And even then, there wasn't anything special about it...until I got seven minutes in, and one of the guys said, "I think we should all just go home before we all die or somethin'." Then I LOL; and decided I'd put up a post about it. (Around 7:40 a mouse deserts the sinking boat.)
Guys have spent the morning out on a lake, fishing; and when they go to pull one boat out the Jeep and trailer end up submerged. We come in just as they're beginning to pull the Jeep (trailer still attached) out of the water.
...the boat which is supposed to go on the trailer starts to sink because its bilge drain plug comes out. Then another boat belonging to another of the fishermen capsizes.
I wonder if any of them is named "Gilligan".
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As for the Jeep, it looks like one of the older TJs, which is good: it won't have all the wiring of the modern fuel-injected trucks, and not much interior to be ruined by water. All the fluids will have to be drained and replaced, and I don't doubt there'll be problems, but it won't be a gargantuan task to get it operable again.
The link which led me to that video was on a Jeep forum, which I found a link to in the Fiero forum, about a guy calling himself "Chadwick" who accidentally submerged his Jeep--further than he'd intended, I mean--while trying to impress his girlfriend. Now this Jeep forum refers to sinking one's vehicle as "chadwicking".
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You can modify a car so that it can stand to be submerged and continue running. Mostly it has to do with waterproofing the wiring and engine, and ensuring a good air supply to the engine's intake. If you plan to drive underwater it would behoove you to remove the upholstery and improve the cabin's drainage.
Just adding a snorkel to the thing's not enough, though.
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I still keep thinking about finding a place with some mild trails to take the Jeep. It'd be fun to do a little low-key off-roading, something that doesn't require a modified vehicle.
The kind of trails I'm thinking of could be handled just as well by a 2-wheel-drive vehicle with sufficient ground clearance, but I don't really care about that. I'm not into the hardcore off-roading where you need huge tires and bulletproof axles and a 10,000 lb winch and.... That stuff's expensive and it completely wrecks the roadability of your truck. (People drive 'em that way, sure. People also drove Model Ts. Doesn't mean I want to.) Not to mention the fuel economy suffers, to put it mildly.
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The other thing I keep thinking about is the dirt bike I've got in the garage. It's a 1972 Suzuki TS 90, but it runs fine. It needs some cosmetic work, and I'd like to have the muffler TIG welded so it doesn't leak, but I re-ringed it in the 1990s and it makes enough power to get out of its own way.
The motorcycle has two gear ranges, one for off-road and one for riding on the street. (Yeah, it's street-legal...or would be if it had insurance and a plate.) It's fun, but there is no longer anywhere in the immediate vicinity I can ride it, and I don't have a motorcycle license.
When my Dad bought the thing for my oldest sister in 1972, there was a very large field on the other side of the street from the house. There were woods about two blocks away. There was a trail called "Old Road" which was where trolley tracks had once run down to Balomoral Park. And there was the abandoned golf course west of the high school. I rode that motorcycle in all those places except the field, which was developed starting in 1978.
The field has houses now. The woods are off-limits. Old Road has been developed into an industrial park. The abandoned golf course became the location for the new high school. *sigh* It's how things go, but it means that the motorcyle has sat, unused, since about 1994. The one that really hurts is the woods: the old railroad roadbed was perfect for riding that motorcycle, but the bike path they put over it is strictly for unpowered vehicles.
Dad bought (at the same time he bought the motorcycle) a set of wheel loops which attach to the bumper of a car. The motorcyle's wheels were put into these hoops, and then secured with ropes or straps; and the car could haul the motorcycle anywhere. But I tossed the hoops, because if you tried to use them on a modern vehicle--even if you could find a way to secure them!--the things would tear the bumper off at the first bump in the road. They were made for a time when car bumpers were made of thick steel, not plasic and foam padding.
But I can get a trailer hitch for the Jeep; and several companies offer a variety of platforms and devices which are installed in the hitch receiver socket, and which could carry that motorcycle. (There are even ones dedicated to carrying motorcycles.) This is probably the way to go; and it would let me take the motorcycle just about anywhere I cared to drive the Jeep.
All it takes is money, as my Dad used to say....
* * *
(No, the motorcycle will not fit in the Jeep. Not without complete disassembly. Dis- and reassembly would take an inconveniently long time.)
* * *
It's hot out, there's nothing I want to do, and after the 1.2 inches of rain we got yesterday the ground's too soggy for cutting grass.
The storms that roared through around 4-ish yesterday were the strongest storms I've seen in a while, but there was surprisingly little lightning. Our power was off for about half a hour. And it rained like a monsoon.
So after the power had been back on for a couple hours, suddenly it went out again. I was right at the beginning of a random instance in WoW when it happened; so I said to the others in the group that the power had failed and that I'd probably have to log out. I waited a couple minutes, though, and it came back on, so I went on and ran the instance.
Frexxed got to level 40 last night.
* * *
Bah. I've got nothin'. Later.