Rig Tech Check May 2018

It is a Saturday afternoon, the sky is blue, the day is warm, and the top is off the Jeep. As I drive out to Ed and Katie’s home for the Tamers Rig Tech Check and BBQ I am grateful once again that I own a Jeep. Once a year the Tamers do a BBQ\Rig Tech check where we get together and brag about our rigs, eat BBQ, and look at each other rigs to see what we can learn and might want to incorporate into our own ride. Mostly we are just hanging out together and having a good time in each other’s company.

This year the fun started for me before I even got to the home of our hosts for the event. Being the geek that I am I had the HAM radio and CB on in the Jeep for the drive out to the event location and what should I hear on the way but Gary talking to Casey about the traffic. I was not going to pass up the opportunity to say hi and so made my presence known by grabbing the microphone and saying something witty. Casey was able to immediately identify my voice and returned salutations saying “Is that the biggest A**hole in the club”? Now you have to understand that there is a back story to this and because it is a long one I will not bore you with it now but it was all in good fun and the only replay I could give Casey was to laugh into the microphone. There was a little more banter exchanged and guessing who would arrive when until the radio went silent because of the need to concentrate on driving.

Melissa, Cassidy, and I arrived at Katie and Eds just a few minutes behind Casey and Gary to find Gary putting up the Tamers banner near the road so that people could find the event easier. As I turned the corner and drove up the gravel drive I made the split decision to take the “Jeeps Only” driveway and when I reached the top found that there were about 9 other rigs that had arrived before us. In the end we turned out to be about in the middle as people kept trickling in for another hour or so.

No sooner had be arrived than Katie was running to the store for some last minute BBQ item and since it was out front the 51 Willys was that transportation of choice. Personally I think that Katie just wanted to bomb down the road in the flatty and I personally do not blame her as it is a nice little rig.

Not to long after Katie got back things started to get organized and post-it notes with numbers written on them magically appeared on each rig. Before I knew it a sheet of paper was stuffed into my hands and I was told to “Vote” for the rig or rigs that matched the categories. There were things like “Most likely to survive the apocalypse” and “Rig with the most gadgets or gizmos”. After reading the ballot and all of the categories I mad the quick decision that my Jeep was superior to all other rigs and quickly filled the entire ballot with the number for my rig. I then found Casey and handed her the ballot which she looked at and just shook her head mumbling something under her breath.

Voting continued for a while and then it was announced that food was ready so we all retired to the back yard to stuff our faces. The food was great and I think that fact contributed to the overabundance of desserts that were left over. I am not complaining mind you as I really like taking home the brownies that we brought but I think that I could have used a little more help from the club to reduce their number so I did not have to test my will power quite so much.

With everyone satisfied gastronomically the awards portion of the event got started and certificates were passed out for the categories that were voted on earlier. This is where my plan to vote for my own rig in every category paid off and I received the certificate for the Jeep that was “Bare bones good enough”. Oh the irony. I think that the voting was rigged. For those that do not know my Jeep that well it may look stock but in fact there are a lot of little things that can fool you if you do not look close. Perhaps the “Sheep in Wolves clothing” award might have been more appropriate. That category might be added next year I think.

After the food and the awards were taken care of the organized portion of the event was pretty much done and the number of people slowly started to dwindle as people left for their evening plans. That being said this attrition rate was very slow and I do not think I left until about 7pm and I made sure there was nothing more I could do to help with the cleanup.

Thank You once again Katie and Ed for welcoming the Tamers into your home for this event.

Rudi TT 227