AngelaLollar.com

Case Closed - SOLVED!

It's been a little over a year and just this morning I have received indisputable evidence that solves the case after stale leads and false statements.  Those that follow me may remember this post from August 2007 detailing the crime. 

I was correct on one of the suspects known by many in the neighborhood as Gay Chuck, but I was shocked (OK, not really) to find out that Cop Chuck was also involved in the defacing of the Montero!  It is clear by examining the evidence that the culprits show no remorse and actually appear to be proud of their work.  They should be.  It was pretty awesome to wake up to the next morning!

The third suspect, who provided the photographic evidence in exchange for immunity shall remain nameless.  But she has red hair.  That's all I'm gonna say.

Hey, if you're going to be stuck in the same house for the next four years because of the poor housing market, you might as well make friends with all the neighbors, right?

New Wheeling Web-Site

I'll still be posting some of my personal Jeep experiances here on www.angelawatson.net, but Phill and I have just set up a new web-site that's strickly geared towards our wheeling trips to help keep the group informed in one centralized place. 

Go check out the new site.  And please keep stoping by here to see what Phill and I are doing seperatly.  Thanks to everyone who helped contribute to the new site.  YEAH TOAST!!

New site: www.yeahtoasttrails.com

Currently Under Investigation

Ok, so this is seriously ridiculous, but totally awesome!  It’s not everywhere you live that you love all of your neighbors.  My best friends are my neighbors, and I can’t imagine what it will be like when Phill and I finally decided to sell and move away.

Most of you have heard about our Phillville plan, and many of you have been advised to start saving for your part of the land to join us.  I REFUSE completely to move without them!  We have to all do this together.  It will take all of us to make the Phillville of our dreams.

HOWEVER!  Please be advised that the Phillville HOA will now meet on a weekly basis to discuss various neighborhood issues and those who do not show to these meetings can likely expect to wake up to similar situations as I did this morning. 

Be advised!  Phill and I watch enough CSI to know how to preserve and process the crime scene, and we have successfully pulled multiple fingerprints and DNA samples and have sent them to the lab for testing.  You will be caught, and we WILL return the favor.  GUARANTEED! 

Suspects are currently pictured as follows.  If you or anyone you know have any information regarding the vandalism that happened after 9:00p, Friday, August 3^rd, you are strongly urged to contact Cop Chuck for proper kudos and laughing ceremony!

Buena Vista - 2007

The joy and love of wheeling was again tested this weekend with a trip to Carnage in Buena Vista, CO.  Murray and his Toyota rig, Mator finally had a flop of his own, though it was much easier than the Warthog flop of last year.  I was able to capture a few pictures of Mator on his side.  Yes, he overheated a bit, but we got him out with no mechanical damage to speak of! 

Stay tuned for the pictures from Chinamen’s!  Kudos’s to all the girls: Sarah, Stacie, Athena and myself for taking to the driver’s seat for the day making it the official girls day of wheeling!  It was Sarah’s and my first time ever driving and may I say…we did awesome!  I even got a little signature Warthog wave in for entertainment value.  Pictures coming soon! 

Click here for all the pictures of Maters Buena Vista flop!

Moab 2007 - Trip Report

Well, the list of broken items for the weekend is unreal, so I guess I’ll start with that.  Then you can read the whole trip report for the details on how we broke all this stuff!!

Stroker: 2000 F250 Power Stroke Diesle (Towing rig) driven by Phill and Angela

Alternator #1

Alternator #2 (same day)

Battery

Warthog: 1983 CJ7 driven by Phill and Angela

Leaf Spring Center Pin

Radiator

Front Axel Shaft U-Joint

Eyelet on Winch Cable

Mater: 1976 FJ-40 Land Cruiser driven by Murray and his son Dallas

Battery Tray

Front Drag Link

Rear Differential Spyder Gears in his Carrier

Motor Mounts

Exhaust Pipe Hanger

Front Lockout Hub                                                                                                                           

Jolly Roger: 1983 CJ7 driven by Steve and Sarah

Steering Intermediate Assembly (three or four times)

Optima Red Top Battery (Blew up)

Motor ECU, up in smoke.

FRANK: 1981 CJ7 driven by Aaron and Laura

Eyelet on Winch Cable (This one is still out for debate.  It’s Franks winch cable, but technically it was Jolly Roger that broke it.)

The Recover Team!

Monday…Normally we like to leave early in the day so we can get home and unpack, but with Jolly Roger on the top of Pritchett, that was not happening.  Steve found a towing company that would actually go up there and get him!  You really can depend on AAA!  For a price of course.  $175/hour and 6 hours later, Jolly Roger was back on Steve’s Jeep and we were on our way home.

Special thanks to Dennis for working so hard on someone else’s problem. 

Prittchet is BANNED!

10:15a – 3:30a (Monday morning!!!) – I’m not sure we’ll be running Prittchet on our next Moab run.  We might skip it for a year and try it again after we get a few successful trips under our belts.  And we do this stuff for fun! 

