Jodi and I had a nice weekend as we both took a break from work for a couple days.  Saturday evening we went to the casino with friends.  I won $300 and Jodi lost $100.  We didn;t get home and to bed until about 12:30am and then we were up bright and early at 6am for a day of wheeling at Kansas Rocks.

Our group was small as many don't go wheeling over the holiday weekend.  We arrived at Kansas Rocks and of course, I was again chosen to lead the group, which means not much in the way of video and photos.  We had one guy who was not locked with our group so we had to keep it more to the tame side the first half of the day.  The trails were a bit slick due to the rain and there was standing water in the typical places.  Going up the steeper grades was more challenging because of it and the rig that was open couldn't make it up the first steep climb.  We wound up having to winch him.

We decided to head over to the older section of the park where there is more rock on the trails and we had a lot of fun for a couple hours.  Before heading back to the staging area, I decided to give Zuk's Squeeze a try.  I gave it a go but the buggies and krawlers have it so dug out that I don;t have the clearance needed to get through.  I was bottomed out on both sliders.  Here's a screen grab from a  video of me climbing up into the squeeze.  Once the left front came down, I was bottomed out. 

After lunch, we went back out to give Carnage Canyon a try, another area I had not been in before.  All the trails in the area are black and with the slippery conditions, it would be double black.  We felt that Bad Axe was about the only trail we had a good shot at making and just me and another guy would give it a try.  The other guy went up first and made it with a lot of skinny pedal.  Naturally, he made it more slick for me spinning his tires up the trail and over the rocky ledges at the top.  I took a more slow and steady approach and powered through a couple spots where it was really slick.  Bad Axe done.

Next up was Bear Tracks and I didn't know what I was about to encounter.  I was just told that if you wanted to flex, this was the trail.  Holy crap!   They sent me in first to see how it was and we wound up pretty much laying on our side driving through huge, deep ruts that put us way off camber with our nose up in the air.  At one point, I was unsure if I should continue powering my way through but I kept going and made it through the first area only to find similar immediately afterward.  The muddy conditions definitely made this trail much harder than when dry and it took some power to get over some deep ruts and obstacles in the trail and I got my first trail damage, my license plate holder!    The next rig through didn't make the second area and we had to back him down the trail and get him out of the deep ruts by going sideways and over the ruts. The other rigs didn't attempt the trail.

 

That led us to one of the funniest moments of the day, well, for most of us.  Bill took the lead from me and we cam across a big water hole.  His wife told him to stay left of it.  Bill decided to go through it.  Bill's decision was a bad one.  It was pretty deep and he was stuck, not able to get out going forward or backward.  The right side of his Jeep was lower than the water and mud level and it kind of filled the passenger side of his vehicle.  His wife is not a fan of mud period, (she jumped out during their adventures on Bear Tracks) and was freaking out a bit.   We were basically in a mud bog and my hope was to be able to find a place to turn around and get my winch on him.  Luckily, I didn't get stuck and wound up being able to turnaround and position myself in a somewhat dry area to winch him.  After getting him out, we got to see how much mud had oozed into his vehicle along with how much he had splattered into the interior spinning his tires trying to get out.  His wife was not thrilled but we couldn't help but laugh and razz them a little about it.  He was going to have fun cleaning his Jeep!

It was time to head home and we aired back up for the drive home.  It was a fun day and we capped it off by stopping at Imo's in Overland Park for some pasta and pizza.  We got an extra pizza and dropped it off to JD and Megan on our way home.

Last night, I pulled my bumper off and have it ready to go to the powder coater along with my coilover kit parts.  Since my photo session scheduled for today is rained out, I'll have a chance to get that over to them.