Finally a post about Jeeps!

You may have noticed that I have been somewhat absent from this blog.  Working night shifts at the hospital has a way of doing that.  Basically with this first post I want to introduce the other half of the namesake of this blog.  I got into offroading during college.  In fact my first offroad trip was a few weeks before I met Courtney.  We have always loved getting out into the sticks to get a little mud on the tires, but medical school got in the way of that!  We only went out once in 4 years at UNC!  We hope that someday, it will be a way for our family to become close and develop memories as our family grows.  We also hope it teaches the little ones how to solve problems, because when it comes to Jeeps, if it ain't broke, fix it till it is!

The suspect in question is a 1999 Jeep Cherokee XJ Sport 4x4 with a Jeep Inline 6-cylinder 4.0L motor making 190hp at the crank.  I got  it my junior year in high school in December 2001.  I didn't know then that I would become a "wheeler", but this baby was pristine.

Here is the unadultered Jeep back in college, towing my dad's 2005 Correct Craft, which is way too much boat for this little jeep.  The problem isn't pulling it, it's stopping it!

However, about 1 year later, I was picking up my dad's jetski on a rainy July day in 2005, and rear-ended a 1978 Datsun at about 40mph, totaling both cars.  Poor thing looks like it is frowning! Drove it to the repair shop like this! 

My family has somewhat of a history wrecking Jeep Cherokees.  My dad had one in the early 90s that he rear-ended someone with while towing his old Correct Craft ski boat on a rainy day, totaling the car he hit but drove it (and towed the boat) home.  My oldest sister Jennifer inherited that Jeep, and got mixed up and drove the wrong way down a one-way street in Hendersonville, NC in high school, getting in a low speed head on collision - drove it home.  My younger older sister, Heather, had a 1995 Jeep Cherokee. She pulled out in front of an oncoming minivan, and got t-boned at 45 miles an hour in the driver's door.  She was shaken up but walked away.  My dad drove that jeep onto the flatbed trailer.  You can say I have a soft spot for this little jeep.

We got $8500 for it from insurance. The original plan was to take the money and run.  Run straight to a dealer and buy a new (to me) Jeep Cherokee.  I even drove 4 hours to Raleigh, NC from Asheville to look at a late-model Cherokee with cash in hand. Dealer was a jerk and the jeep had issues, so we drove home, and immediately paid $1200 to the insurance company for my totaled Jeep. We spent $4500 repairing it to street legal condition (the most expensive part by far was replacing the two airbags!), and pocketed the remaining $1800 - which my dad used to pay my newly increased insurance premiums!

I got the Jeep back right before starting my Junior year at Clemson, sans bumper as I had some plans for that.

That brings us up to right before I started modifying the old girl.  The plan is to chronicle the transformation from stocker to weekend warrior over the next few weeks, and hopefully be up to date when Tripp arrives!  Here is a teaser of how the jeep currently sits as of 10 minutes ago.

Hope you enjoyed this somewhat lengthy update!  We have our first baby shower this weekend, so there should be a post from Courtney about all our swag.  Maybe there will be some doors so Tripp can come for a ride in the XJ!