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Saturday morning John and myself met up with Mark Lynch and his friend. I'm sorry I forgot his name? He was a LIOR member years ago. We grabbed breakfast at the truck stop and headed out to the Creek. There we met up with Alex Danyluk and his girl. Alex was a member but moved upstate. They were driving Dara's 02 TJ with a long arm and 33's. John was in his XJ on 33's, Mark was in a YJ on 35's and I was in Jake. I loaned out all my spare warm clothes gloves, jackets to those that forgot it was February, and we were off.
I tried to go up the tires next to the office but it was way too icy. Then Alex got his girl's rig up there for a few photos. Someone had recognized Dara's TJ and asked when they bought it. LOL Seems the previous owner wheeled it often at the Creek. Explains the mis-aligned passenger door and new paint job. LOL
Well we finally hit the trails and spent most of the day on blue trails. I tried Frog Hole and couldn't push the 4 inch sheet of ice so I winched out. Everyone else went around. Smart choice. It was Dara's first time driving but not her jeeps. LOL She was doing great and smiling. That's the most important part of this, isn't it? Then we got on a Blue/ Black trail which every rig could get through. We had two of the club's best spotters there. But Dana started getting cranky and her smile went into a frown. So I quickly, well maybe not so quickly, but I did work on getting us back to blue trails. The shortest way back to blues was a quick black trail. Sometimes you got to go backwards to go forwards. At that point if Dara had access to a voodoo doll I was going to be in a lot of pain. We quickly got through the black trail and back to blues and the cabin temperature in Alex's Jeep dropped about 20 degrees.
We stumbled upon the water hole where 2 years back Garret Moore tried and ended up winching after trying every possible line. I think he's still mad at me for egging him on to go in there? Well I plunged in the ice-capped pond and got most of the way through but couldn't push the iceberg any further. But I did manage to get out without winching. Well I wasn't satisfied so I went around to the back of the hole and drove out on the ice. I actually sat there for a few seconds then all at once I fell through. I tried to open my door to bail out but the ice wouldn't let that happen. The air intake was well out of harms way so I just let Jake idle away. Sounded like and old Chris Craft cruiser. I open my canvas window and climbed onto the soft top then across the hood to the winch. I pulled out what I thought was enough cable but soon found out I was wrong. So Johnny very gingerly tip toed out on the ice to grab the hook. I think he said about fifty curse words but got back to the shoreline with out getting wet. At this time Jake had water over the drive shaft tunnel. So I just pushed the shifter into first without a clutch and started winching. It was tough and slow but I finally got through without putting a shoe into the icy cold water. I opened the tailgate and the wave finally got all of the French Fries out from under the seats. We let Jake drain for a few minutes and went back out.
We then found some more mud pits which Mark played in. I wouldn't let Johnny go though. Truth is I didn't want to get muddy hooking up a cable to his truck. So Mark was having fun and getting real muddy and then his YJ started making some funky noises. At this time it was around 3pm and we decided that it was enough anyway. Turned out the noise was in the rear end. He was so happy it was in the rear. Turns out that he was planning on replacing the Dana 35. So it was sort of a good thing? We tried going back by the powerline but couldn't get up the ice. So, I called the office and they directed us to a shortcut out by the old house trailers. And all these years I thought that was a mobile home junkyard? Go figure. We got Mark on his trailer said goodbye to Alex and Dara and went back to the Comfort Inn for showers and beverages. Mark and his buddy, John and myself went to this really fine restaurant in town. They even shut the pool table down during dinner. Now that's top shelf. Well turns out the food was actually really good. I guess if they get a 10 or 12 top, they put sheets over the pool table.
We went back to the hotel and crashed. It was another fine Long Island Off Road adventure. I was supposed to wheel with Mike B. on Sunday but didn't hear from him and decided to head out to my property and see how deep the snow was. Nothing new there but rabbit tracks. Next month's run is The Gutter. I hear there's more trails that LIOR has never explored. And there's plenty of snow this year. Should be fun. Hope you enjoyed my story.
