Return from SMORR

Trip was great lots of pics and videos to come. No one died! very little carnage. :

...Subscribing...

...I know there had to be some carnage with that many vehicles out there...

I have created a Photobucket account where all of us who went are going to dump pictures into. Here is a link to the page: CLICK ME!! I am going to start uploading everything I took now, but here are a few teasers.

...Who all showed up and who owns that Ranger???..:biggthump

Tbars4 said:

...Who all showed up and who owns that Ranger???..:biggthump

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I believe this is a complete list of the members who showed up. A lot of us brought 1 or 2 people with us. If I am forgetting someone let me know and I will add them. I believe everyone on the "I'm in" list made it, so I just copy pasted it. The ranger belongs to dkchrist.

Gmanpaint
Turdle
Dislexiclawyer
Rookierider
Corkey
Techieman33
Dkchrist
Burns
Zukman
Bronco2guy
SVO42
Rodger9221
Mean Gene
88comingup
pwhiteelec05
twitchy

Tbars4 said:

...Who all showed up and who owns that Ranger???..:biggthump

Click to expand...

I thought that was you being incognito

Return from SMORR !!!

This was a terrific weekend meet for all of us! We had a terrific turnout for the first meet here! The weather was terrific, the sun was shining, we had a nice breeze, and the nights were just right for tent sleeping.

We had most of us at the park on Friday, and the rest showed up on Saturday.

We managed to get set up, and meet each other. Then it was off for a night run! (1st trip out!) The night runs were absolutely fun! Talk about pucker factor! Nothing like heading out to unknown country in the dark! We needed a shop vac to clean the pencil shavings from our seats! I have to tell everybody, EXPLORER FORUM members are the best people out there!! We all got along, and helped each other out. It was so nice to just have someone I never met before just jump in and pitch a hand.

We have a ton of pictures, and video. It will take a little while for everyone to get it up here, so be patient, it will be worth the wait! SMORR was a very clean and well taken care of park. The staff was great. They did things for us, we didn't even expect them to do. The trails were wet from a weeks worth of rain before we arrived, so yeah, we got a little dirty!

I would like to thank everyone that attended, everyone that donated prizes, everyone for representing our group EXceptionally well, the staff, and Brandon at Smorr. We left the park just as we arrived, clean. The vast amount of knowledge & experience that the members have is just amazing. Special thanks to The Zukmans, you guys just ROCK!

Bronco2guy and his company cleaned up on the door prizes! These guys are hard core wheelers, they did more than any of us (except meangene maybe)thats for sure.

Everyone at the park was commenting on the "LIME"! Nice rig you got there MR.

I learned a lot from everyone. The experience just strengthened my knowledge. I learned some things to do, and some things not to do on a big meet like this. Next year will be bigger and better!

I'm back home, I'll have some pictures posted up in a while. I lost some of them when my camera went on the fritz saturday afternoon though, Including my brother going up the hill climb So if anyone got video of it I would really appreciate it if they could post it up.

so did anyone break anything?

Wow!!!!
We just made it home, and , I have to say what a friggin blast we had. I still cannot believe it all was pulled off so well, and everyone did so well.
I will be editing this post several times--



Hat's off to Gmanpaint. I have to say he went way beyond the call of duty to arrange the little side attractions which made the whole weekend a success.
He even arranged a very good night of entertainment.
SideFX performed 4 sets of very good music for us. It was a very good time. That alone was worth the trip. Thanks to the band, and crew, for working so hard--



I'll be uploading some pictures in a bit.


I would really like to see the hill climbs--that was a rush.

I would also like to thank the staff at SMORR. Oh, you guys this is a very nice place. It's very well run, and you'll have evreything you need there.For what it is worth, I now declare it an official Explorerforum gathering spot.

Thanks to the Zukman's
Norman, Sue, I am going to miss you guys already. Having Norm's guidance surely saved a lot of headaches for all of us.

The Chocodiles were delicious, I am eating another right now. Thanks

Oh yeah--that reminds me=
Ben:, I am sorry to report I broke nada Well, nothing real big anyway--just my antenna--
. And, the truck still tracks real good.

However,
It became apparent pretty soon into this that torsion bar brackets and those silly rocks just can not be at the same place at the same time. I got into a situation where my front tire was just making a circle, and setting me back down on the passenger drop bracket. I tried about 7 times with the same result, before getting out ( with the truck all off camber I might add) to throw some rocks around to make a little ramp thing to drive over it. That's when I decided we had had enough, because me and throwing huge rocks is not a good thing to do--

My antenna broke when A tree knocked the mag mount loose and I went ahead and drove over it, I would say about 2 hours into the day. I thought everyone was joking around and hiding from us--because we couldn't hear a thing on the radio--::

It was great to meet everyone, and, of course Jonathan Burns was there. Man, I am so glad I had a little of his influence rub off on me the last few days--
Corkey, having come from OUT OF THE COUNTRY definitely deserves a long haul award. Covering that much ground by yourself would be lonesome to say the least.

