“Hey guy, thanks for running into my truck...”
Last Saturday was the Adventure-mobile meetup at Fourtillfour Coffee shop.
Read more about FourTillFour: Here
Photo by Garrett Topham
Photo by Garrett Topham. You can see the existing small rip in the left front fender. It’s that tiny black line at the far back of the front fender...
So, my friend who owns it asked that I take anyone who wanted to, on a little offroad drive after the “Adventure-mobile” meetup. (Adventure-mobile seems to be the term for interesting offroad vehicles, but not necessarily 4x4)
Thankfully, the group was fairly small so we could check out some fun sites without having to take the whole day. We headed to a parking lot/staging area near town and aired down. The requisite kid on an Raptor 660 ATV was doing donuts in the parking lot and doing high speed passes to make sure we all got a good site of his impressive riding and covered everyone in dust. (Of course he had no helmet or gear as his parents watched on with little concern)
These are areas I tend to avoid, but when you are doing a mini offroad drive, you sometimes end up at these spots to start. Yes, I’m foreshadowing a bit.
Photo by Garrett Topham. “Tonto and Hector the pickup truck getting ready to go”
Photo by Garrett Topham. Garrett’s truck has been in the family for over 20 years!
We headed up the wash to start our drive. The first mile or two of this wash is high sided and very pretty. It’s also impossible to see around each corner. We heard something headed our way and stopped. The kid on the ATV blasted past looking surprised to see someone in his way. About a mile later we heard another engine so we stopped. A UTV came around the corner and the driver looked a bit terrified and not sure how to control his golf cart. One kid of about 3 on his lap and another of about 4 or 5 in the passenger seat. No helmet’s no seat-belts.
He came to a stop, then waived and tried to pass me. At about 2 mph I watched in disbelief as the UTV slid a bit sideways (He was in 2wd in the sand) and the rear tire hit my fender and proceeded to pull open a gash and bend it upward. As I yelled he stopped. With a clueless look this father proceeded to try and squirm out of it... my truck already had dents so why does it matter... Why didn’t I tell him to stop BEFORE the tire hit my truck etc. I was in a bit of awe. I think him having his kids with him kept me calm-ish. I was incredulous though. If his first words were “Oh no! I’m so sorry!” I think I would have been upset, but let it be. Instead, I asked for all of his insurance info and figured we’d do this one by the book.
Of course he didn’t carry his wallet or anything else. I took pics of him, his plates and took down a cell number and name... Then we kept on with our day. My hands only shook with anger and a bit or rage for the next few miles. Then it got a bit better.
I instinctively wanted to make it better and bent it back almost immediately. This pic is after I bent it back down...
Hey, guys, that was fun, let’s go find water!
This crossing always looks bad, but usually isn’t. It’s normally a good 50 yards long so it takes some commitment considering you can’t usually see the bottom. Today, the distance was nearly double that. The big winter was clearly making this crossing more questionable. Being in the old truck I was not going to try any hero stuff. I putted out and once the tops of my tires were almost under I decided to slowly back up in reverse.
My buddy who brought his drone said that a line slightly to the right looked more shallow so... oh what the hell... let’s go back in and try it. Whether or not it made a difference I’m not sure, but it didn’t get any deeper than the previous try so we just kept creeping along. My buddy got a decent shot of Tonto looking like an island midway across.
Photo by Garrett Topham
Photo by Garrett Topham
Photo by Garrett Topham
Next up was Nico. He’s just started getting into the 4x4 world and this truck is fairly new to him. He made a nice bow wake and if he was worried, it didn’t show.
Well, nothing left to do, but relax and take it all in. We assumed it would be plenty hot to go swimming, but our “perfect” winter seemed to want to hold on for a few more days and it was too cold to want to jump in the snow runoff. As I type this one week later it’s 104F outside so you can imagine one last cool weekend was nice, despite the lack of swimming.
One of the guys who hadn’t been down this way wanted to stop by the Horseshoe Dam. (This is the dam we road dirt bikes under during our moto trip last year) Normally the overflow is dry like the picture below.
We were in for a treat. The water was running!
The walk way is under the water.
The views were breathtaking.
Then, as you do, you stop at Burritoholics for some amazing grub on your way back into town. Was there amazing drone footage, yes. Will I post it, yes. If I see it, you will.
I guess the moral of the day was to not let others ruin your day. I still want to show up at this guys house and make him feel some wrath, but as I get older I realize that would just be creating a new problem for myself. Letting it go is tough, especially for an admitted grudge holder, but in the end I realize letting it affect my day just let’s the a-hole’s of the world win. Instead, I think I’ll go visit my buddy the “qualified” tig welder and make it better than it was before.(Yes, if it was a bigger dent/rip I would use the info I found online to contact him and make him pay legally. Under the circumstances, I’m letting it go...)
So, load up the FJ40 honey, we need to rebuild the front axle on the truck anyway and weld up that rip in the fender at Brent’s in Tucson. It’s only 104f out and we’ve hot 190 miles to go.... I love you, Happy Birthday!
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