We hit the trail head at 10:15a Sunday morning with what seemed like a good start.  But once we made it over the first obstacle, Jolly Roger started to have battery issues with it bubbling and overheating.  After stopping to let it cool and keeping an eye on it, we continued on.  About an hour later on the trail, we stopped to discover that Murray had broke two motor mounts.  Keep in mind, they are brand new. Not a problem for this group though.  They trail fabricated some new motor mounts out of what was left, threw some extra washers in for spacing and we were off and breaking again. 

At the very next obstacle, Jolly Roger’s intermediate steering when out.  With the updated suspension and everything else, there’s just too much pressure and we’ll have to build that up.  (I’ve got a great picture of the guys working on this for the first time with the Jeep on a 45degree angle.  Check back for the picture when I find it!)

Then as we move along, Phill and I decide it’s time for us to break something.  So we decided to punch a pinky size hole in our radiator AND we decided to break a center pin in our suspension.  A $.94 part that Phill just happens to have a spare for.  The center pin was an easy fix.  While we didn’t think it’d actually work, we try using some epoxy to fill the hole in the radiator and walked to the next obstacle to watch the others go over it and let the epoxy set.  An hour later and three Jeeps past Rocker Knocker…the epoxy was dry.  It actually worked and we were off and breaking again!

Our next mishap would be a combo of Phill and Steve’s Jeep and the beginning of the end of a very long day.  We decided to winch out of the same obstacle that Phill and I flopped on last year but once we got up, we discovered we broke a front axle shaft U-joint.  Yes folks, we actually do this for fun.  Again, lucky for me…Phill had a spare.  While we were fixing that, the others continued up our obstacle and Steve began with his problems.  His battery was shot.  We switched batteries with another rig and suddenly had a small fire under Steve’s dash.  The motor ECU was up in smoke.  Translation: No power, no steering, no getting off this trail before nightfall.

It took the guys five hours and three rigs to pull Steve’s Jeep 100 yards to the top of Pritchett.  In this time, Aaron broke his winch cable eyelet, Phill and I broke our winch cable eyelet, and Murray broke his front lockout hub.  Not a good night.  We left the Jolly Roger on the trail, loaded up and headed back to camp.  We made it home about 3:30a Monday morning.

   

Poor Murray!

We saw Murray dripping from his rear-diff on our way off Gold Bar Rim and when we cracked it open this morning, we found a SERIOUS issue.  The teeth in his Spyder Gears are supposed to go all the way around.  Not good.  On Saturday, it was amazing to find none of the 4x4 shops were open, even after 10:00a.  This is due to a major work shortage in Moab.  Even Mc Donald's has a signing bonus! 

By chance, the Warthog ran into town and pulled up to Moab Off-road the same time the worker of the day decided to showed up.  Would you believe he had a front differential for a 1976 Toyota Land Cruiser?  Lucky for Murray, his rear and front are interchangeable.  So we sit here at the Moab KOA on Saturday doing camp repairs.  It’s amazing the kinds of issues that come up on these trips that never seem to stop us from wheeling.  Fix-it today, Pritchett in the morning.  Hopefully, Phill and I won’t repeat our last Pritchett run (Warthog Flop Video), but if we do, we’re a little bit better prepared with new seats and seatbelts, special gifts for Phill’s birthday from Lollar Mom & Dad’s and Watson Mom & Dad’s.  Never a dull day in Moab!

Trail Mechanics!

Well, Murray and Mater the Land Cruiser (I finally named his rig!) had a great season last year as the only rig that didn’t break down on the trails , but this year was his year for breaking.  On our way out from running Poison Spyder; Golden Spike; Gold Bar Rim, Murray decided that he didn’t like his steering so he tied it up to look like a U-joint!  Funny thing is, it doesn’t work like that.  After hammering at it to break it loose and some WD-40, the boys bent it out with the spare cheater bar, housed it with the cheater bar and hooked him back up.  Somewhere along the trail, Murray also broke his battery tray, but that we will fix another day.  Until then, bungee cords and wire work great.  We still made it off the trail before the nightfall, which is good since we don’t all have lights.  We have to drive the highway to get back home, yet with one rig that is VERY obviously not street legal we managed to pass two Moab She-riff’s with no lights or tickets.  Gotta love Moab!

Can You Believe It!!!

The new (rebuilt) alternator we got at 11:27a today just went out.  We’re about 50 miles away from our final destination, and we’ve got another alternator on its way.  Alternators are typically all rebuilds of parts that have been ripped off old ones, tested, then slapped together to make a new one.  But while we wait here at the Outwest Food and Fuel Shell Station in Thompson, UT (aka: nowhere; population 1 – the guy running the Shell Station), we were joined by another stranded sole with an old GMC Suburban that had overheated and was low on transmission fluid.  No tranny fluid at the Shell Station, but Phill had some in his Jeep, so we helped him out and got him on his way.  What goes around always comes around.  Someone will help us when we need it.  Only 50 miles left to go!  THEN we wheel!

Mmm.  Haven't I been here before?