I’m having trouble organizing my thoughts for this.  It’s been an adventure stemming back almost 30 years and will probably take the rest of my life to get through.  I guess it’s only appropriate, given my middle name.  I’ll have to ask my mom what she was really thinking when she picked it out.  I have an idea, like a story I’ve heard before, but it would be nice to refresh and clarify it.  I’ll talk about that more after I talk to her.

When I think about being little, I have  a lot of memories – a lot more than I have about being a teenager and probably a lot more than I have since.  My memory quit working well about the time I finished growing, but that’s another story.  The things I remember from being little, though, are crystal clear.  Tonight I realized that I’ve actually taken some of those memories for granted and that they are actually very important memories because they explain perfectly why I do some of the things I’m doing right now.

This idea of following my steps backward to see where I started comes from my having spent the night watching videos and looking at pictures of  Shoe Creek and Taskers Gap.  They are off-road trails about 3½ hours northwest of here.  I’ve been in the area a couple times before with different rigs.  That’s what I was originally going to write about until I decided that there was a lot more to it.  To an outsider, it sounds stupid.  My friends and I are going to drive 400 miles of highway to drive 2 miles of trail.  But to me, it’s the most natural thing I could ever think to do.  Why?  Because it’s in the woods.

In the woods.  I never wanted to be anywhere else when I was a kid.  Growing up, playing outside was like an Indian tracker looking for prints – I started at a given point and worked in ever-widening circles around it.  It’s  taken decades so far but it started, in my green turtle sandbox with a missing eye, as soon as I could walk.  It went to the fence line of the back yard and all along the back of the house.  I worked my way to the property lines of our yard.  And it just kept growing – Grandma Myn’s yard, Christina’s yard, Christy and Sherry’s yard, the gravel lane, Miss Peggy’s yard, the tower road, the whole neighborhood and continued to expand.  The adventure started on foot.  It grew to include hiking sticks, wading boots and bicycles.  Now it involves ATVs and Jeeps.

I am infinitely grateful of the sacrifices my parents made for us to grow up where we did.  I just traced my childhood stomping grounds with a Google Maps hack.  The area I explored as a kid was a little over 200 acres.  Mom and Dad would have killed me if they’d known at any given time I might have been so far away from home but I am delighted that I grew up in a time and a place that allowed me to do this.  Obviously I wouldn’t be the same without having done so.  And that’s what this post is about.

Jumping to the glaring conclusion as a natural evolution of interests nullifies all the things and stories contained within that incredible corner:  pine trees with charred bark from who knows when, stitches from the fence, the tire swing, pets missing for weeks at a time, derelict forts and paths from previous generations of kids, old trash piles at the end of even then inaccessible fire roads, water holes somehow supporting a type of shellfish, the impenetrable thickets of vines and devil sticks, the patches of running cedar, the wild grape vines, the trees I climbed, the bugs and wildlife I caught, cutting down trees for fun, the ladders, platforms and rope swings I built, finding an abandoned car and stolen safe, ice storms that dropped limbs and power lines, walking on frozen ditches,  playing in mud puddles and just having room to be a kid.

Just having room.  That’s something I’ve really missed being in the city.  I’m always happy when I visit my parents.  There’s room – nearly an acre just of their yard.  Room to breathe.  That’s how I always feel outside.

I’m no boy scout, I’m no serious camper and I’m no survivalist.  It’s not about staying out there indefinitely.  Overexposure would dull the magic, I think.  But next weekend, I’ll gas up the Jeep, pack some snacks and clothes, and meet up with my friends for a day in the woods.

My buddy Neil always says, “At some point, you always come back to where you started.” A few days after I bought my Jeep Cherokee, I was on my way to have a beer with him and check out the addition he’s putting on his place. I started thinking about all the different things I’d driven down that same stretch of road over the years – a 78 F-100, an 87 Silverado, a 72 Chevelle, an 05 Corolla, even my parents’ stuff when my junk was out of commission.

Then I remembered what I was driving 10 years ago when we first started hanging out. I still had my “first car”, an 85 S-10 4×4. I learned a hell of a lot with that old rig and did a little bit of everything to it. It had over $6,000 worth of upgrades and modifications when I sold it. I had swapped out the anemic 2.8L for a 3.4L crate engine, had the transmission rebuilt with a shift kit, installed a transmission cooler, put a 2″ StupidLift on it, etc.

I came out of my daydream fog and started looking around in the XJ. I realized it was about the same size inside as my S-10. Then my head was flooded with old S-10 tech info about axles swaps (from Jeeps), engine swaps (from full-size Chevys), etc. I realized that my 2000 XJ, with solid front axle, stronger rear axle, smooth suspension, powerful engine and massive aftermarket support is a lot like what I wanted my old S-10 to be. After going to full-sizes then out of a 4×4 all together into an import sedan, I’ve come full circle, right back where I started, sort of.

With the thought of all of this floating in my head the next morning, I pulled up at work next to my former Corolla, a 4-door people hauler, which I sold to my buddy Foy and I understood that the XJ is the S-10 I wanted to have blended together with the car I did have.  4 doors, 4×4, able to tow the ATVs, a reasonable amount of ground clearance (a good thing to have with Olde Towne’s propensity to flood), 18 mpg and soon to have a rear locker and a spare set of steel rims with mud tires on them for trail rides.

I had planned to leave it completely stock and keep the off road excursions down to sand but I love being out in the woods more than I love driving something clean with straight body panels.  The local Jeep community, that has spurned me for the last decade or more for having Chevys, now greets me with open arms.  While I do sort of feel like a hypocrite, they are very active in taking off road excursions and welcome stock vehicles.  Hopefully I’ll have some cool pictures and stories soon!