Well, driving in JTNP can be tricky because you need to dodge many things that stick out. Branches and bushes are not as bad as Joshua Trees: Those guys have extremely sharp thorns. Unlike people who are familiar with Baja-style racing through narrow trails -- our So. Cal. members seem to be pretty good at it -- I had to learn... I smacked a bush -- or two -- and then slightly drifted into a Joshua Tree with my passenger side. You can reproduced the sound that I heard by taking a key and digging it into a side of a car The passenger side of the car has no square inch of metal that does not have at least one scratch...

The good news is that most of the terrible damage is done to the door. This means it is going to be easy to repaint it, if necessary. This I am going to attempt to remove some of the scratches myself with Mothers PowerBall 4Paint and its friends. I will dedicate next weekend to going through the car to ensure that the combination of washboard and high speeds did not bring any unseen damage.

/v

P.S.: I know that I mentioned a winter run during the last meeting. If you guys don't want to see snow, Joshua Tree National Park as well as Western Nevada are definitely worth exploring.