After airing down, we decided to do more intermediate wheeling that all in the group were capable of. The guy I bought my supercharger from was off roading for the first time in his 392 Hemi powered Jeep and we had some other less adventurous people as well. We would save the more technical wheeling for the afternoon.
We had a good time driving through the park with some we have never wheeled with before. The park must have got some rain this past week that we did not get in Kansas City because there was some muddy spots on the main loop but overall, the park was in great shape. We wheeled for about an hour and a half and then joined the entire group for lunch, which included hamburgers and hotdogs back at the pavilion.
After lunch, I was chosen to lead a group that wanted to do some more rock crawling so we headed out into the park's new section and dropped into the creek for a bit before coming out and doing some hill climbs. I tested the first black trail by going up it just to make sure it wasn't too slick. I had no issues but the key was keeping momentum going which others found out as I spotted them up. You just couldn't crawl it but we wound up getting everyone up.
Jodi had to move my Jeep to make room for everyone to come back down the next rail so when we accomplished that, I let her lead the group into the main creek which is a black trail. She drove it a few weeks ago during the other event so I knew she could do it. At the end of the creek, she let me have the wheel again and we headed toward Bear Tracks.
Bear Tracks is a rutted out trail that if you like off camber scenarios, it provides it. The biggest obstacle is as soon as you enter the trail and this video shows it relatively well but it doesn't do it full justice. My Jeep is literally laying on it's side as I make my way through and I can reach right over my trail door and touch the ground. Plastic fenders and license plate mount usually don't fare well on this trail as the next person through (the Hemi Jeep) found out. It freaked him out a bit too but he made it through and has a story to tell his friends and co-workers today.
The observant viewers may have noticed that the retractable step on the passenger side is down. Jodi got out to do the video and failed to return it to the upright position and this would come into play shortly. As I made my way through the third obstacle on the trail, the step caught a tree root and broke completely off. When is separated from the slider unit, it flew forward at a high rate of speed and hit my mirror, shattering it. We have this all on video. I had no idea what had just happened and but Jodi yelled that "You ripped your thing off." After stopping to investigate, I discovered the carnage. These slider steps have not been my best purchase. I think I'm ready to go back to my Posion Spyder sliders at this point. Accidents happen and we went continued on, minus a step. We wheeled until after 5pm, aired up and got home about 8pm. Considering we left our house at 7am, it was a long fun filled day of off road adventure.
On Sunday we joined friends and club members for an off road event at Bull Creek Distillery. We enjoyed brunch and the ladies had bottomless mimosas and Bloddy Mary's. It was pretty hot and not much of a breeze but we managed to hang out for about 4 hours before heading to get some ice cream prior to driving home. I followed up with a photo shoot with 5 of my models and got home about 9pm.
I have to work through Wednesday this week and then I am off Thursday through Sunday. Our plan is to go to SMORR if the weather is going to be good (dry). We don't have plans to go with anyone right now, we will just meetup with others down there and wheel with them. We intend to do more of that so we can go out and do when we are free. .
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