Okay, we got them.
Friday night, we got all of the gear ready that we had so that we could go riding immediately upon returning from the trip to OK to pick up the ATV's. (We bought the ATV's from a great dealership in OK because all of our local ones were charging outrageous prices for theirs and they all but refused to get us the colors or models/options we wanted. The dealership in OK was really quick to jump on this, and got us exactly what we wanted in less than 3 days and beat the local dealerships by $1k per unit before taxes (which there is no 8.25% sales tax in OK)). Saturday morning, we run over to U-haul to pick up the trailer we reserved. Well, the d-bags that rented it prior hadn't returned it, so the lady at the counter was frantically trying to call them to get them to return it. So about 45 minutes later (which was a loooooooong 45 for that clerk as she had to endure my wife's hammering her for not having a trailer ready for us when we paid to reserve one and they should have made sure that there was one available and not book the same trailer back to back for exactly this reason, and blah blah blah blah....), the 2 guys who had the trailer show up with it, and immediately upon finding out that someone was waiting for, they start slow bucking around, taking their time checking it in. The clerk sent one of the garage guys out to speed it up (pissing off the 2 guys) and had it all hooked up for me and we were gone before the 2 guys could even finish paying their late fee. So we're off.
We get about 75 miles out of Amarillo, right at Allenreed, and POOM! Flapfapapwhaoppopgrindbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Oh shat, WTF? Blowout, passenger side rear tire. The tire was completely shredded. I was lucky I didn't damage the rim. Got pulled over to the side and out of traffic. Okay, that was a bit exciting. Go to get the spare,hmmmm...no spare. (Long story short, bought the truck to help out stepson, stepson drops the ball, we take truck back, didn't bother to check for spare before leaving on trip, and discover that he used it and didn't put it back on truck underneath the bed. Okay, stupid me for not checking that before I left. Some lessons are just better learned that hard way, I guess.). So we get over to the little gas station/travel center, tell them the problem, and they make a couple of calls and get someone from McLean (about 7 miles away) to come help out. Whew. Big ol' cornfed redneck named Frank shows up (a good-ol'-boy, to be sure) with a tow truck. We drop the trailer, he hooks up the truck and tows us to McLean. There, he gets us a couple of tires that he got off a brand new truck that was totaled a couple of days prior. (Had to have 2 as they were just a little bit different size then the ones we had, so we got 2 for the back). Then, we find out that stepson has put locking lug nuts on (4 standard with 1 locking per wheel), and has not bother to tell us or to leave the key with the truck. Dangit. Big Frank smiles and commences to chiseling and drilling them off, assuring me that it happens quite often. He also was nice enough to find us a rim and put one of our old tires on it so we would have a spare. Okay, so $193 dollars and 2 hours later, we are back on the road, thankful that it didn't take any longer or cost any more than it did. Whew. We went back to Allenreed, picked up our trailer, and continue the journey.
So we get to Altus, pick up the ATV's, go through all the paper work, and the chief mechanic goes through all the important points with us, including maintenance schedule and important operations (how the automatic transmission works and how to switch it over to manual, getting in and out of 4x4, reverse, etc). After all that, we get them loaded up (one in the bed of the truck, one in the trailer), and hit the road for the trip back. We're about 4.5 hours off our intended schedule at this point and are really sweating getting any daylight riding time. We didn't want to rush the trip home, we wanted to get there safely. We got back to Amarillo at 8:00p.m. right on the money. I unloaded one of ATV's from the trailer, and run back to the U-haul lot to drop it off. Back to the house, load the ATV in the back of our other pickup, and off we go.......with the sun setting.
NIGHTRIDING! Okay, so we get to the river (about 25 minutes North of us) and the sun has set, so it is now dark. No sweat, I had been dying to do a little nightriding. Well, we have been hammered with rain this last week, so it was pretty muddy, and the river itself was bank to bank. Okay, now when the river it muddy, it tends to draw basically 3 kinds of people. The serious mudders, the idiots, and the spectators (the wife and I falling into the latter group). The mudders are a blast to watch as they will try to find the nastiest, most challenging mud bog to conquer. Most make it, some don't, but it's always a gas, and they are always cool. Then the idiots. Also a gas to watch, but in a more sadistic way. Failure is expected. Granted, success, while unusual and generally a surprise, is always applauded. Always the ones that think "Aw hell, I can make it" when driving in something like a station wagon, or a Volvo, or a VW Beetle, or Honda Civic, or some other ridiculous vehicle. Or they are the ones that go and get something like a Nissan Exterra and try to go mudding. Or driving a brand new, totally stock Jeep Wrangler with stock suspension and tires up a NASTY rock trail hill that would scare the bajeezus out of some of the more skilled and equipped 4x4er's. Needless to say, all 3 demographics were in abundance. We found us a nice spot (albeit, not where we had scouted out over the last couple of weeks prior due to the mud and lack of visibility). We unloaded and went toodling around a bit. Not having been there earlier in the day to get an idea of how bad the muddy spots were, we didn't go in a lot of the places we wanted to, but we had fun. We'd take breaks here and there, and some people starting shooting off fireworks (sky rockets type with HUGE effects). The people parked next to us were setup to camp, but one of the kids threw a tantrum, so they pulled up stakes and left, leaving us their campfire. We pulled the trucks up next to it and set up camp there. We rode a bit, then sat by the campfire watching the fireworks, the drunk idiots, and the mudders all play in the dark. It was fun. About midnight, we loaded up and headed home. We washed off the ATV's, and got our gear squared away to head back the next day (Sunday).
