Day Five
This was the longest day of on-road driving, with 430 miles to travel from Las Cruces to our next stop in Farmington. But before we could hit the road, we needed to replace a total of seven BFGoodrich Mud-Terrains and one Super Swamper Radial. The search for replacement tires started at a Discount Tire in Las Cruces and ended at a Discount Tire in Albuquerque. Before we could get there, though, John's Plexiglas windshield blew out of the frame on Interstate 25. A duct-tape job with help from Tom got it back into place, and we were all rolling again.
The Discount Tire store in Albuquerque had everything we needed, including one of Cole's elusive 36x12.50-16 Swampers. While we waited for all the tires to be mounted, Steve made wheel repairs, John replaced a muffler that had blown itself apart on the highway, and Greg rebuilt his Bronco's steering column.
The trailer weenies had increased by one with Trenton now towing the bomber. Jon had to get back to his shop in California so we bid him farewell. Jody had had about enough of the abusive trails and overheating CJ-7 on the long on-road sections so he cut out. Drew took a different path in search of an alignment rack for his ill-handling IFS Toy.
The rest of us hung a left out of Albuquerque and faced the last four hours of driving to Farmington with the sun setting. Night came quickly and so did the rain. The temperatures dropped too, but not too low for the no-top crowd so we pushed on. We finally made it to the hotel in Farmington, and we dragged ourselves into our warm waiting beds for a few hours of sleep to prep for the next day.
At just about the 1,000-mile mark on our trip, John's Jeep blew out a muffler. A pit stop at a Pep Boys quieted the flatfender back down. | 
In Farmington, you have to get good at judging how much momentum will get you up and over the obstacles rather than upside down. If this photo of Cole attacking a double-whammy obstacle doesn't scare you, it should at least help you share his concerns about Dana 44 internals. | 
Sean Gregory from Tuffy Security Products joined us to run the Waterfalls trail. His YJ impressed us with the suspension flex the Warn coil-over conversion offered. Harold Off was our gracious trail leader for the day and made sure everyone made it through the trail with plenty of fun. |