Golden Mountain Park, Sparta Tennessee

We arrived late Wednesday night (June 9th) and were mostly excited to go to bed

The next morning Jared killed some time by fishing, but was unsuccessful probably because his bait was hot dogs

Then (because we didn't have a "proper" off road vehicle) we decided to walk to trails to see if we could hitch a fun ride...this was a easy trail we walked down, but I thought it looked crazy/hard...I slowly learned that I didn't know anything

Some of the trail we even hard to us to walk on, so I was wondering how trucks rode them?


So we followed the sound on revving engines and found this awesome group of people (Iron Pig Off Road) that had plenty of extra seats

We had a blast and the only hang up we had was a flat tire which was quickly replaced

Jared rode with Cam and his monster vehicle
(honestly my first impression was that it was completely ugly, but I quickly learned it was the most beautiful because it could crawl over anything and everything...it was a machine)


James rode with the owner of IronPig who truly had a pretty vehicle inside and out

And this is who I rode with


The next day there were the off road competitions



So I'm not very good with the video camera on this one, but when this particular truck first attempted the off road challenge a rock busted off his gas cap. They tried to fix it, but it didn't work so the whole way up he's spewing fuel.


(Random) tree that looked like a wolf

The third night we decided to drive home because Jared had an ice hockey game in Gwinnett the next day...but instead we took a detour and decided to stay in Chattanooga and go to Ruby Falls in the morning.

Summary: I really enjoyed my first off road experience, but if it weren't for finding the Iron Pigs while walking the trails I don't know if it would have been that great. Jared and I both agree that we won't go on any other off road trips until his FJ40 is up and going or we go up with a group of people that has one because trying to "hitch" a ride with someone else is not too fun. I will say that I have a whole new appreciation for "off roaders." Now when Jared tries to talk to me using off road terms/lingo I understand a whole lot better. Learning by watching/experiencing is much more effective with this sort of thing.