Day 52... wait, what?

To start with my very first blog post ever, here are a few simple facts.

I live in Richmond, Virginia... from hereon referred to as "RVA"

I bought a brand new, 2012 Jeep Wrangler just a few months ago.

I am a guy.

I have no idea what I am doing.

I am loving every minute of it.

I am the RVA Jeep Guy. 

If you have stumbled here on your quest to find the end of the interwebs, the pinnacle of all webpages that rise above all else, the one site you can hold above your friends when they have found the next best thing... I am sorry to say this is not it.

But you love Jeeps (of any kind), and like to hear about a newbie owner adventuring out in the wild, gripping gravel and dirt, and generally learn on the fly about what the hell these Wranglers are all about, you are most definitely in the right place.

Why Day 52, you ask?? As a stroke of luck, I was able to finally experience the wonders of 4x4 drive on a dirt road with nothing but trees beside me. It only took 52 days for me to get to what Jeep owners call, well, "The Reason You Buy a Jeep." And yes, I totally just made that up. Let's back up a couple months.

52 days ago today, on July 21, 2012, I bought my very first car at the age of 24. A Brand new (168 miles on it so some jerks got into it before me) 2012 Jeep Wrangler Sahara. Black forest green, 2 doors, soft top... the prettiest looking thing I have ever seen. 

I have to be honest though, buying a Jeep never actually blipped on my radar until about this time last year. My family has owned in my lifetime 2 Toyotas, 2 Hondas, and a Suzuki... about as far away from a Jeep as an elephant is from a rabbit. Once I realized I didn't need an economical clown car, I thought a Jeep might be cool.

Fast forward now through all the test-drives, hours of charging time at work to projects for Wrangler research, and saving money to July 21when I drove up to Alexandria in a Toyota Echo and drove back in a Jeep. My life had officially changed. I never knew what it was like to own your own car, a car to really call your own, one that you slaved over knowing every detail before you bought it. One that you looked forward to driving every day. One that wouldn’t slow down when flooring it up mildly banked hills… damn you 100 hp Echo!

Day 52, oh right, today! My 52^nd day owning my Jeep Wrangler. For 52 days I have looked down upon that 4WD transfer case and beamed at the day I will shift this puppy into rock crawling mode and really experience a Jeep. Well my friends, that day was today.

On a stroke of luck I was able to visit a job site before a construction project began to start, where only gravel roads existed. Oh yes, this will be great. I pulled on the gravel construction road and my excitement built when I realized I could now experience the 4WD. I accelerated up to about 30, saw the dust kicked up in my mirror, reached down to pull back on the shifter, and….

Nothing happened. I remembered reading about shifting into 4WD mode, knowing there would be some noise, but there was hardly anything! I wasn’t expecting an Optimus Prime sort of transformation, but a little hiccup would have been nice… I hardly felt a thing!

Suddenly, as I kept travelling on the roads, I could feel it. I wasn’t in a normal vehicle anymore. The road was at my mercy, I could go anywhere. I followed the trail to the end which turned into dirt, and kept going. Until a brick wall hit me I wasn’t stopping. This wasn’t the most natural trail of all, but boy was it fun! I felt invincible, the tires below me feeling like clouds flowing across the sky. It was bumpy, trust me on this. But it just felt like a natural ride, like all the pavement and asphalt I have driven on the past 2 months is child’s play compared to this.

A little portion of the trail.

I went back on forth on it 3 times and finally ran to the end of the trail to a section that was about 45 degrees downhill… nah, not this time. I gave it some serious thought, but I was happy with the trail tearing I had experienced thus far so I decided I’d leave this section untouched… for now.

I saw a turnoff at the beginning of the road that looked fun so I ventured back towards it. Turns out, not all trails go through woods, but through backyards! I knew where I was going and stayed the course through the trail, and ended up back on the main road.

Oh hard, flat road, how you provide such a normal and boring access to everyday adventures like work. How I miss you already, gravel and dirt.

These tires have longed for some dirt.

And back to work I go, where I sit writing right now. Finally a day where I have experienced what a Jeep has to offer… and I cannot wait until I can do it again. Made me feel sorry for the poor saps in their front wheel drive Toyotas… wait I was one of those poor saps one time!

For now, this is all I have in me to write. I wanted to start off this Blog from Day 1, talking about anything and everything Jeep that came to me. What I read, what I bought, what I saw, what I drove over, who gave me funny looks, who broke in and spent the night in my backseat (I’ll save this one for another time). Everything. Turns out blogging can get pushed pretty far back on your to-do list, even if you are passionate about it.

I deal with numbers and equations all day (Civil Engineer) so writing is a wonderful change to the everyday monotony. As is offroading in a Jeep when you should be checking out a job site, but that will happen as often as a snow day off work.

I will try and update this as often as I can, or when new things happen to me in the Jeep I feel like sharing. Plenty of events and stories have already happened in the 52 days since owning it, maybe I will retro-actively blog about those. But for now there is only the future, and I can’t wait to find out what it holds.

For now,

The RVAJG