"Jason Bleazard" <dml@bleazard.net> wrote:
: On Thu, November 18, 2004 11:22 pm, Terrible Tom said:
:>
:> Pulling out my trusty paper atlas - I see that a state like Missouri or
:> southern Iowa or far western Illinois - might be a geographic "center"
:> of an area. Making the distance more equalized for most people.
[...]
: I'm not too concerned about the location as long as I have enough advance
: notice. Easy for me to say, two years in a row Norah and I drove 2000
: miles each way just to visit my family at Christmas time. If we can do
: the Toronto to Salt Lake City drive and back in winter weather for
: Christmas (once with my mother in law), none of the rest of you have any
: excuse about the number of miles.
A glutton for punishment, that's what you are! ;-) Or insane,
perhaps. Hmmmm, should we be taking driving tips from a crazy person?
;-)
: Of course, if anyone wanted to fly in and rent a vehicle, they'd be more
: than welcome. We aren't going to refuse admission to anyone on this list
: because they couldn't bring their truck. It's better to be there with a
: rental than not at all.
This will probably be me. :-) In my case, its not so much a
case of putting miles on the vehicle, but rather time constraints.
I'll probably only get to get away for 5-6 days, and if 4 of those
days are occupied with just driving out and back, its not going to
be a great trip. So, I would probably be looking at flying out and
renting something. Hopefully something cool; I doubt I could get
a Dak, but maybe a Durango, or if we were in the Moab area one of
those Jeeps Jason was talking about would be cool, especially if
we were going to do any trail riding.
Anyway, with that said, the location doesn't matter a whole lot
to me since I will probably be dropping in out of the sky. :-)
: I really like Tom's idea of the Four Corners area, but I've always loved
: the west desert area. I think Durango, Colorado is pretty close to that
: area. That's where the Durango club holds their meets (for obvious
: reasons). On the one hand, it's kind of cheesy to copy their idea, but
: there are some logistical questions (hotels, etc.) that they would have
: already had to have figured out.
Hmmm, I notice Utah will honor my NY pistol permit, but the
other three states don't. Perhaps I could bring the .45 along and
run in a circle around the monument yelling "legal!", "illegal!",
"illegal!", "illegal!", "legal!", "illegal!", "illegal!", "illegal!",
"legal!", "illegal!", "illegal!", "illegal!" at the appropriate points?
That's bound to kill at least 5 minutes...
:> Someone suggested a campground - I think that would be a really cool
:> idea.
: I'll second that. Heck, we use the trailer even at Jon's place, so you
: can imagine that we'd definitely be bringing it to whatever meet gets
: organized. There are KOAs just about everywhere, if nothing else. A lot
: of those have cabins for anyone who isn't in to the whole camping scene.
Camping sounds like a good money saving idea to me. :-)
Obviously I wouldn't be able to pack in much if I were flying in,
but doing some "bare bones" camping could be fun. Would be nice
to have access to a shower at some point though.
I have this mental picture of a bunch of Daks parked in a
picturesque forest setting, with a waterfall, up in the mountains,
and tents all over. Would be cool to get into a national park or
something somewhere to set up a "base camp" like that. Maybe
someplace where we could do some trail riding, possibly even some
hiking or orienteering, etc.
:> As the DML home page says - there are approximatly 800 or
:> some registered members - with only about 200 active. If all 800
:> members were to show up - or even half that figure, an average
:> campground won't work.
: I'd be *really* surprised to get more than 50 people, just based on
: interest being expressed on the list. But, maybe I'm under estimating.
: The only way to know for sure is to start an event profile and start
: collecting names.
Yeah, hard to say. Having run the BBQ for several years now,
I can attest to the "squirrely-ness" of prospective attendees. :-)
I have also seen prior attempts to create a gathering of this type
wither and die on the vine, but perhaps with this being a relatively
big milestone year on the DML, we will stand a chance. :-) I'm
certainly not going to poo-poo the idea; it sounds like it could be fun,
and an opportunity for some DMLers to see another part of the country
which they would normally not have a reason to. I am certainly
interested in participating; the level of my participation will
depend on the dates and location, etc. but as I said, even if I
have to fly in I am certainly looking forward to a meet of this type.
I agree that it would be good to get an event profile going
and start collecting names and such to gauge interest. This
also brought another thought to mind. I suspect that as we
discuss the idea, certain locations will be suggested, and
there will no doubt be several different ideas that will
materialize about what the meet should be, and where it should
be held. I don't know if this would be worthwhile or not, but
should such a group of potential meets materialize, we could use
the same system that we use for voting for the DML Calendar for
the meet. Who knows, perhaps a single location will materialize
which is so obviously superior to the others that we have some
sort of implied unanimous content, but if there are a few
contenders, a vote could be used to decide the issue. We've
already got the capabilities to do this thanks to the DML calendar
voting process. Just a thought.
