Paragon report

[cookiedan@domain.elided (Daniel Nees)]

Hello all.
   First off, we got up to Hazleton about 10:30 friday night, we left at
8:20. Not bad.
   We check in and the desk lady asks me if we will be making any long
distance phone calls. well, I said, it depends on where the nearest
internet conection is. Well, she tells me the only internet connection
is in Wilks-Barre and that is a long distance phone call and the hotel
charges a 35% surcharge on long distance calls to Wilks-Barre! Well, I
got cheap and decided that you folks don't need to know what was
happening every minute of the day. What amazed me was that I made it
through the weekend without going nuts, not being able to get online.
   Saturday Roger Jones and Matt Palguta rode along with me in Good, and
my friend Chuck rode along with Joe Costanzo and Dennis Petterson had
his wife, Lorie, and George, while Rob Caveleri had Nikkiwith him. We
went along with a collection of -J's a dodge dakota, a Zuki, and a Ram
Charger and a few broncoes, early and late models. Myself, Dennis, Joe,
and a TJ headed for Turtle Trail which is a fairly lite ride with a
couple of intensive spots in it. When we hit the Rock Garden on the top
of the mountain (which is where the pictures on my web site are from)
Joe sheared a Skycrapper u-bolt off at the spring plate so he spent the
rest of the day with only three studs holding his spring to the axle.
This scared the fellow and his gf and they wimped out and turned around
and went back down the way we came up.
   Rob went off with the other guys and did some of the more intensive
trails, which I would do in a heartbeat with Ugly, but; GOOD got beat
enough this weekend. I'll let Rob tell those stories, including how his
Dana 20 transfer case  turns the front wheels backwards and his back
wheels forwards, at the same time!
   After we went over Turtle we headed to Ruby Lake. There is a
mini-Rubicon there. We couldn't get to the Ruby because the lake had
swollen from all the snow melting and had flooded the entire valley area
and froze. We couldn't drive to the Ruby at all. Besides that the Ruby
was covered in ice from a stream that had developed running down it. It
looked way cool, like a Glashier.
   From there we went back up the mountain to a place called Icky Hill.
Named because it goes down the mountain and when you get on it, pointing
straight down, it is very Icky. Joe and I went down the first two
portions while dennis took the by-passes because Lorie doesn't like to
ride those angles. On the second strip as soon as I dropped the front
two wheels over the edge the carb flooded from the angle and refused to
restart! I was the last truck left as Joe and Dennis had gone down
first, so I just put her in Nuetral and stood on the now non-power
brakes and tried to keep the now non-power steering straight. That was
interesting. Matt will have to tell us what it felt like from the back
seat. Then the last portion of the hill is LONG! About 150 yards and it
is steep! Joe by-passed it all together, WIMP! I took it (Have I
mentioned that I'm nuts?) and made it down without incident.
   At this point Joe Dennis and I decided to leave the park and go fix
Joes u-bolt problem before the stores all closed. On the drive out on
the easiest part Joe popped the spring center bolt out of the spring
perch and had it hanging slightly crooked. We had to force it over some
to get it to sort of square up.
   So we drive out to the first gas station to air up, (hint,
31-10.50X15's at 15lbs don't feel real nice on the highway!) then we
went to Auto Zone and got the shortest set of u-bolts they have, about
14" over stock! So we also bought a pack of hacksaw blades. 
   This is getting REALLY long so lets go to part two. 

_____Dan Nees_____
cookiedan@domain.elided
Keep Scoutin' and I'll be Travelalling along!
3 Scout II's and still counting!
http://members.tripod.com/~IHCaholic/scoutindex.html