With the remnants of tropical storm Tammy bearing down on eastern and central PA, we made or annual fall trek up and across PA to our favorite vacation spot, "the cabin".  "The cabin" is located up on top of the highest mountain range in Pennsylvania and overlooks a little known valley that's riddled with ancient  logging trails that are still in use today.  With recent trips up here we sort of determined ahead of time what trails we would follow and what our destinations would be for the weekend.  This trip we we had something new to check out.  A stretch of railroad tracks that cut through the valley following the creek had recently been stripped of its tracks, leaving behind great access up and down the 5 mile stretch of remote valley.  Looking at satellite imagery, we knew there were trails we had never seen.

But first.... we had to get there.   I-80.  On a nice, clear day, I-80 is a great way to travel.  Through torrential down-pours, I-80 becomes downright dangerous.  For that reason, I left the big yellow Jeep at home.  Trailering 5000 lbs of expensive toys on tropical storm slickened highway for 250 miles is not my idea of fun.  So I hitch a ride with Paul and Koichi in the rollback, hauling Paul's newly acquired YJ.  Along the way, our gang passed no less than 10 accidents, most of which were major, involving several tractor trailers.  One of them involved a DEMOLISHED 40 foot modular home stretched across both eastbound and west bound lanes.  A 4 1/2 hour trip turned into 7 1/2 - 8 hours of waiting in traffic.  We snapped a few pics of some the chaos as we passed by at 2 MPH.

Read more about the 
Big I-80 Wreck, click here

Koichi had every right to nap on the way up.  He's still on Tokyo time.  A resident of Tokyo, he spent a week in Honolulu Hawaii, then flew 18 hours from Hawaii to Philadelphia to visit friends, only to jump into the cab of a rollback and drive another 7 hours up into the middle of nowhere to romp in the woods with a bunch of rednecks.

Accident after accident, delays, delays delays.  We ever going to get up there?

  
Finally.  We left after breakfast and now its dinner time.  As we unpacked and called some of the other guys to check on their ETA, we filled a leaky radiator in Paul's old Kaiser and fired it up after a few good shots of starter fluid.  Paul and Koichi were together again in the old Jeep (they used to bash this same Jeep around in the woods back in the college days). Paul drove it over to the cabin to get it up on the rollback for a journey home.  Someday soon, possibly over the winter, this old Kaiser will get some much needed work to keep the Jeep's body from taking off in a different direction than the Jeep's frame.  We hope to give it a better body mount system, a full roll cage and a military theme.  Then not only with the old 4 popper sound like an old M.A.S.H. Jeep but it'll look like one too.

As Paul loaded the old Kaiser CJ-5 onto the rollback, I drove Paul's new toy, the Silver YJ, over to the cabin and then proceeded to leave his driver-side window open ... all night ... in the rain.  Sorry about that Paul.  Hope that plastic bag kept your ass dry on Saturday.

...I left Honolulu for this?

  If it wasn't for all the rain, mist and low clouds, we might have noticed that the fall trees were absolutely brilliant.  I noticed the color more afterwards in the picture than I did while were were getting muddy.

Meanwhile Paul was checking email and the weather report.

Dinner?  yeah, sure, I'd go for a ...zzzzzzzz....
  

Finally!  Jeff, Chad and Andy arrived in a Toyota Fourrunner hauling a trailer loaded with their 3 quads.  Unhitch boys and lets get rolling!  Jeff cracked a smile.