It was great meeting you all and wheeling with you on saturday....

Ok. I admit it, I never got to catch up with anyone of you. I showed up at the obsticle course about an hour and a half too late, and I missed everyone. But I have a perfectly good excuse!!!!

When I woke up on saturday morning, I went out to the Xterra and the police presense on my street struck me as being odd. Also all my neighbors wandering about in their morning PJ's was odd as well. Then my next door neighbor told me that last night sometime someone ran thru our street vandalizing random cars. I checked my X, and yes it had a fresh new streak of grey paint across the hood.

The police officer walked up to me, and took down my information and told me to go ahead and do whatever I needed to do to get it off (call a body shop, etc). He suggested that I try thinner or rubbing alcohol. I freaked for a minute when he tried to write down my lic plate #, cause I don't have a front plate. He didn't comment, he just walked to the rear and recorded the plate #.

A few of my neighbors had tried rubbing alcohol and it worked perfectly. So we all had a group bonding experience out in the street, all of us wiping our cars clean together.

By the time, I sorted that mess out, and got to the meeting spot, it was too late. I ended up hanging out the a bunch of VW Syncro's who were at Hollister for the weekend. Its their once a year Syncro gathering, properly called **Syncro de Mayo**. VW Syncro's came from all over the west coast to participate. Even that Syncro that is always at Moab during Jeep Jamboree. Apparently the owner of that Synco owns or works in a Unimog shop and he is an excellent driver. The Syncro group was playing in the obsticle course area and to say the least, I was pretty impressed with that that van can do.

One of my ridding buddies who went with me, knew one of the Syncro owners from Santa Barbara. They used to work together down there at some start up tech company. It was a totally random meeting. (Small world, I know!)

After that Syncro entertainment ended, I ventured off to explore as many of the park as I could by myself. I tried to reach you guys on Channel 16 by CB, and I tried all the channels on my FRS as well (Huey, FRS does not go to channel 16, as you suggested). No luck reaching anyone. I think I pretty much explored most of the park with my riding buddies and managed to drive most of the blue's and green's. I passed the "Tank trap" and Fremontia trails hoping to find you guys, but no luck.

I left the park at around 3pm.

I will post pictures in a few days when I get everything developed and scanned. I am sure everyone had a great time without me. I am just sorry I was late - but seriously, I had an excuse!!!

I guess I have a habit of being late to NCCX events. Its my damn "Chinese time", I swear!!

I have pics:

Here is the paint stripe:


Playing on a hill:


A little flexing (notice the seam at the bottom of the rear gate:


Driving thru a crack:


Flexing with a fisheye:


More can be found at:
http://community.webshots.com/album/75471154aXpfEh

That paint looks a bit worse than I thought... You said you were able to get it off?

Too bad that you weren't able to meet the gang @ Hollister... Looks like you still had lots of fun, though.

What is "Chinese Time"?

All the paint came off really easy. I got lucky, cause the micro-brains who sprayed it, put it right on top of some morning dew. Because of the dew, the paint never really had a chance to stick. Lucky me!

Chinese are notorious for being late for everything. so the joke is that we have our own clocks which run about 15-30 minutes slower than everyone elses clock. Hence the term.... "Chinese time".

I remember the good old days of seeing KJ getting stuck in the mud road side... These pics are much better, your truck looks good with a layer of dust on it