It never fails to amaze me the situations I find myself in when camping with my UC friends. This story is no different.
Me and 4 knuckleheads planned on going out to do some camping and exploring in the Western NC mountains back in March. The goal was to relax and possibly find some new trails up west of Brevard. Well we didn't find any.
What we had were 3 vehicles. One and a half Fj40's, a half FJ60, and a FZJ80. Now before you start adding all that up there were to the untrained eye 4 vehicles total. But to the trained eye two of them only counted as one vehicle.
Let me explain. There was an 80 series built to the teeth with everything running and working. There was a 40 with every at the beginning working properly. But that's where the line starts to get muddled between a total vehicle and something the Clemson Mafia has put together.
The other 40 while it had all the tires on it was missing quite a few things. For one it had no brake lights. Which made following it on the road an adventure all of it's own. I'm pretty sure it only had a few functioning brakes cylinders, windshield wipers consisted of some sort of battery powered devices that were not related to each other. This on top of the window squeegee you find at the gas station down the road from where we met. That was the defroster, as there was no heat in this cruiser and as a matter of fact there was no seat belts either. Just your butt cheeks to hold you on the bench seat.
Now the 60 was another story. It was sporting a highly modified transmission. This engine was so powerful it only needed 2nd and 4th gear. Forget 1st and 3rd they were for sissy's. This was the vehicle I chose to ride in as I thought it provided the best music (38 specials greatest hits that was scratched, skipped and stuck in the player), but what I was not expecting half way through the trip was the drivers door to stop working and not latch. Which now required a ratchet strap between the drivers and passengers door handles. It was like having another seatbelt on. By far the safest vehicle in the bunch.
So now on to the trip. 3 of the 5 knuckleheads went up on Friday in the rain to camp. Me and another knucklehead were smart enough to wait and meet them up there Sat morning in the rain. It rained all day Sat. We went from one blocked trail to another. It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of head scratching, map pointing and talking on 2 way radios that only worked one way. One knucklehead even decided to drive through someones garden to look for a trail.
Not that he found one and almost got stuck in the process.
But we had fun anyway. Me taking pics while others tried to kill me.
And now is where it gets weird. On our last road up near Whee we started down what we thought might be a prospective gravel road only to be blocked by a gate. While trying to turn around a young man comes running out of the woods all dressed up. We were sort of freaked out by this odd sight and at first thought we were trespassing. Only to find out as he would say he had gotten his Jeep liberty stuck down at his families house and needed help getting it up the driveway. About this time we noticed an even odder sight. 3 girls in their Sunday clothes standing out in the woods about 50 yards away from us. Not in the road but in the woods. They were all wearing dresses. Well no matter we had a Jeep to rescue. We took a tow strap out and started backing down a vehicle to perform the rescue. Me, I walked out into the woods to talk to the girls as well so did the Cuban. While everyone was working on getting the extraction done we came to find out that the house the guy was stuck in front of was not his families and that they were in fact Jehovah Witnesses who had decided to drive out in the middle of nowhere to a vacant house to try to convert some back woods folks to see the light. Only to get stuck. Lol. So once I got the Cuban calmed down and we got them unstuck they left. I almost forgot to take a pic out of respect for the lords obnoxious annoying faithful servants. But I said screw it and did anyway.
After this event we decided it could get no better so we decided it was getting late and to just drive up to Whee and get some trails in.
We ended up stopping half way through because the .5 40's carb fell off and we found a spark plug that was installed sideways. But no matter a little bit of tinfoil and gum and we were on our way. Trails were awesome. Weather was not. It pretty much rained the entire time. Cold wet rain. No matter as I was in the 60 with heat as well I provided the defrost for the windows with some napkins.
After a couple hrs on the trail we stopped at a campsite and put the tarp and tent up.
Is it me or does that look like a tree growing out of the top of the 40?
That night we had a great time and a great feast. Venison sausage, beef jerky, quail, pork chop sandwiches and some famous Rotel. Needless to say the fire stayed going all night in the rain and even let up for a few nice hrs.
The next morning I woke up to this guy trying to blow himself up with a propane tank.
It was cold and soon the rain turned over to snow.
At this point the Cuban was is a dream world. He had never seen snow until now and started kissing everyone.
So we packed it up and decided to head to the top and see what was going on.
The snow just got deeper
And deeper
Until we were at the top.
I kid you not the wind was living up to it's expectations up there.
Just look at this.
www.trollholescruisers.com/UC/MOV09434.AVI
Then on down the trail where the Cuban decided he didn't like the road and decided to run off it and almost flip. I didn't get a pic but you would be proud of how well we handled that situation.
