Labor Day Weekend Run

by Sharon

On the way to the meeting spot, Paul Kelly’s Damn Yankee needed gas.  Being almost empty we filled up near Gardner for the price of $50 at $3.19 for regular!  Down the road from this Mobil station, we noted at another Mobil (heading east) their regular price was at $3.35, so we lucked out a bit on that one.  Unbelievable!

Twenty Jeeps met at the Phillipston meeting area for a non-official club run on September 4^th. It was a mix of: 1 very cute dog, 7 children, Baystate Jeepers, friends of Adam’s, friends of Pat’s and 3 members from the 6 month old Underground Jeep Club (out of central MA).  A bit more than expected, but the run worked out well.

Once we traveled to the air down point, approximately a half hour away, Adam Hamel took 7 out of the 20 Jeeps with him to go into the trail the “hard way”.  Paul decided to be one of the 7 and joined them.  He and Dave’s father, (“Dave’s Custom Creations”) were the only two with just rear lockers.  Getting to the head of this trail, two Jeeps got over the first obstacle right at the road entrance.  Then Paul tried and after 3 tries he opted to go back and join up with the others at the less dramatic entrance to the trail.  One other Jeep had to get winched up and then he was set to go with Adam’s group.

We called back to the 1^st group to let them know we were coming to meet them, but we were doing this in 2 WD to make up for time, so it was pretty bumpy and reminded us of the Toyota commercials.  Once we met up with the 1^st group we started up the power lines and would be meeting Adam’s group shortly after we started.

The power lines were rocky, but manageable.  There were plenty of rocky play areas to use and you couldn’t have asked for any better weather.  Most of the time, the 20 Jeepers would split up to go play in one area or another, all the while keeping an eye on the other groups.  One guy (Mike, I think) lost the beading on his passenger side front tire on a by-pass and had to call for anyone who had an air tank.  Dave came to the rescue, but later ended up with some problems of his own by bending a strap to his rear U bolt.  The only other problem was with the CJ shown in the picture.  He had to remove something to keep going. (OK, I really don’t know what he removed, sorry, but it looked like the rear dive shaft and he was going to run on the front only.)

We then went up to a summit of sorts and ate lunch around 1:30 PM.  The view of all the mountains around us was magnificent.  Adam said that in the fall the colors are breath taking.  Around 2:30’ish we continued up the trail, played here and there and came to a stopping point that we needed to turn around from.  Seven Jeeps went that far as the others below were still having a good time on some rocks and we made the decision that it was time we should get started back to leave.

Only traveling for a few minutes, we came back to a road we crossed over previously that would get us all back to civilization.  We aired up and said our thanks to Adam for leading and good-byes.  It was a great day with little damage for all.