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…Continued
We had the suspension removed from it, front n back, sitting on jack stands now and it’s time to start drilling holes for his YJ conversion kit. Well, we are drilling holes and making progress when all of a sudden…..BINGOOOO…the electricity goes out, so now we’re FUBAR. (The fellas blame the power outage on Billy Bob lookin up at the sky. R.C.) What else can we do? I believe that it was bout now that we were outside in-between one of the rain spells when we discovered my warped front driveshaft. We removed it n repaired it best we could. To this day I haven’t figured out how in the heck I managed to warp it. We spent a few hours on it trying to straighten it. Well, we got something to do out of it. Now, time to run out n hold down the canopies again as the wind is kickin up and blowing it all over the freakin place again. We save tent city yet again and head back to the garage n try to figure out what to do. Later in the afternoon here comes yet another storm, tent city was destroyed again, this time while trying to salvage it in the midst of a storm, it starts to dump HAIL on our flippin heads. Well, I’m really getting unholy by now…really, really getting aggravated. 
We put up the tent city yet again, Shortly after that, Rick arrives home and diagnoses the electric problem right away and goes in to call the power company. In forty five minutes or less we had juice again. So we head back in there n get back to it.
(It is about now that my husband Mitch and I arrived at Ranger Rick’s house after an eight hour drive in this bad weather. We knew Rick from last year’s ZOOKIMELT but had never met Trail, John (suzuski), or formally met Billy-Bob. When we got out of the car he promptly inserted his ‘billy-bob’ teeth and introduced himself! We stood around talking a bit and within a few minutes Billy-Bob had given my husband the keys to his Zuk ‘Zuktanic’ as he calls it, to take for a spin on Rick’s trails. He hopped in the passengers seat and let my husband take it for a drive. They were gone only a few minutes when I heard the rumble of a Zuk down the hill from camp. I went over and looked down the hill to see what was going on. Billy-Bob’s truck has open diffs on it and the ground according to him was slicker than rat snot… Mitch was having a hard time making it up the steep hill back to camp. 
Since he was driving someone else’s truck that he barely knew he was taking it easy and trying to get it up with no avail. The next thing you know, Billy-Bob and Mitch are trading places in the truck, and Billy-Bob backs it down the hill a bit and just mashes the gas to the floor, working the wheel back and forth he made it to the top of the hill and back to camp! His black truck was now covered with slimy red Indiana clay and mud. R.C.)
We headed back up to the garage now that we had juice again and began workin on Trails rig again. Over the course of the day don’t know how many more zukers arrived, not too good with names either. (Micah Wills, and Tommy McDowell arrived Friday afternoon. -R.C.) We were all irritated on how much time we had lost to not having power and tent city blowin down. We called it a day and cooked up some brats and had some dinner. We kinda lounged around a campfire swappin stories for the rest of the night. While Rick was getting ready to build the fire, he noticed that there was a small cedar tree too close to where the fire was going to be. (He didn’t want the poor tree to go to waste, so he graciously dug it up and put it in a five gallon bucket for me to take home and plant in my yard. -R.C.) Tommy headed back home since he only lived a short ride away from Rick’s and Micah left to sleep at his grandparents house not to far away from Rick’s either. The rest of us retired to our tents and trucks to sleep in. (Mitch and I were only going to be staying long enough to pick up our parts from Tim Tackett and then we were going to be heading back for home. We didn’t pack a tent, but we did grab our sleeping bags and some pillows incase we got tired during the drive and wanted to take a nap. It was a good thing we did too, since Tim and his son James weren’t going to make it until morning. Mitch and I ended up sleeping in the front seats of my Honda Accord in the field at Rick’s house! 
We woke up to Tim Tackett (North Coast Off Road) and his son James, along with Tim Porter (Hardcore 4X4 and Custom Fabrication) and his son Zack arriving just in time for breakfast. It was amazing to watch Billy-Bob cooking a full breakfast including toast on a grille. He was making eggs to order along with sausage, and ham! R.C.)
Saturday continued to be a day of rain n wind. We headed back in the garage to work. It rained off and on all day on Saturday. Other zukers continued to arrive. I was greeting everybody with my gold plated buck teeth and pink half head of hair with half of a beard and mustache to match. It was a sight to see them just stare at me or start to giggle when the first met me. (It was about one in the afternoon by now, and Mitch and I had a long drive home so we said our good byes and took off for home. -R.C.) John (Suzuski) got a cross over steering kit from NCO, 
I also got one from him. John installed his and while I was working on Trails rig they installed mine on my rig. After John n the others got my Breeze steering installed on my trap, I took it for a test drive just to experience the difference in steering. Well, all I can say is that Breeze crossover steering is the way to go, No Doubt!! On my way back from that lil ride, Rita ran outside of the house n flagged me down. It turns out that she had company inside and that she wanted me to meet. I had to run back to the truck and get my teeth, I came in the house and was introduced to her company, and within ten secs, we were all laughing at me. I was complimented again on my soup by Rita, I explained the general directions on how to make it, but to top it off I still had the leftovers in the cooler. I offered it to Rita n her company. At first it was refused out of politeness I reckon, but I explained that if they didn’t take it, I was going to throw it out in the weeds so I wouldn’t have to worry about takin it home. Plus, I was going to see some kinfolk after Fab Fest so it would be bad before I got home, so they took it.
08/19/10 13:32
