Hello everyone! Just joined. I think I am like a lot of people, where we just lurk in the shadows. But I have seen some good info given out on this site, and in some cases I have seen where I had some to give on a specific topic, but was not a member, sorry.


My background is primarily racing. I have raced MX and GP's most of my life. But as it happens, age had started catching up with me. In 2007 I was practicing on a track and had a good getoff, wasn't anything gnarly, was a triple step down, had been doing it all morning, track was actually easy and I think that's why it happened. My mind was somewhere else and I hit the jump a little too fast, over shot the landing and flat landed. Wound up doing quite a bit of damage to the knee. Dr. told me it would be a while before riding again. Once healed up, I went out to place 1st in my class Vet Int in MX and the Big 6 GP series for the season. The next season started off right, won the first couple rounds, then again, another getoff, this time it was at speed and got hucked over the bike. Don't remember much, just the pain when I went to get up. Wound up breaking both wrists. No problem, I'll just rehab and get back to it when I can. Healed up, got back in shape, went back to what I've done for most my life. Again, was doing good in the couple series that I run in, and another getoff. This time I tore the rotator cuff and labrum. Now, these caused me to ponder, specially looking at my recovery time, should I start taking it easy?


So we went out and bought a SxS. Bought an 07 Rhino, and that was it!!!! The wife and I could still go out and enjoy the outdoors, we could take our dogs, and we could haul a lot more stuff and go camping. Kind of funny when you think about it, we were taking our motorhome out to the desert, only to unload the rhino and head out and go camping!?!? Well we refined our methods and have never looked back. Some of the best times in our life!


We reside in California, ya ya I know, no need to beat me up. But we purchased some property in Az a few years ago, and we spend every weekend there. Love the state, love the people and love how there is such freedom there and from what I've seen, not too many people abusing it. We do get the occasional person that won't pick up their trash, but for the most part, people respect the lands. We have the Hassyampa river approximately 14 miles on trails from our property, which we head to quite often. We also head to Lake Pleasant during the summer. This is a fun trip. roughly 65 miles from our property, but we can take the back trails with our SxS all the way there. About a 3-4 hour trip one way. You can shorten that, but we like looking for the critters.


Anyway, I'm done yapping. Hope to meet some of you sometime.


Joe

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

Welcome.

 

Hello MoJo... Wow, what a career in motorsports. I can't imagine the excitement of MX racing, and I can't imagine crashes you've been through. I think ATV trail riding is a lot more relaxing, at least it is for me. I tell my wife that an ATV is a motorcycle with training wheels.

We hope you will share more of your experiences in the time to come on these forums. And I'm glad you enjoy Arizona. A little freedom sure enhances the human spirit. It is a great ATV street legal state. You sure can enjoy your side by side there. California has nice weather, and maybe a 200mph train some year..

David

 

Thanks. Yes the wife and I have had some excitement over the years. We have been caught in a blizzard in Death Valley, yep a Blizzard! We've explored countless mines, been caught in quite a few monsoons and the list goes on.


But a new chapter is starting to unveil itself even to us. I own a manufacturing business and had been working on a popup camper specifically designed for quads and SxS's. We built the first prototype and went out and beat it up for a year, came back and re-designed a couple things and did our first production run. Have been testing for almost a year now, and this is FUN!!! We load up on Friday night, and head out. Where we're going, we don't know, but we'll stop somewhere out in the middle of nowhere and set up camp. Just the 2 of us and our 2 goldens. We tow the camper with our Ranger. Now, we have our nephew hooked. He has on older Rhino and him and his wife and their 2 dogs go with us sometimes. We occasionally park right on the side of the river, or on the shore of the nearest lake. Sometimes we'll pack up mid day Saturday and head to another spot.


It's a different kind of camping than we've been accustomed to. We used to take our motorhome out and that was our base, but to unload and just go adds a whole new element and experience. This was one of the reasons for the changes to the production model. I wanted setup and or tare down to be less than 5 minutes so it wasn't such an issue to keep mobile. We beat my goal, I have to camper closed and ready to go right at 3 minutes. So moving to a new spot is not a big deal.


My wife and I are looking at our 25 year anniversary here pretty soon, and my goal is to leave our property and head South to Lake Pleasant, stay a while then head NE to a mountain town called Crown King, stay there a while and then keep heading North. I want to go camp on the rim of the Grand Canyon, then head South to Williams stay a while there, then back home. All the while making little detours to restock on supplies and occasionally stay at a hotel (maybe). But I figure we'd be on the trail for 3-4 weeks, just us, the Ranger and camper. I figure we can go 3-4 days before restocking food, water and shower water, based on what we have done so far. And if we do it around our anniversary, we'll just be getting in to Fall so weather should be nice. My estimates on time without restocking have been based on us camping in the summer, so if it's cooler, we could use less of our supplies. I have a lot of planning to do before, but I think it will be an adventure to remember.


Just a couple pics of us camping. Hopefully they'll load.

 

Thanks for the welcomes!


We have a camping trip planned in 2 weeks. My Nephew, Brother in Law and myself are hooking the campers up to the SxS's and heading out Friday morning. I think we're going to stay at the Hassyampa river 1 night then pack up and head somewhere else. No agenda, just going to go out and find some cool spots to set up camp and relax. Probably will bring the .22's, we are very competitive, so I'm sure some bragging will be going on at night by someone.


But we do this type of stuff quite often, so if anyone is in the area and wants to hook up, pm me and we'll see if we can work it out.


I tried to post some pics in my last post but it said moderater had to approve and it never got posted. I would like to post some pics of our camping trips, but not sure if I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I'm not hitting the keys hard enough

 

I wonder if the picture you selected had too many bits and bytes. I downsize my pictures to about 200k.

Enjoy your camping trip, and post some pictures when you get back.

David

 

Testing posting pics

 

Yeah, it worked!


Will post some pics when we get back. Maybe even some of everyone else crying cause I spanked them while shooting

 

Dave,


Now that's a picture! Exactly what we'll be looking for when we go camping!!!! Thanks for the pic!