:> One idea that just occured to me - instead of trying to get a meet
:> together on the weekend of the 10th anniversary - perhaps the DML BBQ
:> for 2006 could be relocated to our 10th Ann. location? Follow me? If
:> we celebrated the 10th ann. in the summer of 2006 - instead of in
:> November of 2005 - perhaps more people could make it? More people could
:> get time off in the summer, better weather, not close to thanksgiving or
:> Christmas - both times of the year when money for a long ass cross
:> country trek, would be sparce.
: Outstanding idea. All very good points. Yes, it would be much easier to
: make a meet in the summer, and I think it would be much more fun.
: Next question... what dates? Do we want to take advantage of the 4th of
: July? That might be easier for many people to get time off work, but it
: also might interfere with other things people had planned. If there's any
: actual interest in Four Corners, remember that it gets really hot there in
: the summer, which is why the Jeep Safari is held in spring.
I'm inclined to think that the 4th of July area is probably not
the best time, based simply on my BBQ experience. That's the main
reason the BBQ was moved to the end of July; I used to have it the
first weekend, which was the July 4 weekend, and it just seemed to
conflict with too many people's July 4 plans. The second weekend is
of course Carlisle, and you wouldn't want to compete with that.
Another time to avoid is the 2nd weekend in August as that is
the Mopar Nats.
: Actually, it should be rather pleasant there this time of year. Lemme
: check... high of 56 today, low of 34. Brrr... not camping weather. Never
: mind. Stupid cold desert nights :-).
It would be cool in a symbolic sort of way to have the meet
during the actual 11/17 timeframe, perhaps by moving it further
south to warmer climates, but what with thanksgiving coming up and
x-mas not too much further down the line, it would no doubt present
a scheduling problem with many people, and probably money is tight
during that time of year also.
One thing that comes to mind with this meet is just about everybody
has said that to make it worthwhile, it should be a multi-day affair.
Possibly even a week and a half if its two weekends and the week
in between them. I do agree with that, its not worthwhile to do all
that driving or spend the money on a plane ticket just to turn around
the next day. :-( However, this also presents the challenge of making
sure we have enough to do during that timeframe. We are certainly
experts at standing around with our hoods popped, but there is only so
much of that even we professionals can stomach. ;-) Naturally, stuff
to do will depend on the location, and thus having nearby stuff to do
would no doubt be a good thing to consider when choosing the location.
Unfortunately, I don't have too many thoughts in that area except for
the following:
It is *probably* a mistake to make a long event like this be about
one type of thing. For example, going to the drag strip for a day is
cool, but most people probably wouldn't want to go there 10 days in a
row. :-) The same could be said for offroading, from the perspective
of the drag racers. (Though perhaps to a lesser extent, since at
least with offroading, the scenery changes.) :-) This of course leads
to the thought that there is only so much one can do with a truck -
we can stand around and look at engines, drag race, or off road, but
then what? That brings me to what seems like a logical conclusion -
it doesn't necessarily have to be all about the trucks, and doing stuff
with the trucks. The core of the DML is, after all, people... who
happen to spend a lot of time talking about trucks. :-) So I'm
thinking that by not focusing strictly on Dak related things like drag
racing and off roading, there are perhaps other things that could be
done, such as a scenic hike through the mountains, checking out a
historical landmark or attending a theme park. There will of course
be some folks who are unwilling or unable to do certain things, so
some thought should probably be given to that as well. For example,
with Norah's back problems, I can picture her thinking evil thoughts
at me "yeah, that's JUST what I need - a nature hike with an ambulance
rescue..." ;-) Anyway... I just mentioned hiking because that seemed
like something fun to do in a scenic type area. Other similar things
to do might be some orienteering/GPS type games (I don't know of any
offhand but I am sure there must be some.) Or perhaps some kayaking
or a whitewater rafting trip?
Anyway, as I said, the location will dictate what is available to
be done, and no matter what is chosen, there will probably be some people
who would need or want to sit out. The type of activity which might
exclude some people should probably be avoided if possible, but still
might be worthwhile considering if a large enough group is interested.
Perhaps one group might do one thing while another does something
different. If its a long enough event, we will probably have enough
time to do things as a complete group so side excursions by a subset
wouldn't be as big a deal as they might have been for a shorter meet.
Oh, and before I forget - if such an event comes off, we'll have
to be sure to get a group photo, of Daks and of DMLers - good DML
Calendar fodder. :-)
Anyhoo, those are just some ideas rattling around in my noggin; I
have been following this thread with some interest and finally got
an opportunity to reply so thought I'd spew my wizdumb upon y'all. ;-)
--
-Jon-
.-- Jon Steiger ---- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com --.
| 1970 Barracuda - 1990 Dakota 'vert - 1992 Ram 4x4 - 1996 Dakota |
| 1996 Intruder 1400 - 1996 Kolb FireFly - 2001 Ram QC 3500 CTD |
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