By: David Austin
Well I would have to say that this year's Memorial weekend was not a typical 4x4 outing for C4X4. Usually we will be out hitting the rocks and trails with a group of our friends. This year took on a different outlook, but we did get to hit a few trails and even a few rocks.

My wife Judy and I had offered to adopt a cabin (former camp office) at Green Country Camp and do a quick conversion into making it into another cabin for the visiting pastors or staff that serve at the camp. We got most of the painting and clean up finished up the prior weekend but would revisit again over Memorial Weekend to finish up the furniture and decorating, then if we had any time left, we would do a little wheelin in the LJ. Yep, left the buggies home in the barn. Oh yes!!!!! And it rained.

As we unloaded at the camp grounds we were greeted with the roar of rushing water from the spillways and immediately knew that the wheeling opportunities would be limited this weekend due to all the rain we have received. On Saturday morning we jumped right to work on the cabin and went to adding the finishing touches to the newly refurbished cabin. On our first trip to the hardware store we pulled into the famous Pensacola Dam and to our delight they were starting the tours up for the summer. We were the first folks to take the tour this year. We have been coming here for about 15 years and we finally got to take the tour.

After the Dam Tour (and no I am not cussing), we finished our trip to the store and we got our supplies and returned to the camp to work. Then as we got the rest of the furniture moved into place and all of the Fu-Fu thingies hung on the walls, we were able to call it done. So for the first part of our story here is the before and after pictures.

We were blessed this weekend to take our 13 year old granddaughter with us and let her bring one of her friends along. Man, do teenage girls ever quit talking?? :) On Saturday afternoon we had promised to do a little wheelin' and also let them get into the water to swim a little in a safe location. We would keep our promise to the girls, although, the swimming didn't last too long as the water was very cold, but they did make it in for a little while.

We broke one of our main rules of wheeling that weekend and went alone. So we remained on mostly very mild obstacles and trails. We did have a few folks we knew in the area we could call on if we had any real issues but, we would do our best to stay out of trouble. We drifted down into the rock garden after having to deviate our route due to the high water but we made it in and climbed a few smaller climbs. After that we went back into town and topped off the fuel.

We did a little sightseeing on some back roads and sought out another way to get to the Rock Garden. After a little more playing and checking out a flock of birds that thought they owned the place we headed out and down past the Little Blue campgrounds for a good close look at the water running through Little Blue on the bottom side of the obstacle. From there we ran on up the road and into the trails on the back side. We traveled down through the woods and enjoyed some nice easy trails. We did encounter a few other that were brave enough to fight the water and mud and for those that fought the fight there was some nice wheeling to be had.

On Sunday morning we decided to make one more round on the trails after another night of very heavy rains. We found a lot of water in the low lying areas and creeks in the hills and even found the 3 fingers area to be pretty much like a small river as the run off continued to search for the river and head on south.

Although we never put the Rubicon LJ to any kind of a test, it was great to just get out and wander through the slick and slimy trails of Disney, Ok. We thank God for making it possible to have this great place to get out and enjoy his handy works as well as see how one must respect the great power of nature and how we must show our respect and common sense while being out in it.

We then called it a day so we could get loaded back up and make it back to Oklahoma City and have some time to rest up before we hit the work week. So we said goodbye to the Grand Lake area until we return for the Crawl 4 Christ event in just one month. We hope to see you there.

God Bless You and Yours
Okie Out-

Crawl For Christ

 Back to Articles