New Years

On Highway 6, halfway between Spanish Fork and Price lies Soldier Summit. With an elevation of 7477 feet, it is a 2900 foot elevation gain from the valley down below. On the summit is a Tesoro gas station, which just so happened to be closed as the clock struck midnight and rang us into 2011. Temperatures in the canyon got as low as -15*F. How do we know this? We just so happened to bring in the new year on Soldier Summit. Our great friends; Chris, Tara and gang (with trailer and rock crawler in tow) were coming to visit us this weekend, and when Price was in their rear view, they were on track to arriving at 10:30pm, enough time to play some games, celebrate the new year and be in bed by 12:30. Luckily, another traveler informed them one of their trailer tires looked like it was going to fall off. Trailer bearing failed on one axle, and they had too much of a load to let one axle take the full load. For some random reason, 2 hours earlier I had shoveled the snow off of our flatbed, so when we got the call we were able to get our winter gear on, load up the trailer and be on our way in 15 minutes. While Chris and I were making the trailer swap, we got the call that the new year was about to ring in, hence why we spent new years eve on Soldier Summit. Definitely a first for all involved, but a good time was had. We're all happy and healthy in 2011, so no complaints!

Here's the best picture I was able to get with dim lighting and a cell phone.

A couple videos of the jeep

Sorry, you'll have to copy/paste the links, I can't figure out how to embed youtube videos or links on blogger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymHyu4RNAs4&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORQqm7S0MaE&feature=player_embedded

For Thanksgiving vacation, Kami and I loaded up the trailer and headed out for our Jeep's maiden voyage. We had this trip planned with a few friends from Colorado for a few months. I wanted to have it finished a week prior to this trip so we could run her out to little moab for a quick shakedown (deep inside I always knew that wasn't going to happen). I ended up spending black friday at carquest picking up some last minute parts for the Jeep and the tow rig (got there right as the doors opened at 7:30 :D ) Then we loaded up the families to head down to Farmington.





The cool thing I found about Farmington was that the trails were pretty short, and we ran quite a few in 2 days. The pictures below were taken from both days, and the only trail names I remember are: Lower rim trail, Arch trail, Rjs, Waterfall trail, and the Anasazi Refigerator.

























The only carnage was on an obstacle called the Anasazi icebox (IIRC). It is basically an intersection of 2 cliffs, with a massive void between them, seen here as I was getting lined up.



And here you can see, my back end should have been a few feet to the driver's side.






The passenger rear dragged the front end to the right, which got me in a bad spot on the obstacle, forcing me to back down.



When backing down, the front driver side ended up on the other side of the crack, and flopped us on the passenger side. Hindsight is 20/20...



I was slightly disappointed that we got body damage so quick, before it was even finished, but... c'est la vie :D






We only had a few minor issues, all of which we were able to work around. First was an issue with a leaky pinion seal on the front end (installation error – my bad). This caused some gear oil leakage throughout the first day. While repairing the seal on Saturday morning, I noticed a serious issue with the passenger side axle end lower control arm bracket. One side had only been tacked in. Again, my bad. I felt I combed through the rig pretty well, but obviously this was a huge oversight. After breaking the tack welds, the other end of the bracket retained the control arm while slowly bending out. This was a serious issue that I initially thought would bring an abrupt halt to our trip. Chris made some phone calls, and got the number for a local 4x4 shop in Farmington. We ended up hooking up with Shane at Off Again 4x4, and he dropped everything he was doing and torqued down the pinion nut, and fully welded the control arm bracket. I owe Shane big time, he saved our trip!!! The other two issues were a coolant overflow leak, and the back tires rubbing the tub at full stuff. Neither of which were major enough to address immediately.

It was a great experience for both of us to get the jeep back on the trail.

Graduation! WOOHOO!!

After 4 years of homework and school nearly nonstop…. we are FINISHED :D WOOHOO!!! We took the opportunity to finish our classes this past summer since the jeep was (well still is) out of commission; without anything fun to do all summer….. we figured the best thing to do was to finish school.

Utah Valley University only does commencement once a year in April, so we actually walked this past April even though we weren’t quite finished. It was really cool, and we had tons of family support :D

On August 12th approximately 4:30pm we finished our last exam, and for the next 10ish days anxiously awaited our final grades. Much to our surprise we both achieved sufficient grades to pass all of our classes and graduate :D (ok maybe not a surprise, but we were both super nervous waiting lol)

By the end of August we had both received our diplomas in the mail, and that was that. We each now officially hold a Bachelors of Science degree in Accounting. I have to admit… it seems strange that all that time, money, and effort is summed up in something that weighs less than a few ounces, and probably cost less than a dollar or two to produce.

The idea of finally being done with school has been slow to sink in, I keep having that overwhelming “I’m sure I’m forgetting something” feeling and constantly feel guilty when we spend our entire weekend doing fun stuff rather than studying lol.

We are so grateful that we had the opportunity to attend school, and were able to graduate :D It was tons of fun going together. I would recommend it to anyone; every once in awhile it got a little competitive, but I was constantly thankful to have such an amazing study partner. We are also very grateful that our family and friends were so supportive and patient with us while our lives were consumed by studying. If you thought we were avoiding you all this time I challenge you to call us up and invite us to do something again….. you might be surprised.

The first welding project

Due to some recent circumstances with the Jeep (more on that later), it became necessary for us to purchase a welder.

Welding is a learned skill, and before I start welding on something that our lives depends on, I thought I would start getting some practice on something less important. Kami has wanted a Jeep grill decoration for quite some time now, but they're simply too big in stock form.

This is how it started the evening:










So I trimmed it down, and tacked it together. Keep in mind, this is practically my first time welding :)




























And this is how I left it tonight. A little more welding, a lot more grinding, and it will be ready to hand off to Kami for the decorating part!

Point of no return

This would be a picture of the back half of our jeeps frame... now destined for the scrapyard

test

this is only a test