DHappel

Wow, a voice from the past! I didn't even know you were still in the club!

I'm sorry, I draw the line at Toyotas. Well, OK, I guess a Toyota can come but only if they stay 100 yards behind the rest of the group. Nah - kidding of course. For a MORG I'm pretty lax. He's welcome to come. The idea of course is non-members are welcome to join a MORG with an eye toward joining. Obviously we don't want to just let anybody come to all our events without being a member but it's hard to decide if you want to join without getting a feel for the group. Hence the 'free sample'. I'm sure Martin isn't really looking to join a Rover group, but on occasion I'm fine with somebody coming out on a MORG. As for the Merc - She herself isn't actually looking at a Rover but her son is interested in one. Unfortunately he's not able to make it himself this Saturday. Further, she's the owner of Morris Motors here in Walnut Grove; a shop that started as more of a Merc specialty shop but now does work on everything from Toyotas to Ferraris. Including Rovers. They also host a number of club cruise-ins throughout the year and I've been thinking of seeing if they wanted to host us for a possible future cruise-in. Not exactly off-road, but we've been known to do non-dirty things every once in a while.

Downieville meeting location - 11:00AM Parking lot at corner of Main (highway 49) and Nevada. Basically Downieville is small enough we can't really miss each other, but might as well put a pin in it. This is about the only place big enough to park several vehicles together. See you guys there!

Does anybody want to meet up on the trip up? I'm planning to head out from Walnut Grove about 7:30 and will stop for gas somewhere on the way. I'll have the G500 along with me it looks like. That puts me in Sacramento around 8-8:15 depending on exactly where. I'll be coming up 5 then 99 - 70 - 20 - 49. Or basically straight north to Yuba City then NE to Downieville.

I don't expect any problems for a stock LR3. There are only two spots that are anything more than basic fire roads (as I understand it); the river crossing and a hill after that. Both are rocky but nothing a little tire placement can't solve. No ledges, wash outs, tight squeezes, or big climbs, etc. But you shouldn't need to worry about getting out alone as only some are camping while others are heading home on Saturday.

I may have a guest come in a G500 - owner of Morris Motors here in town. She bought here 'dream car' G500 a couple months ago and was talking to Michele about getting it in the dirt. This would be good beginner trail so I invited her. Her son is also interested in either a P38 or RRC (er.....I know which I'd take!) and they work on pretty much everything from Ferrari and Lambo to Rover and Bentley to Toyota and Ford, though they originally specialized in Merc. Hope to hear from her today.

Regarding lunch, I think we should eat on the trail - possibly at the fire lookout or if not there one of the ghost towns would make a good lunch spot.

OK then, only two people chiming in so I suppose we'll be doing Poker Flats! It's a bit of a haul from the bay but not so bad from Sac. It's an easy trail with a great view from the fire lookout on the way. Should be doable with any Rover. One water crossing that could pose a bit of challenge but otherwise smooth sailing. (says the guy who's only seen videos of the trail...) With the distance let's start a bit later in the day. Perhaps we plan to be at Downieville at 11:00. I expect the trail to be about 4 hours if we do the full version through the old ghost towns/etc. We can set up caravan meet-up points in the Sac area if we have enough people coming the same route. I can't do an overnight myself as I need to work Sunday but looks like Eric will be camping. I'll leave it to him on the details of that part.

Other options- Airport Flats off highway 50 Corral Hollow off highway 4

OK, I let this one sneak up on me. The 1st Saturday of May is actually May 1st; I thought we had more time but it's coming up next weekend. While I have some ideas closer to the bay, how does Poker Flat sound? It's an easy trail that stock Rovers could do (only one 'hard' spot but mostly fire roads) and has a great view from the saddleback fire lookout. The only negative is the distance from the bay - 3-4 hrs depending on where you're coming from. About 2 from Sacramento. So A- who's looking to get on some dirt next weekend and B- if so, does this sound like an option for you? Let me know!

And yes, I'll be there.

What, you don't like the Crue?

Before moving the CA I had a '68 911. I was never really a P-car guy; I only went to one track day with them and I took the Alfa because it was at Mid-Ohio and the Alfa Club's national event was also going to be there later that year. I wanted some extra track time. If I were buying one today would def look for a late model Cayman. The rear of those is soooo sexy.

Looks like I'm out. There's this little deadline looming called April 15th and I've been procrastinating....

I'm not sure I believe Robert was involved in this. Not enough blue paint.

My pics other than a couple short videos of I took on the drive north toward Reno are all uploaded as well. I'll work on the trip report hopefully tonight. Over all a good trip. I tried to add some challenges in addition to the usual DV type trip and I think the mix turned out pretty well. Of course some of the routes didn't work out as once I got there they were marked on the map but either non-existent or impassable. I also made a navigation mistake when I decided to avoid asphalt and take what looked like a fairly straight forward dirt loop toward Ballarat only to later realize I'd been zoomed out too much on my map and what I thought was an upcoming trail/road was actually just a boundary line which put us going well out of our way on a very annoying trail with small wash-outs every few hundred yards you had to come to a near stop to cross. Then eventually we ended up doing just as much pavement anyway. Oops. In reality there was very little carnage. Yes we had 4 tires cut but we had spares and though replacing tires can get expensive it's hardly "damage" or a failure of the vehicle. Cris did break a rear shock of unknown age though earlier he'd been discussing upgrading from his OMEs to Fox anyway so I'm pretty sure that was done on purpose to justify the change. It barely even slowed things down as we just removed it and kept moving. The only real issue was Nick K's brake line. We were able to bodge a repair to get him home but there should be some further investigation done to see about upgrading to longer lines to avoid the issue in the future. Stay tuned - story at 11!

I wasn't so concerned about the RRC moving it around the property, more thinking about that much trailer on a standard hitch going 70 mph down the highway. Tail...Dog...etc. Then just yesterday I passed pretty much that exact setup headed up I5 with a Transit and full size pickup on the trailer being towed by a SRW GMC 3500. So maybe I just never paid that much attention. I assumed it would have say 3 7K axles under it. The trailer must weigh close to 5000 alone. Put a pair of 5000 lb vehicles on it and you can max it out pretty fast. Then again I don't really deal with big trailers much so I'm just guessing. I would however be willing to bet at least half if not more of the 4x4s you see on trailers are just on 3500 lb tandems and hence likely overloaded.

Look at that - it's not even 10:30 and I'm done packing. Seems light though - pretty sure I'm leaving something critical behind.

OK, currently packing the LR3 for my morning departure. One day I'll get this streamlined and be good at it but as it is I always take different things depending on which truck, where I'm going, how long, etc. So it's always a PITA. I'm expecting to meet in Lodi: Cris Nick K Nick B Johan We'll watch for Mike as we turn onto 395 Paul and Will are coming in from the central coast and we'll meet them at Gold Point. For those meeting in Lodi, try to be there a little early to get gas, coffee, etc so we can roll out at 8:00. See you there!

We'll have more trips for you. As they say 'watch this space'

I'm not far off this. Working on my packing now. I planed to have a half day so I could do my packing easily. Instead I got home after 7pm. Plans....why do we even bother?

Especially when you consider people do this with a backpack for a week...

@miles - that has to be the biggest tandem axle trailer I've ever seen! And a bumper pull at that! Yikes!

THIS

Yeah, I'm taking a half day off Friday and will do all my packing/grocery shopping then. Because last minute is the best minute.