Four-Wheelin'! (Includes review of Swiss Inn's accessabiliy)

Despite my fixed feelings about Michigan Mud Jam, I still enjoy 4-wheeling with my husband, family and friends! Last weekend we met up with our nephew and his wife in our Jeep and their Ford Ranger at Rocks and Valleys Off Road Park south of Harrison. Although I was really sick that day and had to give up after a mere 2-1/2 hours, it was a BLAST until I became to nauseous to continue on! (This was a result of the painkillers I was taking for a recently pulled tooth, NOT from the 4-wheeling itself.) This park has easy trails for side-by-sides and intermediate trails for riders like us, and EXTREME trails. I've never seen the extreme trails because they require specialized equipment to go down.

I enjoy the trail riding because it's something I can do a little of on my own. I'll leave the steep-hill climbing to my dear hubby, but there is no reason why I can't drive it through the mud bogs and twisting trails myself--as long as there are friends nearby to help me when I get stuck!  But the beauty of it is, EVERYONE gets stuck sooner or later! Either stalled in the middle of a pond, sucked down in the mud, or high-centered on a rock! The only thing I am not able to do at this park is hook up the winch cable to a tree-saver or just plain push. So to my fellow Michigan Gimps--if you are a thrill seeker with minimum use of your legs, get your 4 x 4 buddies to bring you along! MOST people who enjoy a sport are happy to bring along a new enthusiast or show off in front of their friends!

Last night we went over to the same nephew's home in White Birch Estates outside of Farwell. The community has a 4 x 4 "play area" and that's where we played! It was a cold, drizzly day but our other nephew and niece from out of state was up for the weekend and they brought their side-by-side Yamaha! Our local nephew has one, we brought our Polaris Ranger over and the boys' dad has one that he rode over from Silver Lake. What a party! Also a childhood friend of the boys rode along with the dad, and a drunken neighbor came along in our two-seater for part of the ride. What a blast we had in that one dinky community pit! Of course my dear hubby wasted no time in plunging ours through the middle of the pond at the bottom, where the water rushed over our floorboards, soaked our feet and getting us stuck!

We all got stuck in the water or mud or got hung up on rocks--except our brother-out-law, who kept busy pulling everyone clear, ha ha! Except for having to keep my feet raised for so long it made my legs cramp, this gimp survived just fine! There was another smaller mud hole that we tore up something awful too. I feel really sorry for anyone who comes out there today to play because when we left the mud pits LOOKED very tame with no indication of how bottomless the mud really is!

We rode over to the Swiss Inn in Lake George for a bite to eat when it grew dark. They have a handicap entrance around back, which I didn't use because our party was plenty large enough to get me up and down the steps. The restrooms are tiny and awkward--too small to use if you are dependent on a wheelchair or rolling walker. Fortunately for me, I am able to take a few steps without my walker so I was okay, but just a warning for anyone who isn't that able. Everyone's food seemed to be good, but they had no croutons for the chef salad one of the girls ordered. Another girl regaled us with the story of her LAST visit to the Swiss Inn, which included a food server that had no concept of hygiene--yuck!

Rode a few more hours after that and finally ended the day around 11 pm at our nephew's house where we'd parked the truck and trailer. Good time had with good friends for very little money once again! Don't be afraid to reach out to your friends who enjoy this sport--they'll find a way to include you come mud or high water!

Michigan Mud Jam, Part 2

As promised, a follow-up on the organization of Michigan Mud Jam. It started when some buddies made a mud bog on a farm belonging to one of them, and started inviting more and more people. The new friends invited their other friends and so on until several thousand people started showing up. The event was moved to Iosco County Fairgrounds and became a Trucks Gone Wild event. The fairgrounds cleared scrub trees and made a much larger area for playing in the mud and for thousands of campers jammed into tiny, inadequate camping spaces.

I don't know how many porta-johns were brought in, but there were banks of a dozen or so all over the campgrounds and in key play zones and specatator areas, and I believe they were all emptied twice a day all weekend. There were numerous large dumpsters near the entrance for trash, but trash was a big problem all weekend long and especeially on Sunday when everyone left. I think a lot of people didn't know/forgot the location of the dumpsters. It was an awkward location because there wasn't much room to pull off and dump your trash in the congested entrance/exit area and I think they would have been better served by providing dumpsters in several areas of the campgrounds and also trash cans in the play and spectator areas.

During the big truck shows it was immediately appearant that they needed more barriers between the trucks and the grandstands. Number one, the trucks were making approaches within ten feet of the inadequate barriers and for machinery of that size there's no reason why there can't be more distance. They are big enough to be seen from quite far away! The barriers themselves were just low blocks of concrete with heavy cable linking them together. People were sitting on the barriers and stepping over the cables, putting themselves even closer to the action. At one time I saw four Iosco County Reserve "deputies" standing around together but didn't see them doing anything to move people back beyond the barriers.

I was a little surprised that all the food trucks and vendors were all in an area that we never went close to all day. I would have expected them to be a little closer to the grandstand area. I was at the event from 8:30 am to 8:00pm and never even knew they were there!

But I read the Michigan Mud Jam web page and Facebook page after the event and it sounds like the organizers learned a lot from their inaugural event. Other than a guy getting his legs run over on Friday, I didn't hear of any other serious injuries. After all the bills are paid and everything shakes out I expect to hear they will be back next year.  One suggestion I have is they should raise their entry fees--at an average price of $20/day per person including camping it's much,much cheaper than any other entertainment available of ANY kind!