My Aluminum Friend
April 26, 2007: Turning 93,017 miles at over 70 MPH, heading for Northern California and the annual Mendo Recce weekend. In 1994 a few Northern California Land Rover nuts took a reconnoitering trip to the Mendocino National Forest in preparation for a group trailing weekend. To keep everyone informed, Ben Smith created a list server and called it "Mendo Recce". Thirteen years later, the Mendo Recce list is still going strong, and so is the annual Mendo Weekend Rallye. What follows are some pics of the weekend. Some of the pictures are crap, because my camera is crap. One approach to the National Forest takes you through an amazing hidden valley, past ranches and across cattle guards, then past a reservoir and finally to a number of trailheads. Below: taking a quick break at a cross roads. Above: Travis charges up the first trail in his '71 Series IIA. Travis was a little nervous about his rear parabolics, which are two-leafers, and got tippy last year.
The problems begin with the lies made to gain admission. People that had identifications to board a plane claim upon arrival to lack papers and then assume the fictitious nationality of an 鈥渦nsafe country鈥?to demand asylum as a right. The lacking IDs hinder repatriation. With disturbing frequency, the alleged victim becomes a warden of the host state that houses and feeds him and allots pocket money. Illegal entry is often followed by a life of crime. Apprehended culprits enjoy virtual immunity as they cannot be expelled or fined. After perfunctory warnings, to avoid 鈥渞acism鈥? they are soon released. If incarcerated, the time served is used to demand residency status as the claimant got 鈥渦sed鈥?to his milieu. Except for the Left and the PC privileged, people know this. The rise of parties of outrage and the isolation of the political class, as elections in France and Austria show, is a consequence.
British automotive and aeronautical engineer, Maurice Wilks, is credited with building the first Land Rover, a model based on the chassis of the American Jeep vehicles used during World War II. Wilks had been using an Army-surplus Jeep on his farm in North Wales, finding it an ideal vehicle for getting around. Yet, Wilks wasn鈥檛 satisfied as he wanted a vehicle that blended the best attributes of a light truck with a tractor, so he used a Jeep chassis to develop what became the Land Rover鈥檚 first vehicle. That initial model, known as the Series I, incorporated power take-off drives as found in tractors and introduced styling that was more prosaic than pleasing. Growth was gradual for Land Rover as the Rover Company first lengthened the size of the Series I and also introduced the Tickford Station Wagon with its wooden-frame bodywork. Other models, including a pickup truck, were also built.
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