Fourwheelers don't always fit in with "normal" society. We're a different breed that often thrives on challenges, innovation, self-motivation and independence. Maybe some of you can relate to some of these experiences:

I was walking out a building the other day when I overheard a guy talking to a young woman about his life after moving to Phoenix from New York City. He was talking about how he used to ride the subway trains in NYC and how he hated having a car. He went on to say that he hated owning a car because it always seemed to require maintenance and work. He claimed how using only public transportation was so much easier.

Unfortunately, this guy will never understand or experience the feeling of waking up on a cool morning in a place far from any city...... in a place so remote there are no sounds except some occasional wildlife. There is no smog, and no litter or pavement to be seen. He'll never rise from his sleeping bag and look out over some of Mother Nature's grandest beauty, all the time knowing that he reached this destination by his own transportation. Such an experience serves well to confirm our own freedom and self-sufficiency.

Maybe your neighbors think you're a little weird. When it's 100 degrees outside, you're tinkering away on your vehicle while they're inside their air conditioned homes watching the latest sports game or recovering from their early morning golf game. They can't understand why anyone would want to spend so much time working on their vehicle.

If you're new to the neighborhood and they don't quite know you well, you'll probably find them asking what is broken on your vehicle whenever they see your hood up or your vehicle in pieces. Many times it won't be broken......you're probably just changing something for the better or maybe just musing at some part you're considering improving. To many of these people a garage is a place you store your car on the way to getting in and out of the house. While your garage may contain all sorts of vehicle parts and tools, your neighbor may have all of a broom, dust pan, and a bag of plant food.

It's funny.....lots of people simply don't understand our interest in taking a vehicle on challenging terrain. Where I work I have pictures of fourwheelers, most posed precariously on some obstacle. Some of my co-workers look at them and just shake their heads. In their eyes, they see our sport as dangerous, wasteful (in that we risk damaging our vehicles) and possibly destructive. I have to explain to them that in the rock-crawling photos they're looking at, the vehicles are moving at a snail's pace. They still don't understand why we'd take a perfectly good vehicle and do what we do with it.

They just don't get it........