon.

“It’s not an eight-hour run to southern Oregon to hit the sand down there. It’s a three-hour drive here,” Banks said.

“We’ve been coming here for years,” he added. “It’s close.”

Sullivan emphatically agreed. And not just about how close the Sand Dunes are to Puget Sound.

“For a weekend trip, this is where we are going to come,” she said. “We love it out here.”