DATE: Sunday, August 5th - 9:00 AM
PARTICIPANTS LIST SO FAR:

HummerGuy and family
ZYNE and wife
HummerMike and Aliens from outter space (ok, maybe not)

Possible: ZYNE's Friend
Possible: HummerMike's Friend

Hello All: I'll TRY to make this short (and you all know damn well that probably won't happen)

Myself, HummerMike, ZYNE and jdrew went to the Badlands Off-Road park in April/May. We had a blast. When you have a good group ofpeople with patience and Hummers, it's good times.

Anyway, we have all been wanting to return for a very long time. I think it's time we start planning again.

Now, I know our Illiana Hummer Club is planning an event. I don't know anything about it and am not even sure where it is, but I want to put something together outside of that, which may include us going with them, but I'd rather just start planning now since the members of the club are very busy these days and nothing is set in stone.

First off, here is the approx. locations where the four of us live (for Hummer caravan'ing purposes)

Myself: Plainfield/Joliet/Naperville/Aurora Area in IL
ZYNE: Approx. Cincinatti Area, OH
jdrew: Evansville, IN
HummerMike: Northwest IN, around Shererville (I think that's how it's spelled)

Last time HummerMike and I met up and drove together, while jdrew and ZYNE went seperately. The trails range from very moderate/easy to "you need 50" mud tires" difficulty. Of course, five minutes into the first one I got stuck in a river on top of a big cement slab, but don't let that scare you I was the only one that did it.

Here is their web site:

http://www.badlandsoffroad.com/

Now I know there are some of you from here that live around me (ultimatesecurity, obie1, etc.) so if any of you Joliet/Naperville/Lombard/Aurora etc. area people would like to go, we can all meet somewhere and leave. It's a good 2 to 2 1/2 hour drive from our area. Last time we picked up HummerMike and went with him since he knows the park better and how to get there. (I'm sure he'll post to this thread)

I'm hoping now that Jeremy is settling into his new job he can come with. He's like the brother that whooped my butt I never had (I say that about everybody).

So, that being said, (I told you I couldn't make this short ), let's figure out if we would want to go on a Saturday or Sunday, and see what everybody's schedule is like. I'm open to anything.

P.S. I have the basic package, 32" street tires with 35K miles on them, and never got stuck in dirt/mud or int he water (the cement thing was my ignorance, not the H3's" ZYNE was the only H2 and was able to squeeze through everything our H3's did. You do NOT need the off-road package or anything special. We have supplies to pull anybody out of bad situations if need be. You DO need patience though, so if you don't have that, then I wouldn't recommend doing it, or if you have a problem with dirt

 

Okie dokie..I put it back here ..Can't you guys post in the Events Section?....Sorry for the inconvienence...I was just keeping things tidy....Don't beat me

 

Don't worry about it buddy. Thanks for the change. The original rules were that events would be posted in that section but it would only be edit-able by the forum moderator of that channel, which I believe is Chris. Nobody else would have access to modify the posts. I still think that's a bit of a problem.

 

Thanks Den!!!! Yep, gotto have posting abilities to hash this crap out lol .. we gotto change the time and date at least 12 times before realizing the original date/time was working just fine LOL!

Alright, back on topic ...
Mike .. let's work out some possible dates here and see what we can arrange. I'd personally be inclined to say let's try a Saturday if possible. Sunday's requires a vacation day for my sad sorry azz the following Monday. If nothing else to get the truck clean and leave some room for errorin case I break something up there.That and I was absolutely worn out coming home after that last trip LOL!

The only dates I'll cut out is around the end of July, it's my 10 year anniversaryand if I drag her out in the mud for that I won't have to worry about my 11th cuz there won't be one LOL! Aug 17th through like the 28th is out of the equation too but anything before, after, or inbetween and you can count my azz in foh sure!

 

I dont know my new schedule yet, but If I'm off work, I will be there. I wont know any dates until I meet with the Sheriff next week.

 

Well, I can see this is once again going to be a task lol.

