Memorial Day weekend is a time to reflect on those men and women who have given all to keep our country free. It's also a three-day weekend to go celebrate that freedom however we please. So this year we headed up to Wisconsin during a rain-soaked weekend for the annual Memorial Day Total Off Road Rally put on by the Minnesota Go-4 Wheelers at the Trollhaugen ski area outside of Dresser. This 37-year-old event attracts more than 500 4x4s of various shapes and sizes and packs a giant campground with folks looking for fun.
Rarely do we see such a wide range of rigs at a West Coast event as we came across up there: fullsize mud trucks, custom monster trucks, homebuilt mud and rock buggies, and various mini-trucks, Jeeps, and Suzukis running everything from mini-ATV tires and stock axles to stroked big-blocks and tractor tires. The ingenuity and anything-goes building style found in the Midwest had us grinning every time we saw folks battering their "junk" (an affectionate term for any 4x4 that actually gets used, so don't get offended) and wrenching all night if necessary to go do it again. We'll definitely be back in the future. Want to go next year? Call the Memorial Hotline at 651.787.0278 or visit www.memorial4x4.org.