Brian took a break from his CJ-3B and ran over to the Mounds ORV Park with his niece and nephew. In the pic they are showing off their ‘guns’ and their dirty jeep.

Brian writes, “Mathew came out from Seattle and was instrumental in helping me replace a blown 300 transfer case to get it ready to play.

We got to the Mounds ORV park around 11:00 am. located just north of Flint Michigan.  This was my first time in the park. I am not really a big fan of mud and water and was happy that it hadn’t rained for a week or two. The park was surprisingly empty, given it was a Friday.  There were only 3 vehicles in the park and about 15 motorcycles. We stayed in the park for 5-6 hours and played. It was great fun for the kids.

There were plenty of places to explore in the mud and, yes, I did get stuck 2 times in mud holes, using my winch to free myself. I quickly became friends with Ron and his family, while my winch line got to meet his late model Wrangler with open rear ends. I quickly discovered this really was not a place to be by yourself without lockers and a winch.

I found four ways to play: 1) Abundant standard mud hole’s, 2) A five acre treed area with winding tight trials called “Pines”, 3) A water hole in the scramble area 1 and, 4) a man-made rock crawl area.

Scramble area 1 is sand,  something like Kitty litter, so I tested the water by running the sides then ran the short way through the middle. Not thinking it was deep and only 50 feet long at the most, I decided to hit it the long way. At the 3/4 point my left tire dropped in a hole and the top of the fender disappeared.  My Niece McKenna, sitting in the front seat, said “there is water coming in”. Looking down it was only four inches of water; Looking up we had slowed to a crawl, wet, and laughingly chewing our way through the mud hole, sounding like an old Chris Craft.

Keeping my foot in it,  Mathew, who was sitting  in the back ,was thinking he was not going to get wet. However, to his surprise, the last five feet ascended out of the hole quite sharply, throwing the water to the back of the jeep and soaking Mathew’s butt. I don’t know how it got in the jeep but there was an inch of sand/kitty litter in the jeep. That hole was a lot of Fun!

The man-made rock crawls were about  300 yards that my 33’s navigated quite well. Mathew, being a newer licensed driver, was chomping at the bit, so I let him do some rock crawling and tight pines driving. He did quite good in both areas and shows a lot of potential as a Jeep driver. I was quite proud he learned to keep his foot off the gas. Below is a link to his claim to fame.”