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Little Sahara - January 28, 2006
Report by Steve Jackson, Jason Morton, and Sean Cooreman
For the 1 year anniversary of UOOC the group headed out to Little Sahara Recreation Area. This trip turned out to be Unlucky #13. From miscues to breakdowns and more breakdowns, the first trip of 2006 was an adventure. It was such an adventure that it took three people to tell the story.
Friday Night - Report by Jason Morton
 On Friday a handful of UOOC'ers were heading out to Little Sahara to spend the night camping in the cold before joining everyone else for the wheeling on Saturday. After pointlessly waiting for some additional caravan members who never showed (more on that later), I headed out to Little Sahara around 4:00 PM.
Upon arriving at the Jericho campsite, I was greeted by a handful of the UOOC faithful with tents and trailers already setup for the night. We spent the evening talking about the day ahead, and waiting for the arrival of Steve and Chris.
Around 9:00 PM we started receiving calls from Steve somewhere on I-15 near Nephi. He was having "technical difficulties", and in desparate need of assistance. Before we could mount a rescue (but not before I could mock him for neglecting his "Scout maintenance"), Steve's problems were semi-resolved, and he was heading for a warm hotel to stay the night before heading on to Little Sahara in the morning.
Those of us at the campground proceeded to have an uneventful (but cold!) night in Little Sahara. There was one near disaster though. One of the tents had a broken pole, but we were able to fix it with a broom and some tape.
Saturday Morning - Report by Sean Cooreman
 For some of us, Saturday morning started out meeting in a parking lot in Lehi. From there we caravanned to Nephi to meet up with some guy in a blue Scout with no front driveshaft. We then headed to Little Sahara and found the rest of the group huddled around a broken down Cherokee on one hilltop and a broken down CJ on another hilltop.
While they were being repaired the rest of the group was patiently waiting for the repairs to be completed. A few of us had nagging wives hounding us to do something. The husbands politely responded, “Honey if we were broken down you would want them to wait for us wouldn’t you?” That worked for a little while, but then they got irritated so we had to drive them around the dunes to keep them entertained.
 The repairs were finally completed and we started to move on to Sand Mountain for a little fun. But within a few minutes we had to tend to two more rigs that had to be pulled out from being stuck. Finally we got to Sand Mountain and started climbing. A large group of us were being entertained as we watched Dallin make a run for it as white smoke bellowed out from his XJ about 2/3rds of the way up. It was just another coolant leak which he fixed at the top. We got everyone back down at the parking lot and had a tug-o-war between vehicles. Afterwards a drag race took place up Sand Mountain. It was the first time we’ve seen a Scout get all 4 wheels off the ground and come back down without breaking anything.
Saturday Evening - Report by Steve Jackson
 After fixing the broken rigs, playing in the sand, racing up Sand Mountain, and nearly burying two rigs during tug-o-war, the remaining wheelers headed back to the campsite so everyone could pack up and caravan home.
As we all aired-up and got ready to head home, Dallin began dismantling the cooling system in his XJ. After having problems with it all day, it needed a few more repairs before making the trip back to Utah County. Patiently, we all waited and offered assistance when possible. We finally got on the road around 7:00 PM, and decided we'd all have dinner together before going our separate ways. We drove back to Nephi, and found a suitable restaurant.
 During an enjoyable meal at J.C. Mickelsons in Nephi, we told stories of past UOOC adventures, discussed the history of our screen names, and made plans for future outings. Afterwards, we caravanned back up I-15, and made it home without any further breakdowns.
After it was all said and done, we had a GREAT time on this trip as usual! Even breakdowns and other problems can't crush the UOOC spirit!
Thanks to everyone who made the first year of UOOC a HUGE success.
View the full photo album for
the January get-together here. |
