With a few Italians joining up on AZFJ.org, it was time to have a cooking battle! The event was dubbed 'Sauce on Sunday,' was to be held at homedad's house (pool!), and feature a few suspension installs.

Sauce on Sunday - AZFJ.org

Because homedad lives in Phoenix it was very hot in contrast to the perpetually perfect and beautiful weather we have here in Tucson. ;) The first order of business was to erect a gigantic shade by nailing a tarp to the house and tying it to some trucks!

I stayed what was left of the night at hotel homedad in the special couch suite. Once up we head back to Table Mesa to do some wheeling and because we were curious had happened to the Jeep.

It was still there, as were the people. No one pic does the stupidity of this justice, but here a few to give you an idea...

A bunch of AZFJ'rs met at Table Mesa for the usual Friday night Gillette ruins campfire gig. On this night, the turnout was quite large!

Another impromptu weekday night run to Chiva falls with the Tucson gang! SonicFJ, TrAiLbUs1 and TrAiLbUsTy1, microbe and myself set out for what was guaranteed to be an evening filled with excitement and entertainment.

The first order of business was for Sonic to show us that he is a man, no a gorilla, amongst us mere boys by going DOWN the center of three feathers.

Image credit: SonicFJ

A group of AZFJ'ers met at homedad's shop in an attempt to rob local 4x4 shops of thousands of dollars in labor for installs. Of course it was a massive success! For my truck, we installed some OME 885 front springs with 1" spacers and repaired the damaged ball joint boot on my passenger side upper control arm. I wanted to reinstall my sway bar as well for the Continental Divide Expedition, but time was short and I was missing some of the hardware.

I met Jake and Becca and Dan (Sonic) for a fairly impromptu weekday night run of Chiva Falls in Tucson. Chiva is one of the best known trails near Tucson and features a very cool, large, and multifaceted obstacle called Three Feathers.

On Three Feathers there are four main lines. Looking up at the obstacle from the bottom, there is the far left rocky crack thing, the easy bypass in the center-left, the huge depression thing in the center, and the chute on the right. The chute is dangerous because a slip of the tire would pretty well screw up your vehicle if you fell into the it...

I've long talked about wanting to do the chute and the left side and this night was the perfect opportunity. So, as with any obstacle of this magnitude, we spent a lot of time looking at it and talking about the plan of attack before committing.

Image credit: SonicFJ

The night at Gillette was perfect. The temperatures were cool enough that sleeping was very comfortable just laying on top of the sleeping bag. Without its rainfly my tent is almost entirely mesh and that combined with the nearly no moon offered a pleasant, starry night sky. Not being eaten by coyotes was also nice.

Backway to Crown King was the plan and the group looked to be a fun one; Wes and Angie, Wes's relatives in a rented Hummer H3, Dan and Jessa, Oren, and a few different crazy 'Truggy' machines.

The start of the day was perfect with Oren nearly getting into a gunfight with some idiot in a really horrid 80's import tuner wanna-be crap bin. Of course saying they almost got in a gunfight is gross hyperbole, but it was pretty crazy nonetheless. Basically the guy was swerving around the road and dangerously cutting in front of vehicles, causing Oren to give him the finger... the response to which was a vulgar and quite hilarious confrontation.

Once on the trail, we hit every single possible optional obstacle. I'd only ever done two, the most recognizable of them all, but the others afforded some great fun and challenges.

Image credit: Jessa

The plan was to break down camp early and leave via an offroad route Miss R2 had devised which would lead us through Pine Canyon. In order to do this and have enough time to hit the dirt all the way back to Oracle we needed to get up a reasonably early hour. To my surprise, we were all up around 7:00 with the exception of one who I had to rouse by ringing a pot and making loud turkey calls. By 9:00 the trucks were lined up and ready to pull out.

The jeep trail through Pine Canyon was fun and went through a dense forest.

Sunday morning we took down camp with the intention of finding a more primitive and remote place to stay, setup, and spend the day wheeling. On the way out, James from New York in the recently purchased Expeditions West Tacoma was having problems keeping the truck running. Funny how it's always the most uber rig that breaks down! James decided it was best to cut his adventure short and head back to the main road.

They see me rollin'... (rolling because the engine stopped?)

After a hearty (read, HEARTY) breakfast at the Triple-T Truckstop, I met up with the gang from Phoenix and the folks from Tucson in the parking lot. The necessary oogling of the rigs took place as always with many people sporting cool new toys. After that and being accosted by a guy with a nice Tacoma (check out my black headlights!) we were off.

Reaching Wilcox we met up with spertierra from California and gassed up for the last time. With one more truck in the group, we had to re-oogle.

Looks like Jim had a lil' Captain in him that morning!