If you pull up the Badlands schedule, they have some events going on every weekend except for the first and last weekends of July. It looks like they are becoming more active. I don't think it would be wise to bring a caravan of Hummers to the park while an official event is taking place because there will definitely be an uncomfortable amount of congestion on the trails.

I also prefer Saturday because that is the latest day the park is open. They close at 7 PM. The soonest date to go would be next weekend, which I'm definitely up for, but I don't know if anybody else would be up for it since it's not that far away. Otherwise, we are pushing into August. I just want to make sure everybody that wants to go gets to go. Here is a link to their calendar:

http://www.badlandsoffroad.com/event_calendar.asp

I definitely don't think going there when a "Jeep" event is taking place is a good idea lol. WAY too many vehicles will be there.

Also, in pulling up Google Earth andthe Badlands site'sarial view of the area, it looks like there is ALOT of the park we missed the first time around, so I think we should better prepare ourselves and figure out what trails we will tackle in what order, instead of just driving around like a bunch of headless chickens like the last time

 

Here are the dates that are empty as far as Badlands events NOT going on:

Sunday, July 8th
Saturday, July 28th
Sunday, July 29th
Saturday, August 4th
Sunday, August 5th
Sunday, August 12th
Sunday, August 26th

I would definitely like Nick to be there since he has the muscle of his H2, plus he has been there before. I'm hoping HummerMike will want in as well.

These days are blank dates in the park as far as no events going on. Therefore, if we can choose a date, I can ask the park to put us on their calendar for that day. I already emailed them about it this morning.

 

I can do July 8th, Aug 4th, 5th, and 12th but other than that I'm out. I could definitely get up there for the 8th though it's a Sunday ... I may even have to bring the ol' lady along since she keep pizzin' and moaning about me always going wheelin' when she's at work and never take herwith meLOL! If not any, of the other dates I mentioned would work too, I have NOTHING on the books ...

I'm thinking the more heads up we can get here the higher the likelyhood we can get some more members to go .... I'll do some additional name dropping here ... GREENBLADE for example, who else do we have .... Muddydawg of course, obie1 expressed interest ... common guys .. speak up if you are interested in going .. spit some dates out and get your .02 worth in ...

If we go on a Saturday and get there lets say around 8-9AM and turn it in to a whole day event like last time ....I'll take it upon myself to bring some dogs and burgers for lunch ... of course with fixings if someone else .. MIKE .. wants to bring their Hummer grill with them ... :-) I may bring my freestanding awning with me too, assuming I get it fixed before we leave .. there were some good spots at the corner of the parking lot where we can put our stuff ... alternatively there's the camp grounds ....

And as usual, if we can get a date/time set and someone is passing through my general area (cincinnati or even dayton) shoot me a PM and we'll meet up and caravan there. The only reason I recommend it is due to the fact that it was a total b*tch trying to find the park using mapquest or yahoo maps the last time around.. the directions SUCKED and I ended up having to get the locals involved or I would never have made it LOL!

 

I'd rather go the first weekend in August as well, because it will give people time to get off of work, more planning, and again see about having it as a somewhat of an official Hummer meet in the park's calendar. We will wait a couple of days and see what everybody else thinks, but I think the first Saturday in August, 4th, is a good date and people won't be in such a hurry to get home for work the next day. I'm bringing Jackie so you should bring Les. The more the merrier (assuming they don't panic)

 

I'll check her schedule tonight when I get home and see if she is off that day. She can't switch out her weekend days she has to work so if she works, that weekend from her perspective will be out ... assuming she wants to go this time that is LOL!

Now we need to get the rest of the folks to step up to the plate here but I think that date may actually be the better one out of the bunch. You can always swing down here and hit Haspin with me on the 7th or 8th if you're looking to get muddy for a day. My two wheeling buddy's both have their trucks more or less put back together so we may get a few of us going that weekend. Now if I can talk Muddy in to coming down too, we'll have ourselves a good ol' time .. Hummer style :-)