For the second year in a row, Crispy and I went down with The Hummer Club, Inc. for their annual event at Paragon Park.

We drove just over 7 hours to get to the hotel on Monday. When we arrived, we discovered that the send and return lines that go to the oil cooler had been touching the exhaust manifold (and had been for some time, but the looks of it.) Unfortunately for us, it finally burned through, so we had our first field fix on our hands before we even hit the trails ? a few hose clamps and a section of cut hose later, we were trail ready.

Tuesday, DAY 1 of trails: The next morning we assembled the trucks and set out for Rausch Creek Off-Road Park. Upon arriving at the park we split into the various difficulty levels; as usual we picked the extreme/idiots group, and found ourselves in the company of a motley crew of owners with trucks ranging from another 95 NA diesel all the way to a brand new Duramax powered H1 Alpha.

Most of the trails were basic winding trails through the woods, with some rocks and hills to negotiate in between. Before stopping for lunch, I could hear a clicking coming from under my truck that sounded familiar ? on of the caliper adapter bolts had backed out and it was bumping against the backside of the rotor bolts. We pulled to the side of the trail while everyone else ate, and installed some washers to space the rotor bolts out away and prevent contact, figuring we would fix it right when we got back to the hotel.

Right after lunch we reached the rock garden at Rausch Creek ? a wide path of nothing but rocks, apparently dropped there by a glacier more than a few years ago. Two of the trucks jumped in and started making their way across? slowly but surely they progressed, with minor hang ups here and there and a few bangs and bumps, but no major problems. Then, the Alpha went. It was doing fine, until one of the rocks unexpectedly pivoted up, and wedged itself under the truck ?stuck. While trying to work the truck out of the situation, there was a "bang? that made a few of us look at each other with that "something just broke? expression. The truck, which has a rear locker engaged, was no longer turning both rears ? our first trail damage. We winched him back off the rock, and the driver was able to carefully work his way out to the side of the trail with some patience. The last two trucks in our group completed the rock garden, and then we headed home to fix our issues in the parking lot. One other truck on our trail was spitting out some noises of its own that turned out to be a failing CV joint.

I spent a couple of hours pulling apart the front end of my truck to get the caliper bolt out and put thread locker on it. While I was reassembling things, I accidentally dropped a brake rotor directly on my nose from about 2 feet overhead (something I strongly recommend against.) To add insult to injury, the clicking noise was still there when I was done. After some additional investigating we discovered that the other culprit was that my undercarriage protection was also pushed up. We pulled out a floor jack and chain and straightened it back out. Good as new for Day 2, other than my beaten face.

Wednesday, DAY 2 of trails: Surprisingly, no headache. Joined up with the extreme group again and headed over to Paragon Park. Some downed trees slowed our progress, so it took us quite a while to arrive at our trail. We decided to tackle "Sluice?, trail that features alternating slopes with large rocks and water holes. Only three of the trucks in our group took on the trail. The first truck to go lost his throttle pedal in the second water hole. His winch, a hydraulic, couldn't pull him up the next slope because he couldn't rev the engine above 800 RPM. With some creative rigging, a ratchet strap was attached to the throttle cable under the hood, and the driver was able to use the strap as a hand throttle for the rest of the trail.

I went next. On the way down into the first water hole, I snagged a rock with my passenger side rear wheel, and sheared off the CTIS shield and air lines ? instant flat tire. Fortunately I have run-flats, so I decided to drive it out and fix the problem when we reached flat ground. On the way out of the second water hole, I caught a rock with the driver's side rear, which pushed the CTIS shield into the air lines, engaging it. We couldn't disconnect it because the shield was in the way (and we were in three feet of water), so I lost all the air through the broken fitting on the other side ? two flat rear tires now. We pulled cable to climb the slope in front of us, and got onto dry ground before swapping on a spare and fixing the fitting on the other side. Just as we were putting away the tools and jack, hurricane Dennis ripped through. Driving home was like a video game ? we had no doors on my rig, so Crispy was being pelted by sideways rain on one side, while I was being washed by the tidal waves from 18-wheelers on the other. Lightening was striking all around us? it was a blast! When we finally got back to the hotel, we reassembled some new lines from my spare set of CTIS lines, and got my spare off the truck. Good to go for day 3?

