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ECXC 2k5 was a year of firsts.
It was the first year we had more than 50 trucks each day, it was the
first year we drew attendees west of Ohio, the first year someone had to
leave on a tow truck and the first year my family attended. It was
also the most stressful and disappointing ECXC for me to date.
It was a hard fought battle almost
right out of the gate. My wife and I brought two vehicles, the
Xterra and her Astro minivan so she'd have a vehicle while we were on the
trails and also because the Xterra can't tow our almost 5,000 lb travel
trailer. With my wife, kids and ferrets in the Xterra and I in the
van towing the camper, we went our separate ways as we both had things to
pick up for ECXC in different directions. The problems began about 1
hour into our journey. After the one stop my wife had to make, the
Xterra decided it did not want to start. AAA to the rescue, but not
this time. They sent a small wheel lift truck whose driver was
unable to get the Xterra started. I was about to arrive at our
rendezvous point (my parents' house) when I got the call that the X
wouldn't start. After parking the van and camper, I jumped in my
mom's car to meet my wife about 30 minutes away. I got the X started
quickly, turned out to be a bad ground.
Back on the road, but that's when
problem #2 arose. On flat ground, the X was overheating with the A/C
running. The X has never done that to me on flat ground unless I'm
towing. Of course it's like 90+ degrees out. Back at my
parents I spend close to 20 minutes with a hose on the radiator and get a
relatively clean radiator as clean as I can possibly get it. All was
well with the temp until we got into the mountains of eastern PA which
also brought about problem #3. We had never taken our brand new
camper outside of NJ. Although I'd towed it at speeds in excess of
70 mph, that was on flat, well maintained NJ toll roads. PA toll
roads are neither flat nor maintained. As a result, I almost lost
the camper not once, but twice. The first time wasn't too bad, but
the second one, well I was pretty sure we were going to lose the camper.
We did not, a heavy foot and fortunately a fairly straight stretch of the
Northeast Extension prevailed.
 Ok, so we're about 3 hours late at this point with 70 miles
to go and I can't drive any faster than 50 mph. At least the rest of
the trip was uneventful. Until we get to the campground when I find
about 10 Xterras parked at my camp site, not surrounding the campsite, but
on the campsite. Fortunately those were the only 10 out of the 40+
folks that were already there, that didn't listened to the owner when she said
not to park there (that's probably only because there wasn't room for
anyone else to park there). To make matters worse, one dumbass was
about 30 minutes away in the middle of a brewery tour.
 Ok, so on with the show. Friday turned out to be not
such a good day. We had a massive turnout. Paragon's annoying,
tediously slow registration process made a trip to the DMV look like a
walk in the park. Then to make matters worse, they still inspected
all 70+ vehicles. I think the last group finally left the staging
area around 11 am!!!!!!!!!! My group had a slow go of it early on as
we got stuck behind a stock group on Turtle for quite awhile after only
hitting one small trail. The rest of the day went pretty well until
my driver's side rear torsion bar anchor decided it preferred to exist in
a horizontal state rather than a vertical state. More accurately, it
looked like a short, fat T. Amazingly the ever resourceful OffroadX
had a spare with him and the quick fingered SteelX who I had only met that
day was under the truck repairing it in no time flat. Thanks guys!
 As a result, I was not able to meet the caterer at the
campground to receive the food. Fortunately my wife made it back to
the campground after a day of "sight-seeing" in and around central PA.
The campground, that assured me they'd have enough room to hold all the
food, did not. Christy of
christy
joy's catering was gracious enough to take the food back and would
allow us to pick it up heated the next day, which is when we needed it
anyway.
People kept rolling in to the campground Friday night.
By the time all the dust had settled, we had probably close to 120 people
at the campground. The owner told me 118 adults had registered and
I'm sure there were several that slipped through the cracks. The
camping area did a pretty decent job holding all of our tents, even with
people ignoring the request NOT to park their Xterra at their campsite.
 Saturday went a lot smoother as Lynn at Rausch Creek made
the registration process a breeze. She did more in half the time
that it took 2 folks at Paragon to do. Without the retarded
inspection process like Paragon has, we were on the trail in no time.
My group had a much better day on the trails at Rausch Creek and didn't
get held up once.
Saturday night's blowout went off pretty much without a
hitch. We were a little late getting the food there as we got lost
finding the catering company, but that gave us more time to be ready when
it did get there.
 The food was actually pretty good. I wish I
had ordered more of some things and less than others, but I think we did
okay. We tried something different for the raffle this year.
Instead of everyones name going into a hat, we did it Chinese Auction
style (at least that's what I've been told it is called). Each item
had its own "hat", every person got 1 ticket for coming and could purchase
2 more tickets at 1 dollar a ticket. The money collected was also
raffled off. We had a great selection of items this year from a lot
of new sponsors and a nice handful of companies that continue to sponsor
ECXC year after year! Be sure to check the
sponsors page to find out who these great companies are! NJAX
partied through the night with their all night go-go providing frozen
drinks for all.
I'd like to thank everyone for coming out and making ECXC
2005 a success. There are a few folks that require extra thanks.
First my wife for finally agreeing to come out and for all the help she
provided before, during and after ECXC and for her daycare services :)
Powerguy37 for the stickers, the banner, the maps, the trail leader
magnetic stickers, bringing the projector and everything else he does for
ECXC. Erxtera for watching my kids while my wife was getting the
food and I was busy getting ready for the food. EODDVR for pointing
out that I need to let other people help. Everyone that helped lead
trails and helped with things throughout the weekend.
Hope to see you there in 2006!
-Michael |
