Elbe Father's Day Run

Our plan was to leave early Friday morning and head down to Elbe to ensure we got the area needed for camping with the Timber Tamers. We met Gary and Lori S at Safeway in Graham at 6:30 on Friday morning and started the short drive to Elbe. It started raining sometime late Thursday night and proceeded to rain almost all day on Friday.

We finally arrived at Elbe OHV and tried to open the gate so we could get set-up in the camping area and the gate code didn’t work. Hmmm, déjà vu? Terry and Gary took off and eventually returned with Nancy from the DNR who also didn’t know why we couldn’t get the lock to work since we were trying the right combination of 1-1-1-2. Finally, she decided to try 0-1-1-2 which worked. Once we got the gate opened, we were able to head back and get set-up near the shelter, which meant, we had a place to stay dry.

There were a couple big rounds of wood in the back that Nancy said we could chop for firewood. So, I decided to chop some wood while Terry got some of camp set-up. It was hard work, but totally worth it. After we got some wood into smaller pieces, we were able to get a fire going and warm up. Since it rained most of the day, we just relaxed around camp and tried to stay dry. Terry and Gary took a quick trip up our trail to get an idea of what trail work needed to be done the following day in the afternoon. Eventually, Billy showed up with his tractor as well as Lori Y, Mark, Tom, Penny and Tom’s parents, Art and Mary. For dinner, I made tacos and salad for Terry and me. It turned out yummy. Terry ended up heading to bed early while I stayed up talking with people.

On Saturday, we got up and dressed ready for a day on the trail. Our club has an adopted trail at Elbe, Sunrise, that needed some maintenance. There was a silt trap that needed to be cleaned out and some by-passes that needed to be blocked. With everyone’s help, and the tractor, the work got completed quickly. Around noon, we headed back to camp and I made some lunch for Terry and me. Then, they headed out to do some trail runs. I decided to stay back at camp with Zeus. Midday, I noticed the frige in our camper wasn’t working and the hot water heater was showing an error as well. It turns out, we had ran out of propane in both tanks. Luckily, Lori S had an extra 5 gallon tank in their camper we were able to borrow and Dan-O was around to help get hooked up to our camper (it was heavy and I was a little too short to get it lifted into the storage area). I didn’t sleep well on Friday night, so took a quick nap and got some reading done while they were gone as well.

Terry was excited when they came back that the Cherokee did so well on the trails and the ARB in the front was finally working. They ran the Busywild and survived. When he got back, I made hot dogs, chili and macaroni and cheese for dinner. It was a hit for us and we had enough leftover to feed Dan-O who showed up solo for the night. Zeus even got lucky with his first beef bone to gnaw on courtesy of Gary. Terry and I both stayed up talking with the club members before showering and heading to bed.

On Sunday, everyone slept in and slowly got up and started to get things packed for the trip home. Gary, Terry and Steve (a guest in a black Sami) took one more quick ride out in the morning. I was anxious to get home and out of the mud so stayed back at camp and got everything packed up while they were gone. When Terry got back to camp, there was only minor packing to do as well as getting the Jeep loaded onto the trailer. We finally were packed up and ready to head home around 3:00 and made it home within an hour. It was a fun trip even though we got rain almost all weekend. It’s nice being so close to home and look forward to going back in a few months.