Jill and I returned for our second trip to Indiana Badlands Offroad Park. ( See trip 4 for the first trip. ) My friend Chris and his friend Jason accompanied us in Chris's Jeep, which was equipped with a 4" suspension lift, 2" body lift and larger, more aggressive offroad tires. Chris's pictures from this trip are available on ShutterFly.

Interestingly, the vehicle that seemed to navigate some of the rough terrain easiest was a beat-up Geo Tracker driven by Chris's cousin. The Geo had significantly smaller tires and lower ground clearance. But the narrow body, short wheel base and aggressiveness of the driver made up for that. The Geo had obviously been rolled several times in the past, and the driver didn't care if he could drive it home. By the end of the day, the Geo had a cracked transfer case.

I had to use my winch three times -- a new record! The first time was to winch my H3 over a mud bank on which it had become high-centered. Later, Chris's Jeep became stuck good in mud bog. I tried to tow him out from the back, then from the front, without much success. Then, when driving to get a better position from which I could winch the Jeep out, my H3 became stuck in the mud. After winching my H3 out, I was able to finally get into position to use the winch on the Jeep.

Chris's Jeep was stuck good. Both Chris and I were covered in mud from hooking up straps and cables. Chris slipped and took a dive into the mud, and I sank up to my thigh. I had my H3 transmission in park and the parking break on, but was still being pulled forward while trying to winch the Jeep out of the mud. I ended up having to use a tow strap to anchor the back end of my H3 to a tree.