MY JEEP IS TEN! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!

My baby is ten years old!

A rare photo of me NOT at the helm of my JEEP.

Over the past ten years, she has patiently tried to teach 3 children the art of the stick shift ... with varying results.

She's taken me to awesome places ... which we don't tear up.
She's a responsible offroader.

On occasion, she has been filled with pretty, intelligent,funny college girls.

More often, it's just JEEP and me, lost where we want to be ...

Out here on the edge of Florida, we do things ourselves and she has often pitched in to make things happen.

She loves my dogs and I love her for that too. SHE never fusses about dog hair on her seats.



Her cargo space is small, but Bear fits, even with Coquina, so it's all good.



Sure, she had a close call this year, but she never flinched.
It's a JEEP thing, you might not understand.

... and she always has my back.

It's been ten years since I left mini-van purgatory and achieved a life-long dream of having a JEEP.

I have no desire to EVER own another vehicle.

Driving an American Legend works for me just fine.

Happy Tenth, you awesome thing!

Beach Pups, Great Whites Who Tweet, and Poop In Your Tilley Hat

Bear sniffs for signs of Mary Lee, the  16.5 foot, 3600 pound, GPS tracking,  transponder wearing,   great white shark that was about 200 feet off a nearby beach a few weeks ago.
Mary Lee has a transponder on her dorsal fin and every time she breaks the surface with that terrifying triangle, her beacon "tweets" her location via satellite to the folks who wrangled her and attached it.

Bear is always on the lookout for such things ... squirrels, UPS trucks, and great white sharks are high on his watch list.

The pups, Coquina and Peanut, waited impatiently for the "all clear" from big Bear.

While they waited, Coquina pondered the awesomeness of a shark both longer and heavier than the red JEEP that brought her to the beach.
Peanut chose to put his leash through a chew test.

When Bear gave the "OK" woof, the pups raced for the surf in true Moon Doggie mode.

Afterwards, at Peanut's request, Coquina did a quick sniff test to determine if his deodorant was still working.

It was.

Of course, since dogs don't sweat like us, it wasn't a valid test, but we didn't have the heart to tell the pups.

Beside it was a cold winter day ... who needs deodorant on a day like that?

The water was cold, the air was crisp, and after a good romp,  3 wet dogs were eager to get back in the JEEP for the 2.5 hour ride across the state.

Yes, that would be me, Emma, Coquina, Peanut, and 100 pound Bear ... all in a JEEP Wrangler.

And this is a REAL JEEP Wrangler ... not one of these new stretched and cushified new "jeeps".

No sir, mine is short and cramped like a JEEP should be.

And did I mention that Coquina had some ... digestive issues about halfway through that ride ...

OR

... that my expensive Tilley Hat must have resembled a toilet to her?

And I was worried they might "chew" on it during the ride.

Silly me.

You can see a short GoPro video of the pups at the beach below:

1998 JEEP For Sale on Yahoo: Buyer Beware

JUST FOR THE RECORD ... AHEM ...  When my son sent me an email with the subject line: "HOLY CRAP DAD! THIS JEEP IS ONLY $3500 AND HAS ONLY 60,000 MILES !!!" ...

The first thing out of my mouth was, "Son, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Then, we talked and I too drank the kool-aid.
It was grape as I recall.

The boy ( he's really a young man now) has been suffering from a severe case of JEEP Fever for a long time and none of my half-hearted lessons on the impractical nature of the JEEP Wrangler have reduced his temperature. That kind of advice from me ... a registered JEEP Wrangler fanatic ... doesn't carry much weight.

He found the JEEP ad on Yahoo.
Some things just stunk about this deal:

1. The mileage was waaaay low for a 13 year old JEEP ... but, down here we see snowbirds all the time with RV's towing a little JEEP Wrangler on their way to Sarasota or some other "waiting to die" retirement location.  Those JEEPs barely get used.
2. It was too cherry for 13 years.  I baby my Wrangler, but dang ... no way the paint job is as good as this blue one.
3. It was an out of state deal.
4. It didn't sell in the week or so that Junior went back and forth investigating it. A JEEP like that, with a price like that would have sold the very first hour of the first day down here.
5. The seller would use Google Checkout and that sounded good, but he would also ship it at his cost for a 7 day check it out period. That sure is generous. Ridiculously generous.

To make a long story short, we couldn't quite talk ourselves out of pursuing this further. Lucky for us Western Union actually saved the day.
This deal set off all kinds of Internet fraud warnings at their office.

Result.
No deal.

So, if you are shopping for a used JEEP Wrangler, and you see this advertisement ... just keep cruising.
It stinks to high heaven.

Don't you love it when you get an expensive life lesson for FREE!

Repeat after me: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably  is.

JEEPINESS HAPPINESS

Like a kid in a candy store ...

There were so darn many of these forest roads beckoning us to stray from our path to the Ferry. I found them quite distracting and could not keep myself from turning down one after another.

When I did, I was rewarded with flowering prairies ...

... and open, long leaf pine savannahs ...

... and scrubby sand pine ridges.

It was pretty darn wonderful and these were only off of Forest Road 43 on the way down to the Ferry.

The total number of open dirt roads in the 500,000 acre Ocala National Forest boggles the mind and makes me want to get back there ASAP.

Are you picturing the Chinese protester in front of the tank?

I did not run over the frog. Actually, there were so many frogs in this huge puddle, that we backed up and went off to find other trails and muddier puddles to splash through.

The cold front had brought some rain and wind the night before. We saw freshly downed trees on some trails and puddles of water still standing in porous sugar sand.

The frog wasn't taking any chances and jumped in the water while we poked around his "pondle".

I took this pic of Emma and I by setting up the tripod across the puddle, hitting the 10 second timer and then hightailing it back along the bank, before leaping into position for the shot.

