One Year Ago...

...or thereabouts, this is what the RockCrawlin'Chef and I were up to.


On Saturday, RockCrawlinChef and I went to Colorado Off-Road Extreme (CORE) in Deer Trail as part of a Colorado 4x4 thing. What a freakin' blast! CORE has a little bit of everything for off-roading: a desert rally track, ATV track, MX, rock crawling, 4x4 obstacles and mud pits. Since we were there with Colorado 4x4, there wasn't an admission fee, but their normal admission fee is only $20 per vehicle anyway.

RCC's Jeep is pretty much stock, no lifts, no over-size tires, just a Jeep, but we still had a ton of fun! We did the rally track, which thanks to all of the rain we've had lately, had plenty of mud pits for us to play in and get really dirty. He took us up over some small obstacles, which didn't feel so small when we were going over them. If we had a lift kit and bigger tires, we'd've eaten up those little obstacles. After lunch, we played around some more and then RCC handed me the keys. Oh, big mistake. I was having a good time riding shotgun, but once I got those keys in my hand I had a GREAT time!

We did learn one thing - GunDiva likes the skinny pedal. Now, that may not be news to many of you, but maybe when 4-wheeling a little less skinny pedal may be called for. I had so much freakin' fun on the rally track. The mud and I had a good time.

Except for the time I forgot to roll up my window before hitting the mud/water and I got drenched. Nope. Had a good time then, too. RCC had a good time, too, laughing at me getting drenched as I negotiated the mud puddle. I managed to get mud all over the inside of the driver's side all the way to the back window and splash the passenger side in the process.

I really need my own Jeep. One without carpet or cloth seats so that I can just take a pressure washer to it, inside and out.

Just For Mom

Ok, Mom, as I was watching this happen, all I could think of was, "Jeez, Jeeps can sidepass too!" 'Cept they call it walking, but it's the same thing.

Lil Blue BoX

We took the Lil Blue BoX to Moab over Labor Day weekend for a little 4-wheelin' fun. Never having been to Moab, I didn't really know what to expect other than a lot of red dirt. We left after work on Thursday and got into Utah very early Friday morning. Rather that set up camp in the middle of the night, we just pulled into a recreational area and slept in the Jeep. Surprisingly, I slept pretty well, but Allie didn't sleep at all - she was busy guarding us and stared out the back of the Jeep all night long.

We found a campground along the Colorado River and for a mere $12/night we had a temporary home. Once we got camp set up, we headed out to the Top Of The World, a trail rated fairly difficult, but a good one to start our weekend off with. There were times when I was a bit stressed - not afraid - but worried that we'd get stuck and/or broke and there wouldn't be anyone to help us out.

The Top Of The World trail was a good one for desensitizing me to 4-wheeling. RCC had taken me to RZO's Winter- and Summerfests, but those were man-made obstacles, and up the Middle St. Vrain trail with a group of Jeeps. These real-life obstacles were a bit more daunting; especially since we were by ourselves. We still had some time after we got back from the Top Of The World, so we did an easy trail, Onion Creek, which was fun and had 22 creek crossings. I made RCC stop on our way back down so that I could rinse off some of the red dust in the creek. The water was so cool and clear it was amazing. I could have sat my butt down in the creek and stayed there for a good long time.

The next day, we had Poison Spider Mesa on the menu. We loaded up and headed for the trail. We conquered the Waterfall (no water, just a name, I guess) and when we got to the Wedgie, I jumped out and ran ahead across the obstacle to get pictures of RCC straddling the V-notch. Probably the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) decision I made all day. When I got to the top of the Wedgie, I ran into a group from Colorado who invited us to join them. Well, why not? We had planned on doing the Poison Spider Mesa loop and heading back, but Armando didn't have to twist our arms to hard to change our plans to join them on The Golden Spike and Gold Bar Rim. One look at the guide book and I was worried again - the author warned that no one should attempt it unless they had a vehicle with a lift, over-sized tires and lockers. RCC assured me we could do it in his completely stock Jeep.

You know, when weI first met, I told him that my horse could do any obstacle that he could do in a vehicle. That was until we hit this obstacle...

