:cheesy: :cheesy::cheesy:Thanks for caring enough to know where I live to look up wonderful 'ol Darlington! I'm flattered!
Why a Jeep? Once you've been here for awhile and get to know the personalities of the guys here, you'll see that pretty much most of the people here share a passion of the outdoors and getting out into them as much as possible. Our Jeeps are gateway vehicles to do that. Do we all need 12,000lb winches (mines 10,000 BTW
) and 'Monster Masher' tires? Nope. But having a built rig allows you to do more challenging things and go to places you normally wouldn't.
*Sigh* I'll indulge you here without any malice and explain why for me personally (and this is one of the reasons we all give 'waves' when we join up). I've worked my ass off for 30 years raising kids and getting my family business to the point where I could do all of this. Like many others out there, I couldn't afford any of this shit up until my kids got out on their own and got jobs, etc, etc. I've always had decent cars and even a truck or two that I modded what little I could afford to do but still have money to do all the stuff that kids do these days: Horse riding lessons, basketball, lacrosse, volleyball, and on and on. But I ALWAYS wanted "MY JEEP" and rather impatiently waited for the right time. Almost 3 years ago was finally time. So here I am.
You're right, unlike the guys out West most of us in the East aren't blessed with the ability to go to the end of the road and be in the wilderness in 10 minutes. But we do have a ton of opportunities to get out in the woods, we just have to work harder to find them. We have several offroad parks, and there are many many forest roads and some gnarly trails within a 2 hour drive from Darlington. I also built my rig so that I could go pretty much anywhere I wanted and have the ability to drive back home again. Been to Moab this year, several trips to our "mountains", Rausch Creek twice, and the couple miles of trails shared with my neighbor behind my house anytime I choose to. Besides one bent axle flange and a leaking thermostat housing I've had zero issues.
So there you have it. Do I drive it to the store? Yep. Do I sometimes drive it making sales calls in the Summer with the top off? You bet your ass! Do I go to get wonder bread with it? Sometimes. But I NEVER, EVER, use it to go get canadian bacon. I get the good stuff at a local butcher shop.
I don't really know what your intentions were here. If it was to poke at a couple guys or just asking a general question? If the former, no biggie. If the latter, then I question why you are even here. This community is here because we all share several overlapping passions.And honestly, its no ones business why or how we choose to build our rigs or spend our money.