Having had a long day the day before, we slept in a bit, but got everything loaded up, got a bite to eat, and made it to the river just after noon, in time to get a good spot before churches let out and everyone started showing up. The sun was out, so a good portion of the mud had already dried up (or been carried home on numerous vehicles the night before), so we were able to get to our scouted out spot. We unloaded, and had an absolute blast! Sand plains and dunes, rocky hills, trails, a little bit of mud (nothing serious), we rode them all over the place. These things are just awesome. I had read and heard that the gear driven Automatic Transmissions on these models were a little clunky and had a little bit of a lurch when they shifted until they warmed up, then it was supposed to improve. At first, this was true. A little bit of a lurch during shifting, and it was just slightly clunky, but not bad. And once the tranny warmed up, it went away. Well, that was only for the first couple of rides. After that, hot or cold, the thing ran great. Nice and smooth. A couple of times I had to switch to the electronic manual shifting as I wanted to have a little more control on a couple of the climbs I was making. Tried out the 4 wheel drive on a couple rocky hills, and let me tell you, the 4x4 with the independent front and rear suspension is like a mountain goat. It just wouldn't quit. I was very impressed. They have great power for a 420cc engine, but they
are fuel injected and liquid cooled. Good throttle response. Not a sport model, to be sure, but they sure don't handle like a utility ATV. More like a hybrid of the two. Perfect for us, and exactly what we needed/wanted for the kind of riding we enjoy. We spent about 10 hours out there yesterday, then loaded up and came home. We unloaded, washed them down, unpacked, showered, and crashed. I did NOT want to get up and come to work this morning.
Oh, and on our last outing of night last night, Mrs. Thumper spotted something and pulled up to the bank of the somewhat full river. I pulled up next to her as I couldn't figure out what got her attention. BAM! Idiots strike again. Some dumbass loads his entire family up in a brand new Suburban 4x4 (all stock) and decides to drive down the river............................the middle of the river. I mean we're not talking drive across it, I mean drive down the middle of it. It was not only stuck, it was sinking. The water was up to the headlights while we were there, and up almost to the windshield when we left. Some other dumbass actually drove out to him in a 1989 For Bronco II, tried to tie on to him, and drag him out. Bronco II guy pulls up behind him (how he even got THAT far out there is beyond me) and immediately starts sinking. Okay, now they both are stuck. The kids are all frolicking in the water, and playing and swimming, while their intoxicated father, mother, and their intoxicated friends are freaking out. The women are running around trying to stop every 4 wheel drive vehicle they can find to come pull them out. (Most usually try to go at least go help, but the minute they get there and see what the idiots have done, they die laughing and respond "Y'all dumbasses are screwed." which generally did nothing to improve the mood or the hopes of the women soliciting help). They were about 75 feet from the closest shore (about 100 from the far shore) and would have to be pulled out sideways if someone attempted it from the closest point. I speculate that the Bronco II is now a submarine, and the Suburban is now a permanent monument to stupidity in the middle of the river, ever present to been seen from this day forth with barely a taillight and bumper protruding from the river. (Once the river goes down a bit, you may actually be able to see the license plate). Granted that is speculation based on how fast it was sinking just while we were there.
Okay, as for pics, I get major fail. I snapped a few iPhone pics, but didn't get any action shots. I asked Mrs. Thumper to take a couple of shots of me on mine, but she just gave me this blow off laugh and said "Pfffft. Just put your helmet on and try to keep up." Ouch. So that didn't happen. Everytime I tried to get a shot of her riding, all I could see was this little glimmer of a tail light through a cloud of dust. Okay, screw it. I just left the phone in my pocket. I did manage to get a few when we were back at our camp. Here's a few
Here's the pair of them.
The independent rear suspension
(No, that is not our trash. We don't burn that kind of stuff in campfires. We take trash bags and clean up after ourselves. And in this case, we ended up cleaning up after someone else. We picked all that trash up that the people before us left).
After a little trail riding and hill climbing (and a couple of minor mud puddles).
Sun is going down, end of the day.
I am going to take the day off this Friday, and we'll be going out there again, and quite possibly camping over night. (We got this really nice canopy that we can setup for a campsite shelter with mosquito netting and a wind/shade wall that we're wanting try out). There shouldn't be a whole lot of people there on Friday, at least not during the day, although there will be more that start showing up that night. I'll get some more pics this weekend. I'll see if I can't get a little idiot footage this time. I'm hoping it doesn't rain this week so we can get farther back in there. There are some REALLY cool places to ride at the river, especially if it's not flooded.
July 28th 2009 6:12 PM
congrats to you both.
Congrats on the new ATV's 