...The Launching Pad was by far the most pucker-factor inducing obstacle we faced all day. I'm still pulling cotton outta my butt from this little ride. I apologized for my boast, because there was no way on God's green earth that Estes could have conquered that obstacle.
It's amazing how quickly you can get desensitized to scary things after facing death. There wasn't any other obstacle that scared me; I was worried that we might break, but I wasn't worried about tipping ass over tea kettle and rolling backward down the hill.
There was one (okay, several) obstacles where the Lil Blue BoX really earned her stripes, but the most important one in the 4-wheel community, as I understand, is the Golden Crack. Armando initially told us that we should take the by-pass (or "super highway"), but after a look at the by-pass, it was decided that RCC could probably take the Golden Crack. You know, he really had no choice because to turn around would mean that we'd have to do the Launching Pad backward and there was no way in hell that was going to happen. RCC did manage to get across the Golden Crack with the a little help. There were two people in front of the Jeep with a tow rope to stabilize the front and one guy on the back bumper to stabilize the back - not a lot of help for an obstacle like this. I'm so, so glad he: 1) made it across, which meant that we didn't have to do the Launching Pad in reverse, and 2) didn't break anything, because we would have had to get a ride to town, buy the parts, and get back up the trail somehow to fix it. There's not a tow truck that I know of that can just climb on up and pick up a little broken Jeep on trails like that.

It took us nine hours to complete the series of trails and we covered less than 20 miles, but it was a ton of fun.
The rest of the trip was anti-climactic compared to our crazy day and I was good with that.

Mountain Therapy

The majority of the time I have "Mountain Therapy" it's on the back of Estes. Today, RCC and I did a different form of Mountain Therapy; RCC's partner, Mike, invited us to join him, so we met up with the Mountaineers club and took the Jeep up the Middle St. Vrain trail. The weather was absolutely beautiful in the mountains - sunny and warm. Since we're headed to Moab in a couple of weeks, today's outing was perfect for testing out the Jeep (or the Lil Blue BoX as RCC's has taken to calling her).

The Lil Blue BoX was one of the few "stockers" on the trail and I'm sure that there was more than one person who thought we wouldn't make it. However, RCC's been doing this a while and is a good driver, so there really wasn't any point during the ride that we were in danger of being stuck. We had lots of rock obstacles, water crossings, and mud holes. It was a great time and a great way to get out of the heat.

Here's video of Mike and RCC negotiating the lake crossing...

RZO Summerfest

Last weekend RCC and I attended the Rock Zombie Outlaws' Summerfest, sadly the last one to be held at its current location near Arapahoe Road and Parker in the Denver area. In February, we attended RZO's Winterfest with Tinkerbell, RCC's full-sized Chevy rock-crawler, whose transmission seized up just ten minutes off the truck. This time we opted to just take the Jeep and camp overnight.

Since the Jeep is completely stock - he hasn't modified it at all yet - our options were limited as far as obstacles we could attack, but we found a few and had a good time on them. And they say it's not a good day unless you get stuck, which we did beautifully. We had been driving around the property, tackling the obstacles that were doable in the Jeep, and found a creek crossing that looked like it might be tougher than some others we'd done, but still was doable. So off we went, down the slight hill, splashing across the creek, and powering up...powering up...shit...powering ourselves right into the sandy hill across the creek. The sand had looked fairly stable from the opposite side of the creek, but once we hit it, we just buried ourselves. Deep. RCC did such a great job of attempting to power up the hill he buried the front axle in the sand.

We were lucky that another driver saw us and offered to tow us out with his full-sized Chevy Blazer. The problem was that we got bogged down at the first part of a two-part rise; there was an initial hill - where we got stuck - followed by a slight flat space and another hill. The truck hooked us up, but we were so stuck that he couldn't budge us while also trying to tackle the second hill.
We lucked out a second time and another truck who saw our predicament offered to hook onto the Chevy and pull us out in tandem. How's that for being stuck? Our small stock Jeep took a full-sized Chevy Blazer and a Toyota pick-up with a V8 to tow it out.