Me and 4 knuckleheads planned on going out to do some camping and exploring in the Western NC mountains back in March. The goal was to relax and possibly find some new trails up west of Brevard. Well we didn't find any.
What we had were 3 vehicles. One and a half Fj40's, a half FJ60, and a FZJ80. Now before you start adding all that up there were to the untrained eye 4 vehicles total. But to the trained eye two of them only counted as one vehicle.
Let me explain. There was an 80 series built to the teeth with everything running and working. There was a 40 with every at the beginning working properly. But that's where the line starts to get muddled between a total vehicle and something the Clemson Mafia has put together.
The other 40 while it had all the tires on it was missing quite a few things. For one it had no brake lights. Which made following it on the road an adventure all of it's own. I'm pretty sure it only had a few functioning brakes cylinders, windshield wipers consisted of some sort of battery powered devices that were not related to each other. This on top of the window squeegee you find at the gas station down the road from where we met. That was the defroster, as there was no heat in this cruiser and as a matter of fact there was no seat belts either. Just your butt cheeks to hold you on the bench seat.
Now the 60 was another story. It was sporting a highly modified transmission. This engine was so powerful it only needed 2nd and 4th gear. Forget 1st and 3rd they were for sissy's. This was the vehicle I chose to ride in as I thought it provided the best music (38 specials greatest hits that was scratched, skipped and stuck in the player), but what I was not expecting half way through the trip was the drivers door to stop working and not latch. Which now required a ratchet strap between the drivers and passengers door handles. It was like having another seatbelt on. By far the safest vehicle in the bunch.
So now on to the trip. 3 of the 5 knuckleheads went up on Friday in the rain to camp. Me and another knucklehead were smart enough to wait and meet them up there Sat morning in the rain. It rained all day Sat. We went from one blocked trail to another. It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of head scratching, map pointing and talking on 2 way radios that only worked one way. One knucklehead even decided to drive through someones garden to look for a trail.
Not that he found one and almost got stuck in the process.
But we had fun anyway. Me taking pics while others tried to kill me.
And now is where it gets weird. On our last road up near Whee we started down what we thought might be a prospective gravel road only to be blocked by a gate. While trying to turn around a young man comes running out of the woods all dressed up. We were sort of freaked out by this odd sight and at first thought we were trespassing. Only to find out as he would say he had gotten his Jeep liberty stuck down at his families house and needed help getting it up the driveway. About this time we noticed an even odder sight. 3 girls in their Sunday clothes standing out in the woods about 50 yards away from us. Not in the road but in the woods. They were all wearing dresses. Well no matter we had a Jeep to rescue. We took a tow strap out and started backing down a vehicle to perform the rescue. Me, I walked out into the woods to talk to the girls as well so did the Cuban. While everyone was working on getting the extraction done we came to find out that the house the guy was stuck in front of was not his families and that they were in fact Jehovah Witnesses who had decided to drive out in the middle of nowhere to a vacant house to try to convert some back woods folks to see the light. Only to get stuck. Lol. So once I got the Cuban calmed down and we got them unstuck they left. I almost forgot to take a pic out of respect for the lords obnoxious annoying faithful servants. But I said screw it and did anyway.
After this event we decided it could get no better so we decided it was getting late and to just drive up to Whee and get some trails in.
We ended up stopping half way through because the .5 40's carb fell off and we found a spark plug that was installed sideways. But no matter a little bit of tinfoil and gum and we were on our way. Trails were awesome. Weather was not. It pretty much rained the entire time. Cold wet rain. No matter as I was in the 60 with heat as well I provided the defrost for the windows with some napkins.
After a couple hrs on the trail we stopped at a campsite and put the tarp and tent up.
Is it me or does that look like a tree growing out of the top of the 40?
That night we had a great time and a great feast. Venison sausage, beef jerky, quail, pork chop sandwiches and some famous Rotel. Needless to say the fire stayed going all night in the rain and even let up for a few nice hrs.
The next morning I woke up to this guy trying to blow himself up with a propane tank.
It was cold and soon the rain turned over to snow.
At this point the Cuban was is a dream world. He had never seen snow until now and started kissing everyone.
So we packed it up and decided to head to the top and see what was going on.
The snow just got deeper
And deeper
Until we were at the top.
I kid you not the wind was living up to it's expectations up there.
Just look at this.
www.trollholescruisers.com/UC/MOV09434.AVI
Then on down the trail where the Cuban decided he didn't like the road and decided to run off it and almost flip. I didn't get a pic but you would be proud of how well we handled that situation.
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