There was 14 rigs in all. There was a number of first timer's for the group. Dan and his son, Bob and his son and friend and Tori and his son, who invited a couple of his wheeling buddies. One of which had the worlds smallest clown car with 4WD. It was a bone stock Sami. I wasn't sure if it would be able to make the whole trip. But with some assistance from Tori's Jeep he was able to do the whole day.
So we ran up Slant Ranch and handed out a couple playing cards along the way. We made pretty good progress. The last waterfall kept us for about an hour. The weather was very nice no wind and warm. We went to the Talc mine for lunch. After lunch we went down Nightmare Gulch overlook. Once back to pavement we handed out another card. One of Tori's friend had a shock mount break off so they took off. Along with Damien and Dan who needed to get back home.
From there we headed over to Nightmare gulch. We made it thru in good shape. I was worried about Peaches and the Sami since there was a lot more large rocks in the canyon then I remember. But they made it thru in pretty good shape. Then we arrived to the start of Opel Canyon where we stopped for a few minutes. We passed out another card and headed for pavement. We reached pavement right before dark and passed out the last card and started airing up the tires. Then we compaired poker hands to see who would draw from the pile of prizes.
It was nice to get out again! I had a wonderful time and enjoyed wheeling with everyone.
Just to let the record show -- here's who went:
>
> Scott & Sarah Evans
> Chris & the entire Tholke Clan
> Russ Mukai
> Eric Bernocco
> Bill Cavan with John Carey riding shotgun
> Jeff Sanders
> Damian Smith & his bud Yasuaki Ikeda
> Jed Cunningham and 2 buds - Colin Smith and Brandon Lew
> David Weil
> Dan Baker and son Collin
> Bob Boltner with Corey Hively and Elan Goldman
> Troy Viso with Aaron and bud Todd
> Dirk Lockwood with Sarah and Adam
> and last but not least, in the Sami that could,
> Jason Pope (aka Peaches) and his wife Cindi.
>
> 14 rigs; 31 participants
> Beautiful day, good folks to wheel with... it's all good. --Bill
