Mini dune buggies

This is another report on the famed Berkeley Marina district. It being such a nice summer day, I went down there to run over the foot bridge that goes over 580 and around the marina.

At the western edge of the foot bridge there is a large construction site that has been there for some time. Earlier this year it was just cleared land, with clumpy grass and a lot of rocks. Slowly over the past many months, dump trucks have brought immense quantities of dirt to this site. Now there is a slope about 10 feet high, made of packed dirt covering an area at least several acres in size. What is going to happen here? Who knows. But that's not the point right now.

At this moment, the site is being used by a consortium of avid, competitive mini dune buggy operators. What I am referring to is the kind of remote control vehicles that make high-pitched noises and kick up smothering dust clouds as they accelerate. From my numbered observations down on the Marina, the cars are operated by young adult males who apparently have little else to do on a picturesque summer Sunday afternoon. They converge at the site to practice their dune buggy maneuvering skills or something. I was running by, so I didn't pick up on the fine details of it all.

I wonder when the construction project will progress enough to make it difficult for the dune buggy guys to play in the dirt? That will be a sad day for these guys. They looked like they were having a lot of fun, whooping it up and setting up ramps. But there are always more piles of dirt to be had, I suppose.