What an amazing time. I flew out and rode up with Jimmy. Maine sure impressed and surprised me. Friendly people, great food, and so much natural beauty. I would love to own property up there.
Bruce and the businesses did such a nice job for everyone. I can't wait to go back. Hands down the best Rover event in the country by a mile.
I'll be honest, there's no way that I'm going to bury my cream puff truck in that mud but I wish I had a piece of shit with a good winch and a good heater that I could build just for that event. Maybe Jimmy and I will split a $500 Disco next time.
Lessons learned:
1. Never buy a Harbor Freight winch. I saw one shit the bed after five seconds of pulling an 88. The other one I saw might have killed a guy if we hadn't called a safety stop and pulled its oblivious owner away from standing next to the steel cable while it was under load. These pieces of crap have the most useless hook imaginable on the end of their fraying steel cables: you can't get it around a shackle, you can't get it around a proper tree strap, and you can't easily remove the hook from the eyelet because it's secured with a pin and a crummy, rusty, mild steel cotter pin. Hope you have a pair of pliers handy when it's time to do that first winch. I wonder how many people are killed by HF winches every year...
2. Never buy Copenhagen snuff in Massachusetts. It costs almost $13 for the driest, shittiest can you've ever dipped. WTF, Massachusetts. At least give me some usable nicotine while you're raping me.
3. You can get great real-deal tacos in Waterbury, CT. Look for the Escalade pickup on 22s with a mismatched Pep Boys spoiler glued on the back.
4. If you spell lobsta like every restaurant in Maine spells lobsta on the menu, people will give you shit.
5. This isn't really something I learned but it's more of a theory that I'm working on: black Discos with light bars and > 3" lift account for 95% of trail breakage at any given event. Next to P.T. Cruiser owners, the guys driving these trucks may be the country's shittiest drivers.