Toyotie, part 9: Seat Time

Wrenching and upgrades are all well and good. But there’s more to getting to grips with a new vehicle. You have to actually drive the thing too.

With Toyotie, things went about as you would expect. It started off as a daily driver as I figured out what exactly all those buttons did, how it handled on the road, what kind of gas mileage I should expect, and so on. With time, you build up experience and you learn how the engine sounds, where the gauges should be registering, roughly how much gas is left when that pesky low fuel light comes on, etc.

The Overland Rally & Workshops at Hollister Hills arrived while much of the build was in process, but it provided a good opportunity for the first offroad driving experience in the Land Cruiser. Most of this was done after the event had completed and I was able to methodically put Toyotie through her paces on my own.

Of course, after that brief experience I was eager for more. I’d also been wanting to do a South Bay dirt road run since Sammydee had gotten his own Toyotie, a bright yellow FJ Cruiser he named “Tidy Tip” after the flower that matched his vehicle’s color scheme. So I put the word out to a few of the usual suspects and we organized a low-profile, half-day drive through the Santa Cruz Mountain backroads and dirt roads, ending in Corralitos for a late lunch.

Two weeks later, pretty much the same crew got together again (adding Bill in his JK, with Jim in the passenger seat this time) with the idea of getting more offroad seat time by exploring the new Hudner property addition at Hollister Hills. As it turned out, that section is apparently only available via an extra fee, something we were annoyed to discover. On top of that, sixty seconds before I pulled up at the gate it decided to start raining!

Hollister is known to be treacherously slippery when muddy, even with mud tires, which only a few of us had. So we resolved to go check out the lower elevations at the Upper Ranch 4×4 area and see what the conditions were like. We quickly had our answer: muddy and very slippery! Just as expected.

So we spent probably an hour driving around, blasting and sliding around the old obstacle course area before breaking for lunch. The rain had stopped while we were driving, but returned while we had stopped to eat. Before I knew it, small rivers had appeared under our (thankfully covered) picnic table! Even the few other guys that were there – with dedicated trail rigs – started trailering-up and bailing out.

It was getting cold and we’d had our fun so we called it a day. I stayed behind to run a few more trails for maybe 15 minutes after the others had left. Since I was solo though, and would therefore have to self-rescue from any mud-induced trail offage, I headed home too.

Because we’d ended early, and I was traveling solo, I was able to cruise along at my own pace and pull over whenever the urge struck. I stopped for a photo here and there, and picked up some garlic-stuffed green olives at the Garlic Shoppe in Gilroy on the way home.

It was good – and good fun – to get more seat time and to be able to push the limits some at Hollister. And spending the time with friends in interesting places only made it better.

Check out the galleries, then please come back and post here if you have any comments.

Santa Cruz Mountain Run gallery

Hollister Hills Mud Run gallery