The gathering-

We all met in Hancock at John Jordan's house where he graciously hosted us for the day. What a turnout we had! Pulling into John's yard was a pleasant surprise. We had, John J with his Toyota, Jennifer in her newly lifted TJ, Al in his TJ, Bill in his TJ, Alex in his TJ, Dan in his YJ, Thom in his YJ, Rosco in his DD mustang, Mike and I in TJ's, while Stephen and Mike G came in the FLA based 2wd Cherokee.

Mike R, Stephen, Mike G, and I found everyone out back exploring John's rock garden. Next to show up were Mike H in his YJ, and John O representing the CJ's. As we prepared to head out, Nate, who had taken a wrong turn, got dropped off by Niki and off we went to the trail head for the clean up.

The trail cleanup-

A few of us had done a recon a few weeks before so we knew that there wasn't a huge amount of trail trash but just enough to make it a good idea and a fun trail ride to boot. We started right from the tar road and did a slow crawl up the main (inhabited portion) road stopping here and there to pick up the occasional can, bottle, box, etc. We leap frogged our way up the road like this all the way up the road and into the trail.

We got to the first obstacle and some folks took the opportunity to disconnect, engage 4x, etc. This obstacle is a good spot to really show some flex and can be taken either the hard way, or the medium hard way. Everyone that I saw chose the medium hard way and none had any major difficulties getting over it. We continued on slowly cruising up the trail, stopping occasionally for the stray can or bottle... fighting each other over who got to pick it up. The second obstacle proved to be a little more of a challenge. A few of the guys decided to take a little bit of a harder line through a diff catching boulder field and it took some good spotting and a little skinny pedal to get them through. Once again, we all emerged relatively unscathed with just a few more scrapes and scratches.

The rest of the trail is more of a rocky road and a nice drive through the woods. Again, making the occasional stop here and there to get the trash. By the time we got to the end of the trail, I think we all got about a quarter of a bag or so per vehicle. That road is good and clean. I think the biggest trash we got was a 12 volt battery and 2 6 volt batteries that we put in the back of John's CJ. Who knows...maybe he can use them. I think Alex picked up a muffler as well. It was about 12 pm or so at this point and everyone was hungry so instead of continuing on to the next road we were going to clean, we headed back down into Hancock for lunch and snacks at the local general store and cafe. I must say, the food at both stores is really very good. The lobster roll I had was mouthwatering.

Meeting-

After lunch and some trail talk, we drove the quarter mile back down to John's house and had our quarterly meeting. These meetings are so much better when we've got a good attendance. And this was one of the good ones. We got through a full agenda and I think we are well situated for the rest of the year and through next.

I will wait for the minutes to come out for the exact content. Thanks to Nate though for filling in as secretary.

After meeting clean up-

The meeting got over at 3 or so, and some folks needed to get back to real life. A few of us parted ways at this point and the rest of us, John J, Dan, Bill, Jennifer, Nate, and I went to the next road section towards Antrim and gave that a good cleanup as well. Trash was just about as sparse and the road was not quite as "adventurous" as the first one so we breezed through rather quickly. A big thanks to Bill for grabbing that nasty tire. We regrouped in Antrim for some gas and beverages and then the group split again with Jennifer and John heading home while Bill, Dan, and Nate and I heading up to the homestead in Washington for a strategic planning session on TDR.

TDR talk at the Homestead-

The groups that was left met up with Stephen and Mike (our newest member) as well as Stephen's parents and wife for a chat around the fireplace at the homestead. All of a sudden, out of the blue, out came hot dogs and hamburgers and salads, and chips, and pizza and all the fixings! A huge debt of gratitude goes out form me, and all of us who were on the trail all day to Stephen's family for the awesome and completely unexpected supper. Thank you!

We also got a quite a bit of strategy and loose ends tied up when a few more of us had to break off and head home. Dan and I left Nate, Bill and Stephen to continue the discussions. I would be heading back up in the morning for trail work with Nate and Stephen.

Sunday's trail work-

I got up there at about 10:30 and went looking for Stephen and Nate out on the trail. I immediately got hung up on the "Toll Booth" and had to walk in. Long story short, we walked around each other back and forth and in circles before we finally caught up with each other and got going. Stephen wasn't feeling well so Nate and I took the lead and started clearing out some more area for registration, contestant parking, etc. We cleaned up the big stuff and headed out to the woods to work on the long trail we've been working on lately. After about an hour or so I've trying to figure out where we were and where we were supposed to be.... we found the trail and starting cutting as best we could.

We had no illusions of finishing the cut with just the two of us but we busted hump anyway and surprisingly enough we managed to do a pretty good job of roughing in the rest of the trail linking it up. Actually, with a chain saw and a couple of guys, I think the trail can be as good as finished with an hour or two of sweat equity.

This concludes my little novelette for the weekend festivities. A huge thanks to everyone who came out for a portion or all the weekend. Our core groups is growing strong!

Thanks,
Shane Beard