Federal officials travel to California to reach out to off-roaders

Salazar Gets Stuck

Freed from the confines of Washington, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Sunday kicked up his heels in the California desert, where he raced across undulating dunes in a souped-up sand rail. And, perhaps as a reminder of the gridlock he left behind on Capitol Hill, Salazar's vehicle became mired in the sand as he attempted to surmount a steep dune. The daredevil antics were driven by a serious intent: to reach out to a constituency often antagonistic to federal officials and their management of public lands in the West. To that end, Salazar and Bob Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management, toured Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area on a busy holiday weekend. The pair came to mend political fences by stressing that motorized recreation fits into the Obama administration's vision of America's Great Outdoors, a conservation and health initiative rolled out last week that is heavy on land preservation. "When we talk about the great outdoors, this is the kind of recreation we are talking about, " Salazar told a group of off-road enthusiasts, raising his voice to be heard above the deep rumbles and high-pitched whines coming from fleets of "sand toys" racing past near the town of Glamis...more