I had to laugh at a comment I overheard while the two trucks were hooking us up. One of the drivers looked at the other and said, "Beginners." Certainly I am a beginner, but I wasn't the one driving and if they had realized that the driver they were towing out was the owner of the infamous Tinkerbell - even if they don't know her name, they know her - they would have had a whole lot more to say than just "beginners".
We spent a great deal of the day mostly watching. The Zombie Graveyard is always a popular place to congregate and watch carnage (4-wheeler-speak for breaking big expensive stuff). RCC had told me that he wanted to replace his metal cable on his winch with a nylon one, which is much safer. After watching two nylon winch cables break without any injuries to anyone, I think he's getting nylon for Christmas. The metal cables don't rebound as well (or at all) as the nylon ones and the energy has to be transferred somewhere, which usually means that it whips around uncontrolled taking out anything in its path. The nylon cables just drop to the ground, sparing anyone nearby.
We did watch a scary moment when one of the Zombies got stuck in the Graveyard and three people were rocking him side-to-side, hoping that he'd get a bite somewhere on the rocks and be able to drive himself out. He got a bite, alright, and nearly ran over one of the guys helping him out.



The bad thing is that once the Zombie broke loose, he then hit a rock with his front passenger tire and knocked his tire off the bead, which started a whole new rescue effort involving a Hi-Lift and a borrowed 37" tire.


I also got to see something I'd never seen before - a Jeep Wrangler doing a one-handed handstand. I have no idea how on earth this driver kept from going ass over teakettle, but he managed. I was a little slow on the trigger for the camera, so the picture is just as he's peaked and started to come back down. His only point of contact with the ground is his front driver's side tire; the front passenger hasn't quite touched down on the rock yet.
The day was amazing even with the intermittant thunder, lightening, and rain. Throughout the day, we'd drive by the bonfire site, where they were building a giant man to set aflame. It was fun to watch the progress throughout the day and I couldn't wait for sundown when they were to fire him up.At sundown, however, lighting the Burning Man proved to be a bit of a challenge. We watched one of the Zombies get a ride up to the top in the bucket of a tractor and dump at least ten gallons of gasoline on him. You would think that would be enough, right? The problem was that even the best laid plans go awry and the person who was to light the Burning Man with the flare gun missed.

M.I.S.S.E.D. Missed. With a flare from a flare gun. Missed.

The flare went skipping along the ground, across the area for the bonfire and ended up in a crowd of people. No one was hurt, but a lot of people were laughing. The second shot also missed, going straight up in the air no where near the Not-Burning Man. Third shot - you gessed it - also skittered through the crowd. Finally, someone took the flare gun away from Sir Miss-The-Sixty-Foot-Pile-Of-Logs-In-Front-Of-Him and shot the tinder at the bottom of the Not-Burning Man's feet at point blank range. It took - sort of - briefly - before the rain won out. In the end the Zombies set up a true fire bucket brigade, with one person holding the gas can, filling up keg cups with gasoline, while others threw the gasoline onto the Sort-Of-Burning Man. Sort-Of-Burning Man eventually became Finally-Burning Man and the wait was worth it, despite the rain pounding away again.

An almost-entirely-sleepless night in a leaky tent ensued, thanks to the Party Brigade in the next campsite. About the time the music would quiet down and I'd fall asleep, I'd be woken up again by the drunks changing CDs and the music blaring again. In the few minutes of sleep I did get, I dreamed of using my new shotgun on their stereo. About four a.m. they thought it would be a good idea to load up into their buggies and race up and down the road leading into the campground. At that time, my short-lived dreams changed to shooting out a tire with the shotgun. Up and at 'em bright and early the next morning (really, what choice did we have), we wandered over to the smoldering bonfire. I decided that the white-hot smoldering coals would be perfect for roasting the marshmallows that we didn't roast the night before, so RCC and I found some sticks and had ourselves roasted marshmallows for breakfast. It's good to be a "grown up" and get to have marshmallows for breakfast!

