I’ll be arriving early Sat afternoon

good writeup and sounds like a great time! Glad to hear you got back out, Tom

Watching that Coke machine crawl in another window while I write this, looks like a whole new machine with the v8 in it

Covered it well, Tom.

Thanks!

Big Dog’s Ice Breakers 2024
<shake down run of Buggly>
Tom

Prep
   As with most of my life, I have grand plans of being prepared and ready for anything. But alas I’m nothing but a huge procrastinator. I was slowly getting ready for the trip to Gore, Va for the BIG DOG’S ICE BREAKERS 2024 event. 3 days prior I still had upper, lower ball joints, passenger side axel shaft to replace and seal diff cover/add fluid. Prep camper and trailer, which has sat for 2 years while I was on a hiatus due to injury.
   As I was about to get the camper loaded on the truck, I realized that I had a sway bar link mount in the Tow pig that needed to be swapped out. This put me an hour behind on leaving on time to meet up with the two other members of Finger lakes 4x4 club, Mark and Chris at the Cambell rest area.

VOYAGE BEGINS
   With food packed trailer loaded, finally time to hit the road. With the use of MUDFLAP app (reach out to me for a code) I was able to save $.70 cents on diesel. That left just enough for my co-dawg Hunter to get some drinks for the road at the gas station.
Smooth drive down the long, long route to Gore. As we passed through multiple states, NY, PA, MD, WVA, and finally into Virginia, we ticked away the time with good tunes and father son chats about life.
Upon arrival to the COVE CAMPGROUND, we were greeted by one of the owners Daniel. He got us checked in for camping and expressed his thanks. Pulling down the main drive way found us just a few sites away from Chris’s site with a huge summit tent and Roxor sitting out proudly under it. Chris and Mark gave a friendly wave as we made our way past to find the site and settled in. SITES HAD ELECTRIC once score to run heat and fridge for the weekend. We gathered ourselves and went down to check in for the event. This was well set up with a huge tent and they even had someone cooking with 2 big grills and a deep fryer. No pricing, just donations. The event check in was leaps and bounds above the way JOHN ran it (God rest his soul).
After that we sat around a fire and caught up.

FRIDAY
   We awoke bright eyed and bushytailed to the sun shining. We gathered some drinks and made our way over to Finger Lakes camp HQ (Chris’s site) we gathered around the brand new BLACKSTONE griddle while Chris cooked bacon and eggs for everyone. IT WASexquisite

When we checked in for the event staff was ADAMIT that we get to trial line up promptly at 8 am. So, we followed the rules and went to the large field to get in line. Not wanting to be first we parked slightly back from our level 7 pole. Not a whole lot of people made it there yet. As we were walking around, I grabbed a hot coffee from concession stand and chatted with other drivers and staff. We were introduced to ADAM who said he would be our trail leader for the day. He was in a lifted Jeep on 37s or so with A Ninja Turtle (Raphael) painted diff cover.

Finally at 910 an hour later than we were told to line up… UHG, we had our drivers meeting very to the point and quick. We got in our Rigs and waited for the line to start moving, A dude named Greg came walking down telling everyone to go to channel FRS15. This is not set in any of our radios. Next thing we see is Adams group heading out and we now have a new trail leader GREG and tail gunner NICK. Greg has a Cherokee on 35s and Nick has a jku on 37s?  We started off in to the wilderness of the mountain looming above the great pond of the COVE. I did not have a map program running but was told that the trails are on MAPRICA app now. We did a lot of low level trails and finally came to Corum. This is where the fun started as everyone could take different lines. Buggy worked well other than not really being in first gear and lacking good brakes. Went back to camp for lunch for 20 min then headed back out and came to BUNNY. The guide was going to pass it up, but Mark spoke up and said he wanted to play. It was a great time watching mark run it. Next was my turn. I asked Chris to spot but he deferred to Mark for that DUTY. Mark did a great job and got me through unscathed. A group of level 1 had just pulled up and gathered to watch my Run through. I put on a good show and finished strong. Made the hard exit look like cake. See attached Instagram video someone took. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6SFd7gLJ0E/?igsh=MTlrMDZjdW03bDdpdw== . We made our way back to camp around 5 and I seasoned up steaks for dinner and made some home fries. We ate and then conversed around a campfire. Apparently, the campground wood does not like to burn well.

SATURDAY
   Saturday, I awoke to rain. I let Hunter sleep. We got in to rain gear. I did not have rain pants, so I made a Rain skirt out of a trash bag to keep the water from rolling in off the dash onto my legs. It was so wet our guide kept us off the rocks as the full tube buggy rigs were not having any traction. Ran trickle and V trail. Again, V was fun due to multiple lines. Took a lunch.
   I was able to wake Hunter up when we stopped for lunch and the rain stopped. had a cheesesteak Fresh ground ribeye at the BIG Dog’s concession stand.
After lunch we lost a few water soaked rigs and decided to hit some boulders on ET. Chris was the first of our trio from Finger lakes 4x4 to try a good line and he finally got up after a handful of attempts. Mark was next and worked at getting traction. Next, I was up, things seemed to go well … Everyone started yelling to stop. Mark yelled down your Done. Broke the shaft end of my hydro ram. Our trail leader came over and asked what the plan was… I looked up to him and said IDK. After a short discussion we had a plan to pull the ram and go get it welded up. We let the rest of the group continue while Chris and mark took us back to camp to try and find a welder. No one that normal has one showed up to BIG DOGS this weekend. I headed to the office to inquire if they had any thoughts on where to go. Daniel and his MOM were sitting on the porch enjoying the sunshine on this fine Saturday afternoon. When asked about a welder her played it off like he knew one but wouldn’t tell me who… when asking about a place in town he shot it down as the whole town would be getting ready for BLOSSOM week and no one would be around. Finaly his mother started to elbow him, and his brother Willis came out of the office and prodded him to help He finally said OK to weld up the ram.  I cleaned it up nicely with the help of WINGMANS DeWalt grinder. Daniel refused to take any cash but as a good guy does, I slipped some 20’s into his pocket. Back up the mountain we went to install my newly repaired ram with high hopes it would get me off the trail and onto the trailer. We made it back to camp in time to take showers and head to the Saturday Night shenanigans. This turned out to be a great fire but lame shenanigans thanks to Insurance. 3 people tried the rock pile. One being a 9 or 10 yr. old in a CFMOTO 500 Trail UTV on Toyota axels with air shocks. Cool little set up for a kids buggy that seemed to work well. He showed no fear and wheel stood on top of the pile twice. We walked back to camp and sat around the fire.
SUNDAY
We packed up after another good breakfast of bacon and smashed tater tots.
We had an uneventful ride home as we hit New York and it started to rain.

Big Dogs @ the COVE campground is a great time and I high encourage everyone to go down at least once. The camp ground has hot showers, low water pressure and flush toilets. New friends were made, and everyone’s dogs were super friendly in the arm looking for that cooked bacon.

anyone need a trailer spot down and back?