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Dumont Dunes (2008) Trip Synopsis: In the last newsletter I had mentioned the author Steve Pressfield and his upcoming fictional book, “Killing Rommel”. We have kept in close contact and back in Oct. he asked me if we (along with the vehicles) would be willing to participate in a video promoting his new book, which is supposed to be released in late May or early June. He spent time with the publisher in New York trying to get them to “spring” for the cost of production (which was considerable), when they were reluctant; he decided to do it himself. So he spent Nov. and Dec. getting it all set up for a January 14th & 15th shoot. Rick departed Yreka on Friday Jan. 11th; and I left on Sat. Jan. 12th, with my trusty “Trooper” George Escobedo traveling with me. We rendezvoused up with Rick at Santa Nella on Interstate 5 at noon on the 12th. After a quick lunch we continued heading south, our destination was Dumont Dunes, which is about 45 miles North of Baker, Ca. off of Interstate 15 (towards Las Vegas). We spent the night in Barstow, Ca. with a planed arrival at Dumont Dunes around 9:30 AM on Sunday the 13th. We had some minor delays and also hooked up with another “Trooper” George Sicre; finally arriving at noon. What I was expecting when we got there and what was reality was two different things. I had expected four people, Steve Pressfield, the director; Nick Vitale, Cameraman; Phil Arfman and a sound person. What was there was the above, plus 17 other assorted personal. After we had a quick lunch, we started to unloaded the vehicles and make up our campsite, while they went to scout for locations. Nothing much else exciting happened that day. They told us when they would arrive the next day, so that we would be ready. Rick made Scampi with pasta for dinner; the only problem was that the weather got very cold during the night. The next morning everyone showed up at 7:30 AM, we had a quick catered breakfast and then we all moved to the first location. There we spent the morning watching them take and retake a number of dialogs of Steve talking about the LRDG & S.A.S. We took the stage after lunch. We did the same thing over again the next day at the second location. They wrapped it up about 3:00 Pm that day. We decided to break camp and move up to Date Ranch about 20 miles north to see if we could get some “oasis style” photos. We did succeed the following day and left our perspective way on Wed the 16th. I know that this paragraph doesn’t sound like much fun but we all had a blast. I can’t wait to see the footage. I will let you know when it gets posted on the Internet.

13. The other "stars"

14. What it is all about! "Killing Rommel"

15. Steve takes a break

16. Some last shots

17. Our "Oasis" location

18. Time to go home...