We had a record-breaking attendance at the snow run of 18 vehicles total. And you want me to list them all, I think not. Oreo, Santa Fe and Cutri left early Saturday morning to meet at the Village Grill in Tehachapi. We found Chevy John cruising along the freeway and he joined our caravan. We must have been cruising at a good clip because we made it to the Grill with plenty of time for breakfast. Slowly, bit by bit the rest of the group arrived for breakfast after making a slippery decent from the Casa De Hughes. For not only did we have record breaking attendance, we had record breaking snow. We could have stayed in Tehachapi and had a snow run!

I don’t pay strict attention to the details when I’m out 4-wheeling because I’m just so happy to be out so I might not have all the details right. Cut me some slack. Montego debated with the group to go to Last Chance or Jawbone. Jawbone won. We had snow falling almost the whole time. It was perfectly pristine. We had to laugh because according to Fearless, "It never rains in the desert, that’s why it’s a desert". Well what do you say about snow covering Joshua Trees. Quite a pretty sight to see and many photo stops were made. We slipped and slid around the s-curves, sloshed through the muddy puddles on the road, and had a great time.

We took lunch rather early in a nice flat area with trees and of course a hill for sledding. Sean was the only one who brought a sled and was very gracious in sharing it with all us "kids". Thanks Sean!

After lunch we were ready to really break through the snow on the trail. We climbed and climbed. We got to one s-curve that seemed to pose a problem for a few. Montego and Louise stood outside with CBs helping guide folks through. Considering it was snowing and cold that was very good of them.

Finally the front few vehicles, I believe it was Montego, Rooster and Chevy John, reached the impassable. I heard a lot of action on the CB about plowing forward, then plowing backward and repeat, repeat, repeat. When Montego finally admitted we were going no further, Chevy John just had to have a try. Still we were going no further.

In the meanwhile, Cutri got stuck and Scarecrow was coming to the rescue. Or was he? Scarecrow ended up sliding back down the hill and ended up facing downhill instead of uphill. Kind of timely since we ended up turning around anyway. Cutri was pulled out and we turned around and headed back down the hill and into town for dinner.

The group split up since some wanted Mexican and some wanted Pizza. We rejoined at the Casa de Hughes for card playing, rock-crawling championship video watching and taking a sneak preview of pictures from the digital cameras. The house was pretty much filled to capacity. We had folks in every room including the garage and trailer with no room to spare. The group was its usual wild self and didn’t settle down til around 2:00 am.

We got up rather slowly on Sunday and decided against any run. People started departing and the remaining folks went into town for breakfast before leaving.

All in all it was another fantastic RW trip!! Thanks to the Hughes’ for their great hospitality!

Santa Fe