Southern High Rollers Shiloh Ridge Run
Alto, Texas - Saturday August 27th, 2005

We met at Kroger in Willis and everyone was on-time or even early. We had few new faces show up from Cypress and had 13 rigs total show up for the convoy. After brief introductions and a run down on what CB channel to run and a summary of our route, we hit the road at 7:30 AM sharp. I took the lead and Jax took the rear. Thanks to Jax, with this many rigs, he did a great job making sure everyone stayed with us. We arrived at the park just before 10:00 AM. Milton & Barbara met us at the gate in their totally awesome TJ and had obtained great spot at the top of the hill where we staged.

Convoy	Group	Group	Group
We had a brief driver’s meeting to comprehend the experience of the drivers and rigs involved. I discussed lunch plans and made sure everyone was properly preparing their rigs for the trip. It was decided that everyone would follow the big group, instead of breaking up, because there were very few people who were totally familiar with Shiloh Ridge. We had a short prayer, led by Milton and Barbara’s friend, and we were off.
Tank	Tank	George	George
First stop was the rock garden. We all took turns going over the rock garden while I spotted most people. Seemed like everyone had brand new Shrockworks rock sliders and were trying them out. Jim Shrake was on hand in his Geo Tracker to get many great pictures of his product. It was very hot and after standing in the sun on the rocks for a couple of hours, I needed a water break. So I led everyone over by the mud pits, found some shade and took a lunch break. Some people played on some close by trails and some headed back to the concession stand for lunch.
George	George	David	David
After lunch we went to “The Wall”. There were some annoying Samurai guys heckling us, they shut up when half of our group accomplished the tough obstacle that we supposedly couldn’t make. These are the guys that give our sport a bad name. I picked up most of their beer cans and we moved on. They told me that their club name was Addicted to Suzuki Samurai. If you check the acronym you will see that their club name is very fitting.
David	David	Sean	Johnnie
We went over to “Helicopter hill”. This is where the large group was probably annoyed at me. Shiloh changes from month to month and where there was an easy trail before was a little bit more difficult now. I was concerned with this obstacle and wanted to walk it before I sent anyone up, including myself. Also, there was a 4 wheeler on its side in the middle of the trail when we arrived so everyone had to wait. I apologize for this. To make it even worse a sudden rain broke out after the first few people got up the hill, making it very slick. We all made it up, but I was ready with the winch and my Jeep braced on a tree. The rain only lasted about 15 minutes and it cooled it off considerably.
Sean	Sean	PF	PF
At about 2:30 PM some people were ready to call it a day. We led the group back near the front and Jax and Lina, Craig, Johnnie and Mike headed out.
George	PF	PF	PF
George and his son got out the 4-Wheelers and zoomed around the mud pit and Milton and Barbara and their friend went exploring on their own. Also the Cypress crew broke off from us and went back to the rock garden to play.
Johnnie	Johnnie	Johnnie	Mike
Sean and Juan, David and Monica, Rob and Tammy, Vance and I continued and ran some more rock trails. Having the smaller group sure was nice. We called it quits about 4:30 PM and went back to Alto to air up. We had a very pleasant dinner in Crockett at Sonic, and the temperature became very tolerable. It was a mostly uneventful trip home. I had been having fuel issues the last couple of trips, and I obviously fixed this problem.
Mike	Matt	Matt	Jim
All in all, it was a great run. The only breakage that I know of was a bent tie rod on Sean’s Jeep. It was temporarily fixed using his winch to bend it back.
Jim	Jim	Jim	Vance
When all was said and done we had 17 rigs total on this run. 11 of those were current SHR members. The rest were guys from Cypress Offroad who scheduled their run for the same time and place. At least one of these guys has contacted me about joining our club and I expect more. They were very grateful at the run for us allowing them to run with our club and only had good things to say about our club members.
David	Tank	Tank	David
Vance	Vance