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Sorry, but I love the FJ Cruiser. So, that opening shot got the billing.
This fellow (name?....you know me....I will fill that in later) gave us the mini tour of his 1983 Toyota Land Cruiser 45 Series.
It was used as a military troop transport vehicle in Australia.
Here's a link to a page about this vehicle on 'Army-Technology' - LINK1 LINK2 LINK3 LINK4
Here are some views of other rigs at the Rally...
Even though it still looks pretty 'townie', I was kinda diggin that Lexus on the right.
Somehow, I became the 'unofficial' local rep for Outrider Offroad.... :P
Others were handing out literature for various makers and distributors of aftermarket stuff.
So, I figured I would too.
I think this is SRTFJBUS. He mentioned that Outrider was one of the things he was interested in getting into next on his rig.
So, we got on the ground and looked at the damage that was caused to my Outrider rear shock mount protector recently....
...damage, which, by the way, would have been caused to my rear shock mount if Digger's product hadn't been there.
Interesting thing is that I had just installed it right there at the meeting spot for that trail run, just a couple hours before
it actually got some usage. No pics of that yet, but I will upload some sometime soon.
I also picked up one of those Expedition One brochures in Ravens Edge's hands.
We have one of their Geri external fuel containers for long trips with Sandi.
OK, maybe a bit over-board, but hey, he's my friend, and I actually do have something of his on my rig now,
and it really does help. I have the rest of his line on my list....maybe little-by-little, I'll get her completely protected under there.
JammerGirl got into the act as well, of course, taking photos of me there :)
That's the 'Blue Mule' in the background. Nice rig for sure.
Well, I didn't end up getting as many photos of the other Toyota vehicles that I walked around drooling over
(probably because of that....too busy drooling, and brain couldn't do two things at the same time, etc), but oh well.
It was, again, a very cool event. Got to see some friends, meet new ones, and enjoyed picking up some more history of the Toyota line-up.
I had never seen one of those LC 45 Series troop transports, and that was pretty wild.
Interesting trivia...
In getting ready for the event, even though we had been there before, and knew where to go, I decided to take a look at Google Maps,
just to refresh my mind on the specifics one last time before heading out the door.
When I looked at the satellite view of the parking lot, I saw a bunch of vehicles parked in what looked kinda like the way we all park
at the Rally each year. So, then I posted a comment about it on the Rising Sun forum thread about the event, and sure enough,
it was indeed from one of the Rallies in past years.
Here's what I said on the forum...
"Cool time today, guys.
Thanks for all the work that goes into that thing.
By the way, any chance this is a past Rising Sun Rally on Google Maps sat view?
[url]http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=39.723509,-105.108288&spn=0.001277,0.001891&t=h&z=19[/url]"
This was the response from one of the Rising Sun guys...
"It is! I can see the registration tent and Jeff's 45. I think that was the year with the raffle 62 with the tent on the angle."
Here is a screenshot of what I saw on Google Maps...
Here's the link to that place on Google Maps...
LINK
Here's a link to the conversation in the forum thread...
LINK