Spring 1995

When I first got the jeep I really wanted it to go camping and didn't really get into serious four wheeling until I met Don and Dale. Anyway, after fixing up the transfer case and overdrive it was spring and time to go camping again.

The first camping trip of the season was just Ted and I since we couldn't get anyone else to commit to a weekend and we just wanted to get out of the city. We ended up going out the middle fork of the Snoqualmie river, poking around up and down small roads. Ted drove his Blazer and I drove the Jeep. We really didn't find any tough roads but we did find an OK place to camp along the river and just hung out most of the day. We found a clay wall next to the river and carved clay figures for a while and tried to bake them in the fire but they kept breaking.

The next camping trip was supposed to be a bigger trip, with a lot more people. We decided to go down by Mt. St. Helens to a spot on the Cispus River we go to about every year. Al and Christy drove down early in Al's Grand Cherokee to save our spot and Rich, Carter, Jeff and I came down later. Ted and some visiting friends showed up later in the day.

The first time we went down to our spot by the Cispus there was a road that paralleled the river that went right to our spot. The next time there was a few rocks in the way to keep routy people out and this time there was a huge mound of rocks blocking the road. Everyone else parked their cars at the entrance to the road by the rocks. This was the first time the jeep had made it down to Cispus and a little rock pile was not going to stop me. I put it in 4WD granny low and crawled right over the rock pile, no problem. Then we loaded up the jeep with everyones stuff and drove down to the camp site. The jeep became the ferry vehicle for camping stuff and wood for the next day. We did leave sort of early the next day because everyone 'had stuff to do.' Ted, Carter, Jeff and I wanted to stay behind but everyone that drove wanted to leave and there was no way in the world to fit 4 people and all their stuff in my jeep so we went home early.

The only other camping trip of the spring and summer that the jeep went on was a trip down to Ocean shores.

Monica and I went down early to try and find a cool spot on the beach but ended up paying for a spot near Ocean City. Ted, Jeff and Carter meet up with us later that day. Jeff brought some crab and we sat around bullshitting and drinking beer late into the night. One highlight of the night was Carter actually scared the hickups out of Monica (I have never seen this done successfully and it was hilarious).

The next day we got up and drove out onto the beach. I had already been to Ocean shores in the jeep and this was nothing new so basically we did a quick donut, parked and played around in the surf.

A little later we were farting around when this guy came running up to me and asked if I could help. He was stuck in the sand a little further down the beach so we all jumped onto the jeep and went down to help out the guy. It turns out he was stuck in the wet sand out where it gets really soft and you could see the water coming up out of the sand. He was in a new Toyota pickup with his girlfriend and her mom and had dug two big holes with his rear tires. I drove the jeep slowly out towards him and pulled out the winch cable. Then I got in the jeep, turned on the winch and poped him out of his holes.

I went up to the guy and told him to drive real slowly back to firmer ground. He let out the clutch and immediatly started digging some more holes. I asked him if he was in low range. "What?" he said. He was still in high range 2WD. I showed him how to put it in 4WD low. Then he didn't have any problems. He really lucked out because the tide was coming in which would not have done his new truck any good. We jumped back into the jeep and took off down the beach in search of other 'damsels in distress'. Just down the beach we found another truck winching an Achiva out of the soft sand. Some people just don't have a clue.

Later that day we made our way back to 101 and further north back into the mountains where we had done some camping before and found a cool spot by the river to kick back and mess around for the day and night. Jeff and Ted found some more clay and everyone started making stuff like Ted and I did on a previous trip. Jeff started throwing the clay into the fire to harden it up and I said it wouldn't work because we had tried that before. Well, for some reason it worked this time. Later the next day we drove back to Seattle. The only jeep problems were some minor electrical shorts that I took care of when I rewired the jeep again later.