Thursday, DAY 3 of trails: So far, our oil line repairs were holding up, and we hadn't had any major breakage ? just CTIS lines and some loose bolts. We went straight to Rattler at Paragon Park to start off Day 3, and shortly into the trail, the blue hardtop had a problem with the front air locker; with the locker not operational, so the front diff was now wide open, presenting some real challenges on the rocky terrain. Unfortunately, he lost a bead and peeled one of his front tires off the rim. During the course of trying to reposition the truck with the rear winch, the steel winch cable snapped. We decided to leave the truck for the moment to meet the others for lunch, and then return to get the truck moving again.

On the way to lunch, it became apparent that I had issues with my steering box. It was groaning and the steering wheel began to snap back and forth like an angry sailfish fighting to get off the hook. I stopped to top off the fluid, and saw it running out of the gearbox at the pitman arm ? the bottom seal was clearly blown out. We had lunch, wrestled the truck back to the trail again, and fortunately another driver in our group had a spare steering box with him. Crispy and I swapped in the new box while the others worked on getting the tire swapped on the blue truck. Turned out that a rap with a hammer got the air compressor going again and it was fully operational again. On the way out we had only some minor delays, and one truck snapped his front winch cable. With our new steering box installed, my truck felt great again, so we counted our blessings and headed back for the hotel, with one day of trails to go.

Friday, DAY 4; last day of trails. The goal on the last day of a trip like this is to have fun, but not push your luck ? we made it this far, we wanted to have a good time, but just not break anything. Yeah, right?

We headed straight for "Voodoo? at Paragon, a great trail. Crispy was doing the driving in my rig most of this day, and all was going well for the first half of the trail. The trucks behind us got hung up in a couple of spots, and another winch cable failed, but other than that no major damage - until? Crispy was trying to climb a difficult rock section when a rear halfshaft snapped ? the shaft sheared right off. I hopped in the truck to drive it out of the rocks in 3-wheel drive. I got it out, but couldn't make the turn on the steep downhill without backing up to clear a cluster of trees, so I tried backing up the hill. BANG! I peeled the front driveshaft into two pieces. So now we had a broken rear halfshaft and broken front driveshaft at the same time. To my surprise, another driver on the trail had the driveshaft parts I needed ? a miracle. We got under the truck and swapped it out. Drove the truck down the slope in 3-wheel drive to flat ground, and then swapped out the halfshaft. At this point, we felt lucky to have the truck all back together and we were just praying that nothing else would go wrong. We took a shortcut to meet up with the other trucks, and we all started to head out.

Then, my truck overheated. I popped the hood to discover somewhere under all the steam that my fan wasn't turning at all. Meanwhile, another truck in our group couldn't turn left because of some unknown steering issue. I dumped in some fresh water and antifreeze, and then we blasted the heaters and crept along to keep the truck from overheating. When we got out to the parking lot, a fellow owner towed my rig out.

I hitched a ride in the blue hardtop, but it started to make a nasty sound from the rear. We pulled over and found that all the rotor bolts had been sheared off on the passenger side rear, and the halfshaft was flailing around loosely. We pulled the halfshaft, plugged the opening to the geared hub, and drove it back to the hotel.

One last evening of repairs ? bent back the blades of my fan so that it would turn again (somehow they bent and it was wedging itself against the shroud), and pulled the undercarriage protection down with a floor-jack (again). One of the metal straps that held the fuel tank had bent off like a pretzel and the skid plate was mangled. We bent that out of the way, and installed a ratchet strap to hold the fuel tank in place.

The next morning was Saturday, and we drove home ? no problems! I don't think I have ever worked so hard on a vacation before? and other than the two black eyes to remind me not to line my head up directly below the brakes while assembling them with oily hands, I came out relatively unscathed. On Sunday, I slept ? hard.

Manny can be reached by email at manny@serious4x4.com