4D Texas Tactical Spiderweb Shade
Wednesday I upgraded the SpiderwebShade, which isn't much to mention, but it came with a cool situation and outcome, so I thought I'd share the story.
I had a basic black shade before; but it was the kind that only covered the front cabin, so it was handed off to the wife's 2 door.
As it goes, for the second year in a row, I was able to join Harvey and Sergio from SpiderwebShade as they passed through Texas on the way to Llano JJ and ultimately EJS Moab . They come into Austin and one of the local clubs here (Austin Jeep People) organizes a lunch/meet-greet with them.
Last year, we ate at a great BBQ place in town (Stile's Switch) and Tim Pellegeino was able to join us as well. This year it was just Harvey and Sergio, and we all met up at Taco Deli.
Knowing that they were coming, I really wanted to snag one of their custom shades featuring the tactical Texas Flag, so I worked it out to have it sent with on their journey.
Arriving at Taco Deli, it was great to see everyone again. They had MatteBlack parked out front for folks to check out:
After greeting Harvey, I'm given the shade and we all go in to eat and chat. After lunch, there was a raffle for the regularly colored flag shade, and we snapped pics:
As we broke from lunch, the plan was to head to one of the local jeep shops (Just Jeeps) and take a group photo with our rigs out front. I thought it would be good to have my shade on for the pic, so I unraveled it... only to realize I was given the wrong one (tactical grey, but no flag).
When we arrived I told Harvey about it, and luckily they had just grabbed the wrong one from the truck to bring to lunch- but they definitely brought it. So he offered to let me follow em back to the hotel to snag the right one. So we snapped our group photos and hung around for a while before leaving:
As we were leaving, they mentioned that they'd seen a cool spot on the way over that they wanted to take some pictures of with the MatteBlack. I didn't have anywhere I needed to be, so I was happy to follow them.
The spot they saw was the underside of the upper deck of 183 as it carves through part of Austin. Below the highway there's gravel, and the road above makes for a nice "long hallway" effect. So we snapped a bunch of pics:
It turned out, this location just so happened to also be *directly across* from the dealership where I purchased Thanos. (What are the odds?) I told them they had a big rock ramp/pile that they sometimes pose Jeeps on and that we'd be able to play around on it if they wanted. They were hesitant at first, understandably not wanting to piss anyone off, so I called the man who sold me my Jeep, and asked him if it would be ok. "Can we come watch?!" was the confirmation I received
So we swung over and started with a basic ramp shot:
Then switched to something a little more exciting:
There was a fun small crowd of customers and sales guys standing about taking pictures and videos, it was fun
I even got to stretch Thanos' legs a bit even though that rear axle is still breaking in (worth the risk);
After we were done, I followed them back and was soon paired with my requested Texas shade-
I never thought getting handed the wrong product would result in such a cool opportunity! Those guys really are some of the nicest, chill dudes I've met for letting me tag along, and I love that my shade has a story to it that's much more memorable than finding it on my doorstep a few days after placing the order
Very cool turn out on an already awesome day!
