Irish Four Wheel Drive Club

While on our main annual vacation, where Sarah and I get away from work, house DIY, 4x4 activities and Tennis to spend time together for 3 weeks, we had a little detour into the dark, dark world of Landrover ownership in the USA. This is what we found in MOAB in Utah, USA which is the capital of rock crawling, according to some. They are probably right. Moab is a small town, a little smaller than Portlaoise. It's main trade would seem to be tourism, for outdoors people of all interests. Obviously we only looked into the 4x4 scene :)

While there, Camp Rover West (CRW) was running. This is a Land Rover event, run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. They had nearly a dozen trade stands from the main suppliers of Landy add-on bits in the States. All of them nice people who would take the time to chat about Landy related matters, show and demonstrate their products and not push for sales. It reminded me of many of the stands in Billing, the UK Landy show.

Anyway, we managed to hitch a ride and to go 4-wheeling, or trail riding. Doug Aitkin kindly put up with me, and Tom Walsh brought Sarah for one day, and Mike brought her for another day. We managed to stay in the same groups so it was super.

So, on to the pictures.

This is the group gathering before the "off". From the left, the people are Tom Walsh, Mike, Doug, Chris, Sarah, Jesse (trail leader and all round cool guy), Chad Tisdale and Shane B.

This is just after we got going. In sequence, Alan and Geena Stuart in their Disco, followed by Giovani and April in their Disco. Next was Mike with Sarah, and keeping an eye on everyone from the rear were Ben and Pat Bibb.

This is Tom W doing his thing on "Hummer Hill". It's called this as Hummers can allegedly go across here sideways!

This is the (in)famous Doug A, doing the walkabout thing. I like this picture as it shows the mountains in the background and the scale of the place. Just massive.

This is Jesse with his co-driver, Valerie. Note to Bill Burke: This is evidence that Jesse put the IFWDC sticker on your D90, not me. I had nuthin' to do with it :)

This is Ben and Pat Bibb, also with an IFWDC labelled vehicle. Ben doesn't allow any stickers on his perfectly turned out white D90, and I think Pat may have twisted his arm a little! Anyway, I was deeply honored that their D90 was allowed to wear it. (Even if it's gone now :)) You can see the detail they have gone to at- www.whiterover.com.

I would just like to wrap up this report by saying that everyone at CRW made both myself and Sarah feel very welcome. There was a super feeling of camaraderie at the event which made that section of our vacation very special. Thanks to all, especially Bill and Rachel Burke, Doug A for introducing us to a super breakfast spot, Tom Walsh, Craig Reece, Alan and Geena, Alan and Mimi, Ben and Pat, Jesse who was our super trail guide and did NOT deserve the nickname U-Turn :), Shane B, .... the list goes on and on.

Go to Bill Burke's 'Camp Rover West 2000'  page to see more reports and photos from this event.