Oh, and the man knows good whiskey. Thanks for the leftovers. That is truly the best I have tasted. I'll sip it accordingly

Meangene is exactly what his name sounds like. I mean that guy bangs the truck and fixes it like a toy. amazing. I drifted off to sleep on friday night listening to him talk about his broken dana 60 stub shaft and none being nearby. The next morning I went to do my duties and ran into gene at the bathroom. He'd taken the stub from his tow rig to fix the wheeling rig. Don't need 4wd for towing home he said--
Talk about keeping the priorities in line. Gene you owe me a ride in that beast.


DkChrist and Corkey followed Sheri and I out of camp to gas up, wash off some mud and get some food. Once in town we ran into Burn's and Kelli, all washed up and loaded for the trip back to Tennessee.



After another Good bye-

We washed up and headed out. Once again, it was DKchrist, Corkey and us traveling down old route 66, chatting about the scenery on the cb,until we split up in Carthage, Mo.

techieman33 said:

I'm back home, I'll have some pictures posted up in a while. I lost some of them when my camera went on the fritz saturday afternoon though, Including my brother going up the hill climb So if anyone got video of it I would really appreciate it if they could post it up.

Click to expand...

I got video of almost everyone's hill climb. I think 1 or 2 people made it up before I got out of my truck though. I am going to upload all the video I took to youtube and post them in this thread either tonight or tomorrow. I did upload some of Gene's run down and up that hill on photobucket, so ill link to that at the end of the post. For now lets start with some pictures. I suggest everyone looks through the album because I don't think we are going to post all of the pictures we took.

SMORR sign






Another shot of all the rigs


Short break


More trucks on the small ledge
techieman33's brother


88comingup


SVO42


dkchrist


Turdle


MeanGene's videos

...Cool...A couple of Ranger's made the trip...:biggthump

...And I see Sheri is still holding the roof up...

grr-
I hope someone got all the stuff off my card, because I cannot pull videos off my camera with this computer-( win2000)

arrrrgh!!

Turdle said:

Hat's off to Gmanpaint. I have to say he went way beyond the call of duty to arrange the little side attractions which made the whole weekend a success.

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Thanks Jon!

You worked your tail off to get here! I am really sorry I couldn't have been there to help you finish up, to get you here sooner.

Your rig was fun to watch on top of that climb! I went up it today, and it was kinda spooky at the top! All I could see was blue sky! HEHE! Roof cam was going too! I did an hour of video today with it. Have it up later. (or parts of)

We made it home, no tire blow outs on the way home, so that was good.
As far as trail carnage goes only some worn radius arm bushings gave out on the explorer and i snapped a rear upper sjock tower on the Bronco, did ad more dents, but we have great pics i will be uploading, sorry we didnt get to go out in the group run, timing just didnt work out. Also apolagogies for some of my late night chatterbox friends.

Eric only won the first one cause he jumped--:

This is my friend Cliff i brought along. To fiinish off the trip he decided to hit mud pit was awesome!

So, I left camp to go get some ice

And--oh, over there was a RTI ramp.

I was just going to get a picture of mine real quick, when this guy came up the road. 3 weeks ago it was a 2wd with blown engine--





So, I hung out and talked to him for a while, and wouldn't you know it here comes the gang down to the ramp. Just when we were finished ramping about 7 people, I said " I better go check on my wife"



Burn's new spotter. She even won herself a new tow strap in the drawing. How appropriate!













That's when Burns said " yeah, you were supposed to be getting Ice and we were sent to find you.I think that was an hour ago"

ooops,

I was having such a good time I couldn't pay attention to anything.

Alright, I made it, chatting with Pete until we parted at KC and he was going to check in at Minneapolis.

I want to seriously thank everyone for the weekend That was freaking awesome. Awesome band and great wheeling with good people makes for one hell of a weekend.

I was the blue ranger in the pictures, I will fess up.

Meangene, definitely need a ride in the buggy and if you would allow maybe drive

Zukman, you rock! You guys can wheel with me anytime. I was an honor to be with such four-wheeling greatness.

Finally, a special thanks to Gmannpaint, if it wasn't for you organizing this might not have went so well and been such a success.

So yea, whats next?

Edit: I like the pictures already. WOOT!