Uwharrie Nat'l Forest, Spring 2006

So for those of you who didn't know, I'm a bit of Jeep addict. The "country boy" side of me is really enthusiastic about working on 4x4s, finding a big ol' mud puddle and making as big a mess as possible. A short trip Northeast of my home in Union County is the Uwharrie National Forest. Here they have seventeen miles of Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) trails. Actually, this forest has way more to do then just play in the mud. There are horse trails, foot trails, campgrounds, shooting ranges...it's pretty much a redneck wonderland. I love it!

This particular trip, we decided to go for a romp in the mud. I drove my 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee (probably my favorite car I've ever owned), my little brother drove his 1994 Jeep Wrangler (my Jeep from high school), and a friend drove down from Virgina Tech to go with us, driving a 1991 Jeep Wrangler. We loaded up a cooler and grill and headed off for a day of fun.

We were splashing through mud, crawling up rocks, just having a blasty blast! A few miles into the trails, we found a fun little rock to "flex" our suspensions on, and while Fat had his Jeep on it, his motor cut off. He tried to fire it off and it wouldn't go, so we decided to roll it down the next hill and try to pop the clutch. No go. So now we had a dead Jeep blocking the trail at the bottom of two fairly steep hills. While we tried to figure out what was wrong with it, one of the tires went flat. Several people passing by on ATVs told us one thing after another of what it may be. So we would drive 30 minutes to the nearest town, buy a part, drive back, try it, not work, go back to the store, exchange the part, try a new one, not work, and repeat the process. It was getting close to dark and Puffy needed to get back for work so we decided to tow it out ourselves and leave it in the parking lot over night.

We hooked Fat's Jeep to Tones's and started to long trip out. At the top of the hill, we unhooked the tow straps, Tones went down to the bottom and I was gonna roll forward and nudge Fat to get him rolling down. He motioned me forward and then yelled "STOP!" Then he and Puffy fastened their seat belts and motioned me on. "YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAW!!!!" was yelled as they bounced down the rocky hill with no power steering or brakes. Fat was eating this up!

We got him to the parking lot and a guy walked over who knew exactly what was wrong. We didn't have time to go to the store again so we headed home. The next day Fat and Pops went up with a trailer and hauled the dead Jeep home. He put the part the guy said it was on and still no go. Fairly irritated Fat took the part back and the parts store employee told him that Wranglers built in early 94 still had leftover 93 parts on them. He exchanged the 94 part for the 93, took it home, bolted it on and the Jeep fired right off! He was so happy he started humping the back end of the Jeep and needless to say my mom was a little disturbed watching him from her bedroom window, haha.