Susan and I arrived in the camp site Friday afternoon after driving most of the way in the rain, leaving us with a jeep full of water and hoping it would dry out before we had to ride in it the next day. Jim, Gordon & Kathy, Troy, and Hugh & Rosie were already all set up and ready to enjoy the night. After unhooking the jeep and setting up the RV, we were ready to sit around the nice camp fire ourselves.

Saturday morning dawned clear with no sign of the previous day's rain. It promised to be a beautiful day. Jack, Troy's father, joined us for the weekend of camping and we went exploring. Jim found a fun looking side road and we all followed him (what a mistake!!). Jim went up a little hill climb, and I followed. After reaching the midway point, I began to hear air escaping from a tire, not a good sound. I had sliced a tire pretty good. Gordon came up behind me, and he had also sliced a tire. After getting the tires changed on the hill side, we decided to not try our luck any further and just turn around and head back down the hill. This is where it got interesting. Gordon decided that turning around in the space provided by the road was too boring and wanted to charge up the hill side, dodging trees, scaring the !?%* out of Kathy, seeing if the cloth top on the Commando could survive a tree close encounter (it can't). When he finally got stopped he was wedged between trees behind and in front on a very steep side hill. I broke out my camp saw and cut the tree down behind him, allowing him to back down the hill and finally get turned around. On the way down the hill Jim discovered a fuel leak in his truck, so we decided we should head back to camp to regroup and relax a little after the morning's excitement. After Jim got his truck back in working order again, we decided to relax a little and play some holey board. After Jim beat everyone pretty soundly we decided to go exploring again before dark. We decided to go on a short loop trail close to camp that is pretty fun. Nice rocky sections, awesome views, a nice ride. Shortly after starting up the trail, Hugh broke a rear leaf spring. This caused his axle to move and rotate, and destroyed one of the caps on the u-joint in the rear drive shaft. He got strapped to Jim. Troy broke a front shackle mount, causing his front axle to move, causing his front drive shaft to pull apart. Troy got strapped to me. Eventually we limped back to camp for further repairs in the morning. 

After a good night's sleep, Jim and Troy inspected Hugh's rear spring. With the help of some bailing wire to hold the spring together, and a come-along to keep the axle in place, it was declared road worthy enough to be towed home on a strap instead of having to call a tow truck. His wheeling for the weekend was over however. Troy then went to inspect his damage. He connected two batteries together to get enough amperage to weld with and got him self all fixed up just in time to watch the crowd from Sierra Vista show up for the day's run. There was quite a group, and I didn't know all of them, but Jerry & Patty, Lutz, Susan's cousins Troy & Janice, Tom & Mona, Larry, and others came for a day's fun. We headed up to Guajalote Flats, some taking the hard path, some the easy, meeting at the crack for lunch. I did the crack, followed by Jerry and Larry. Susan got tired of watching me do it and decided to give it a try herself making it easily. Jim tried it, but in the truck he is just too long to make it. Troy tried it in his jeep, but he is also too long. Everyone had a good time playing around until it was time to drop off the edge of the world and head back to camp. There we took a group photo of all the rigs & drivers for posterity. We don't do this enough at club functions. Then everyone aired up for the drive to town. The few of us that were left decided to play some more holey board. Jack & Troy beat Jim and I once or twice, but everyone had a fun time. We built an extra large camp fire for our last night, discussing everything under the sun. We all hated to see the night end, but too soon it was time to go to bed and get some sleep for the next day.

We all had lots of fun. Those that don't go on the camp outs really miss out.