Rule # 1: Lesson # 2
NEVER, EVER loan your cruiser to another or let them drive it unless you ARE BRAIN DEAD. OR, if your wife is PREGO and wants to get to the hospital to deliver while you're on IH8MUD.COM.
not even my brother drives my cruiser now, or for that matter, uses my fishing equipment. once, i let him use my favorite, most expensive spinning reel when we went to the beach for a week. i went down to where he was fishing and saw the reel just lying on the sand. i had to take it apart, completely rebuild it and then buy him his own fishing outfit for Xmas.
another time i was 'letting' that same beloved brother drive my 4WD suburban two days after a major hurricane had passed thru. we were down at the coast in some marshy areas redfishing in estuaries and tidal creeks (he was using his 'Santa' rod & reel at this point). there was a huge water hole / mud pit in front of us on the trail. i told him that if he was gonna drive thru it, he had to walk thru it first to see how bad it really was. he decided to just turn around instead of hearing me complain about water in the dif's & all.
before i could say anything, he hung a quick right; veered off the trail & shot out onto an area that was completely covered with reeds and grass debris that had floated up there from the hurricane. as we started to sink in, he gunned it - needless to say, the suburban submerged. no amount of wheel spinning, black rooster tails, lockers or anything was getting us out of that morass. of course the winch was on the front (under water) and i had no wiring / provisions for the winch on the ass end, even if i could have taken it off and used it on the back. the creek was about 50' in front of us and we were about 25' out into the muck. all around us the floated up debris looked pristine, almost like hard pack. we had to climb out of the windows because the truck was so far in we couldn't open the doors. for hours we dug, jacked, cut down trees and put them under the wheels, etc.
i ended up having to walk 10 miles back thru that marsh covered with black smelly slime... and then 3 more miles back to civilization, once i hit the pavement. every time i opened my mouth to breathe i filled up my lungs with mosquitoes and no seeums. found this guy with a monster mudder 'Heep', who for $75 cash promised to pull us out with his gigundo snatch strap... he drove his 'Heep' while some of his buddies came along for the show in their one ton souper douper mudder ford PU. it took two snatch straps and both vehicles, lots of yanking, rednecks yellin' all kind of directions (and one trying to follow them), neck snapping and swimming around in the goo to get out. they snatched my rear quarter into a tree and then had the nerve to tell me the extrication would be $ 150. since i was already out, they got the 75 bucks and that's all. the suburban got a new rear quarter, complete paint job, and winch on a receiver adapter with power plug on the rear end for it. after looking beautiful for a while, the 'burb' died a slow and painful death from body cancer.
lesson learned. rant over. except, a few months after that, i was trail riding & fishing again with that same brother in my fj40 in that same swamp. saw the 'Heep guy' stuck up to his hood in a mud hole of his own making. he wanted me to pull him out... i figgered out this was the way the guy made his traps to catch his victims. I drove around him while my brother grinned and told him it would be $ 150 to drag him out... we went down to the creek & fished. he walked home. my brother was so proud of himself and we were laughing so hard that he thought he could slip one by me... he wanted to drive it back out.
i told him he could keep smiling at me from the passenger's seat or catch a ride back in the 'Heep'... and if i got us stuck, he was the one walking out for help. i won't lend him my wife or tools, either. prolly a post for the chat section. LOL !