We spend day two mostly watching - there's just so much going on that it's hard to take it all in - before packing up and heading home. I had a blast, even if I wasn't the one getting the Jeep filthy this time, and am more than a little sad that the RZO crew is losing their land because of some stupid political dispute. The Rock Zombie Outlaws are a great group of people who hosted amazing events that brought people together for good, clean (or maybe not really clean) fun. I'm hoping that they will be able to find new property soon and rumor has it, they are looking hard for a new venue.

Mud Day Clean-up

Well, the downside to having all of the fun we did on Saturday was the cleaning up of the Jeep on Sunday. We both knew we'd gotten a good bit of mud on her and we were a little sad that the rain/hail storm that we drove through on the way home washed away a bit of our "proof" of all the fun we had. We shouldn't have worried about the little bit of mud that was washed off in the storm.

Sunday morning we got up and drove over to the car wash. The Jeep really looked like we had just towed it out of a swamp. In addition to the mud caked all over it, we had grass and weeds hanging off of it.  RCC wanted to run the Jeep through an automated wash first to get the majority of the mud off and then figured we could just finish it up with the power washer and avoid getting muddy ourselves. You know what they say about best laid plans...

One automated wash and $7.00 later we drove out of the bay just as muddy as we went into it. So much for all the pre-soak and rinse cycle. So into the power washer we went.  RCC used his debit card so that we wouldn't be feeding coins throughout the whole wash; the instructions said that the card would be charged until the wash was complete. What we didn't know is that the computer decides when the wash is complete. But, then, after twenty minutes with a power washer, we should have been complete, right? Wrong! We were mostly done, but still had to clean out the engine compartment.

We took turns with the power washer forcing the caked on mud off of the Jeep; we had mud packed in the tires, wheel wells, bumpers, mirrors (why would any Jeep designer think that hollow mirror brackets were a good idea?), springs, undercarriage - you name it, we had mud in it. I'm pretty sure that we had doubled the poor girl's weight with all of the mud we had packed in.

Once we finished with the power washer, it was vacuuming time. That, at least, went smoothly and we were on our way home in no time.

We had knocked the majority of the mud off at the car wash, but still had plenty of washing to do once we got home. And someone, who will remain nameless, still had to clean up the interior of the Jeep. Bummer. The mud came off the inside pretty well, except for the cloth seats. The nameless person will have to get some spot cleaner for that. It looked like the mud came off the seats until the seats dried, then it reappeared again. Blast it all!

To be honest, cleaning up the mess was almost as fun as making the mess. I couldn't help but smile the whole time. And I can't wait to do it all again!

I love the skinny pedal!

On Saturday, RCC and I went to Colorado Off-Road Extreme (CORE) in Deer Trail as part of a Colorado 4x4 thing. What a freakin' blast! CORE has a little bit of everything for off-roading: a desert rally track, ATV track, MX, rock crawling, 4x4 obstacles and mud pits. Since we were there with Colorado 4x4, there wasn't an admission fee, but their normal admission fee is only $20 per vehicle anyway.

RCC's Jeep is pretty much stock, no lifts, no over-size tires, just a Jeep, but we still had a ton of fun! We did the rally track, which thanks to all of the rain we've had lately, had plenty of mud pits for us to play in and get really dirty.  He took us up over some small obstacles, which didn't feel so small when we were going over them. If we had a lift kit and bigger tires, we'd've eaten up those little obstacles. After lunch, we played around some more and then RCC handed me the keys. Oh, big mistake. I was having a good time riding shotgun, but once I got those keys in my hand I had a GREAT time!

We did learn one thing - GunDiva likes the skinny pedal. Now, that may not be news to many of you, but maybe when 4-wheeling a little less skinny pedal may be called for. I had so much freakin' fun on the rally track. The mud and I had a good time.

Except for the time I forgot to roll up my window before hitting the mud/water and I got drenched. Nope. Had a good time then, too.  RCC had a good time, too, laughing at me getting drenched as I negotiated the mud puddle. I managed to get mud all over the inside of the driver's side all the way to the back window (guess who spent a really long time yesterday cleaning mud out of the inside of the Jeep?) and splash the passenger side in the process.

I really need my own Jeep. One without carpet or cloth seats so that I can just take a pressure washer to it, inside and out.