Some of the ridges and valleys we traversed on Friday

Two weekends ago at Black Mountain in Kentucky.

Looking out over where we came from

You can see the trail back down as well as the town in the valley below.  I like how you can see some of the rays of the sun poking through the coming rain clouds.  We got a few drops, that was about it.  Just enough clouds to give us a little shade while we were on the peak.  Perfect end to day one!

The five of is that went down early for a Frida scouting ride

I was sure glad I did since it let me learn and work up to the bigger obstacles ahead of time.  When we started out on Saturday, we went right to the hard stuff (like the one in the video I just uploaded before this).  I think I would have freaked out a little. ;)

We had three like mine, an old TJ like Daisy, and a 2 door version of mine.  An interesting combo of rigs. Brutus is in the middle.

Black Mountain trail ride Jeep Wrangler JKU

 I was putting Brutus to the test for sure on our Muddy Buddys “medium/hard” or “moderate” trail ride. We were told, “there will be sounds”. ;) Here you can see the trail leader’s wife taking a turn before me. This was the first really challenging obstacle of the weekend and I learned a lot from the guides. This learning served me really well for the rest of the day!

THIS was a view worth climbing for!

“Climb as far as you can!”

That was the instructions from the trail guide as we rounded the corner for the last little bit of our 3,000 foot ascent in search of a view.  It looked a little daunting but proved to be pretty easy for our beasts.

Jeep life be like…

Just taking a quick break for a snack while some folks were getting over the obstacles behind me. 

Enjoying two road trips for the weekend.

Andy and I were both climbing in Kentucky a weekend ago.  He was in Red River Gorge while I was at Black Mountain.  We were kind of close to each other, but so far at the same time.  It was fun to exchange pics of our adventures throughout the weekend.  I like how he's cradling his fan.  It was a HOT weekend for sure.  Well into the 90s!

I see a path…

There's a little bit of trail for logging up by the right of way to those power lines in the distance.  I decided to go check it out. :)

Really happy with how my fender liners tuned out.

Everything fits perfectly and there's still room for the upgraded shocks and hydraulic bump stops the guy before me put on.  

Now I need to cover the liners with some dirt!

Playing around with HDR a bit more

I was trying to capture the rock lights under Brutus and still have some of the body panel color show through.  It turned out pretty nice.  It came with blue lights for the interior so I used my light control on the rock lights and headlights to match that as close as I could, just for fun.  I need to add one more, a lighted whip for if I ever make a trip to the sand dunes or an off-road park that requires a flag.

My cord finally failed (bottom)

But Andy's (top) is still going strong.  I inherited a power cable from the YouPad when the kids moved graduated high school.  It's been powering my slide show iPad ever since.  One of the cats knocked it off in a panic the other day and it finally gave up the ghost.  Andy's been using one for his phone since his childhood.  One of his originals, actually.  And it STILL works in spite of his rough treatment of it.  I wondered if it was still going after mine had failed so he sent me this current pic. Mine didn't hold a candle to the extremity of his!

I had to light up the garage so I could clean up my mess.

It's always funny to me how much dirt you can nock off a Jeep while working on it. My packout sure came in handy during my light and armor projects.  I have really come to appreciate the extra little bins to hold parts, small tools, etc. to keep them from wandering off during a project. 

They’ll never see me coming…!

It would be a little menacing to see this coming in your rear view mirror or down the trail. ;) I was just testing out how my trail lights might look at night.  Turns out they make a great way to light up the garage for cleanup at night after working in there for a couple days. 

A nice sunset to show off my rig

I decided to see if I could get a good picture of the sunset combined with Brutus the Jeep.  The high dynamic range of today's cameras make something like this shot pretty easy to make turn out right.  It was a beautiful and fun night.  

I love driving around in the evenings and catching the summer sunset!

Julie cooking is sooooo golden brown and delicious!

Lemon rosemary chicken and crispy Brussels sprouts

More custom cutting and fitting…

I had to figure out a way to make room for my license plate on the driver side fenders and corner guard.  I came up with some hacks to the plate holder and the corner guard that worked perfectly.  It's fun to figure this kind of stuff out.  You can see how the rear and the front fenders worked out here.  Also, on the right, you can see the foot pegs my mom got me for Father's Day. ❤️

Is a jumping spider cute if…?

Julie and I were wondering if a jumping spider would still be cute if they were the size of a tarantula or even a cat… I decided to see what that might look like and put some AI images to work… On the left, still cute.  On the right, oh no!

The dog days of summer came early!

 Zoe was looking for some shade while she was hanging with me while I worked on my Jeep fenders.  Apparently, my hard top makes a good dog house? ;)