Back in 2003 my Jeep Wrangler Rubicon was new, and Jen had never driven a 4 Wheel Drive vehicle off road (She had driven her Chevy pickup out into wherever her balloon landed, but that's another story). The Esprit de Corps Jeep club in San Jose ran a Safety Seminar every year at Hollister SVRA which includes an introduction to 4WD driving. The skills learned included how to place each wheel directly over an obstacle, backing down a hill, straddling deep grooves, and other helpful information. This is a link to an old photo gallery I put together back in 2003. (Ha ha, back then, we thought 1280x1024 images were VERY LARGE!)

Back in November of 2004, we were living in Tracy, CA, and joined the local Jeep group "Madhatters". We had a great time playing around in the snow and on the slick rocks (hence the name), and when I got home, I put together this page of photos. It was done using frames (hey, it was 2004) and automatically changes the images every 10 seconds. I guess that was cool back in 2004. All in all, it was a super-fun day with some great people!

One of the attractions to 4 wheeling is figuring out how to repair a problem on the trail. I've seen duct tape, coat hanger, and even chewing gum repairs. Whatever gets you home is a successful repair. This is the story about how we patched a dime-sized hole in a tire sidewall with a nut, bolt and a couple of pieces of rubber. All I can say is, it worked!