I had a little video for you, but it failed to load so look for it sometime in the future.

This was a great day, made even nicer by the little side diversions that popped up on the way to our goal sites.

I am sooooo digging out my forest map and planning the next excursion ...

Floralligator Breeze

On the way out of the refuge last Sunday, I was listening to a little Jimmy Buffett mix that Emma had made for me when my gatordar went off.

Sure enough, there was a six footer lounging in a creek just ahead. I inched the JEEP forward until I was just opposite the gator and shot a few still photos.

I wanted to try some video, without the rumbling of the JEEP's mighty 4 cylinder engine, so I took a chance and shut it off.

For some reason, that often spooks whatever critter I happen to be shooting from the JEEPblind.

This gator was in no mood to leave however, so I sat there awhile watching him, alternately shooting a little video or stills.

When I first turned off the JEEP, out of habit I turned the key so the CD player could continue to play Jimmy.

Without meaning to, I created a musical soundtrack to the video which, to me, seems pretty appropriate.

So, I'll share it with you and apologize to Jimmy for using a wee bit of his work without asking.

Consider it free advertising ... poor guy could use some cash.

I love this gator's toothy open maw. That's not the usual pose that I find them in, but it was a warm day and this guy might have been ventilating.

When I stepped out of the JEEP to try for a closer shot at a new angle, he turned in a flash and submerged. There was a culvert under the road nearby and I dashed over to it thinking that's where he was headed.

I was right, but the light wasn't right. The water was shallow and clear though, and it was pretty cool to stand on that culvert and watch all six feet of this gator slowly slip into the dark tube.

I think he feels at home down there.

Oops!

A couple of years ago, one of my friends who owns a backhoe dug out a small pond hole above the main pond. It was a wet year and the hole quickly filled.



Later it quickly emptied and it has stayed empty to this day. There is just enough room to drive between it and my forest's edge. I do that from time to time when I want to loop by the "pond" on the way in to the property.



Saturday, I pulled off the driveway after spending two hours driving through a swamp nearby looking for critter photos. As I pulled in the drive, I turned towards the pond to check the water level. I was going pretty slow, just enjoying the early evening calm, when ... CLUNK!

The JEEP dropped off the edge and into the mini-pond hole!

Actually it didn't drop off the edge ... the edge collapsed where some critters had excavated beneath it.

Lucky for me, this happened at home where all the goodies I needed to excavate myself were at hand. Here I am modeling the essentials:

• rope


• come-a-long jack ... that's what my Dad always called these hand winches, you may have a different name.


• shovel


• sheepish look over a goofy predicament


• camera and tripod for blogging this later
  

Here's the view from the driver side.




When the side caved in, the right front wheel dropped straight down to the bottom of the hole. This caused the JEEP to wedge itself securely on it's forward frame.
The rear passenger-side wheel came up off the ground as you can see in the picture above. The JEEP was so perfectly balanced on it's frame and the edge of the hole that you could rock it with one hand.
I think I could have tipped it over with one good shove.

I didn't want to go forward as the abrupt edge of the hole might do some damage, plus it didn't really look like the JEEP could move, but I gave her a try just to see. I put her in low and gave it a shot, ... just in case, but sitting on the frame with the front driver wheel against a vertical hole wall and the passenger rear wheel up in the air ...she wasn't going anywhere.

I quickly took a few cell phone shots and sent them out to family and friends so I could get my daily dose of chiding, then I walked up the slope to gather the tools you saw in the first picture.


I needed to slope the "cliff" edge to give that front wheel an easier trip up and I needed to get that one rear wheel down to where it could get some traction.

I used the shovel to slope the vertical wall of the mini-pond and to remove dirt from around the wedged frame.

Then, I shoveled sand under the floating tire on the rear passenger side.

There's the come-a-long jack in action. The cable from the jack is going to the JEEP. The yellow rope is tied to an oak tree in line with the JEEP.

In the picture above you can see the rope/winch setup. I cranked the come-a-long jack until the JEEP inched back just a little. This brought the floating rear wheel down enough to make contact with mound of sand I had piled under it.

When the sloping, mounding, and winching was over, I hopped in the JEEP, started her up and she fairly popped out of the hole!

I love a good wench ... ahem ... w-i-n-c-h.

I have to confess, while I was uncoiling rope at the beginning of the excavation process, a guy in a truck was passing on the county road. He saw me and the cock-eyed JEEP and rolled to a stop.

"Hey Buddy! You need a hand?"

I hesitated ...

Now, you have to understand that my high school pals, Kevin, Billy, Greer, and I had a truck philosophy that basically stated:

You weren't really stuck unless you had to call for help.

(No cell phones in those days, so this usually involved a hike)

No matter how mired your Scout, Truck, or Landrover was ... even if water and mud was coming in the doors ... if you could get it out without requiring outside help, you weren't really stuck.

We usually got mired late at night far from anywhere. The fear of our fathers finding out what we had done with their vehicles motivated us to dig, jack up, pile logs under tires, and pray, until whatever vehicle we had sank was freed of it's earthly bondage.

So when this guy offered to help ... well, it was a little like me asking for help wasn't it? I reverted right back to my 17 year old self ... what would Kevin, Greer, and Billy think?

"No thanks, I'm fine. I've got my rope and this come-a-long jack. I can get it, but I really appreciate the offer."

"You sure?"

" Yes, I can get it. Thanks a lot for stopping though."

In the end, I was able to get her out and it wasn't even that hard to do. So technically, according to the rules of engagement ... I was never really stuck.

Kind of funny that after two hours of driving around in a nearby favorite swamp and taking photographs, I come home and get momentarily mired in my own front yard ...

...Not stuck though.