Land Between the Lakes 5/13/03

My Mom and Dad where at the Land Between the Lakes Off Road Park in their motorhome. Pat & I drove down to meet them & go four wheeling. We got to off road for a couple of days and came back. Part way through the first day, I started to hear a rattle. It was a high pitched rattle that sounded like a heat shield on the muffler was rattling. Because of that I didn't pay much attention to it until we stopped at the end of the day. When back at the motorhome, I started the Jeep and let it idle. I could hear the rattle, but it sounded like it was coming from under the hood. So I opened the hood an listened, yep it was coming from the front of the motor. So I shut it off & felt around. I found one of the idler pulleys was shot. I could wiggle it all around. So we started asking around if anyone knew of a local parts place to buy an idler pulley. We finally found a place about an hour away. Since it was getting late, we called ahead to make sure they would be open when we got there. We found out that if we left right then we would get there as they where closing. So we headed out. Sure enough, we got there just as they closed, got the idler, & headed back. In the morning, it only took a couple of minutes to change & we where back on the trails.

As we where getting ready to leave, the Jeep was not running exactly correct, so we stopped at the store on the way home & got some new plug wires. It seemed to help & we where on our way.

Now, for some of the photos.

All three of these photos you can see that we are straddling a groove in the trail.

I guess you gotta wash these things off somewhere...what better place than on the trail :)

WHAT THE!!!!!!

The way he's lookin' at me, I think I'm stuck in this photo :)

MMMMM....hot steaming mud.

These last three photos are of the best stuck either of us had. This was is a open parking area & Dad told me they had just filled in some holes with dirt. I couldn't really tell where they where even though I had seen them the year before when we where here. But that was a year ago! I couldn't see them this time because the dirt on top was dry, but under the dry crust was pudding. I was driving through the area splashing puddles & then I found this one. I got out of the Jeep & stepped on the dry looking dirt and when I put my other foot down, could feel the ground move. That's how squishy it was. In the picture to the right picture you can see Dad tried to pull me out, but with no luck. It finally took a large truck & a winch to pull me out. I sunk down until the frame was sitting on the mud. My right front tire was only inches from being completely under the mud, as you can see in the middle picture. But, they pulled me out & all was good.

Watch this video below. It looked like I was driving over an innocent tree across the trail. What I could see was the trail was rutted on either side of the tree making it tougher to clear than it appeared. If you have good speakers, crank this on up as it has good sound. Click the graphic to play the video.

2.4 Meg

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