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Well . . .I thought it would be simple. Go to Shields Lake, eat, come home, have a nap, eat dinner, play on the 'puter, and be at work by 6pm. Simple. It's such a simplistic word, in all it's simplicity. Not so.

We did the Shields thing. It was a nice ride. Fun, calm, warm. From the parking lot there was 8 of us. Craig in his 5L powered 4Runner, Miles in his Fr/Rr locked Toy and friend in locked Toy, Shawn in his 89 Nissan, a guy in a YJ, another Toy (open) and me. We lost Miles at the second rock face. He lives on Harbouview Rd. and seeing all the trucks heading up in the morn, he just had to join us. As it was he was in the middle of cooking something on the stove and only had time to get as far the second rock face before beating it home to turn the oven down to 375°.

Craig had just put a new set of aftermarket springs in the front of his 4Runner, and in his flex test at the main P-king lot in the ditch, separated his front driveshaft. He was now a locked 2wd vehicle. We lost Miles friend and Craig at Shields . . .not sure if a Yeti picked them up or what. They disappeared. The remaining 4, me, Shawn, YJ dude, and second Toy decided to do Cleavage. What a blast. We didn't actually have guts to do the obstacle.....especially seeing Shannon trying it a few weeks back, and his truck makes mine look stupid (relative terms of course). So there we were, standing around talking big talk like, "Oh yeah, I did this in the dark . . ." and, "Well, I did this with no tires on the drivers side . . ." were running rampant.

Visit Keith's 4x4 site, click here

The first LC took several attempts at the bottom section. He was in the wrong line every time. Finally, at the 8-9th try he was gonna make it. Except for one small mistake, he went right when his spotter said left. I know from first hand experience to never spot someone/be spotted by someone by saying GO _______. It always gets muddled in the translation!

He fell in 5 ft from the finale. In deep. Winching from trees (using tree saver straps) only served to get himself into more trouble. Watching John Edgar instruct at the IRC winch seminar back in fall of '98 came to mind....they could of used some training themselves.

5:13pm. I was getting antsy. We, that is, Shawn and I had to be back in town for 6pm work time. Return, Air up, home, shower, and work in no particular order. We offered cell phone (my new toy) or a ride out to the two ailing LC's. They said they were all right. Home we went.

What I thought was to be a rather normal day turned into a half decent adventure. In turn, I met some other 4wheelers and made some new friends. Even picked up about 2 garbage bags 1/2 full of trash! They were really looking at me funny when I was scouring the campgrounds at Shields. "Are U collecting those beer cans for cash . . .?" Reply: "Nope, just doing my part to keep our trails and playgrounds free of trash". By the end of the trip, everyone had made at least one stop to pick something up off the ground: beer cans, pop bottles, T-shirts, towels, a tree branch . . .sorry, I thought it didn't belong there.

Keith aka RedApe
(Lost my door key somewhere along the lines too)