At one point early on, I had a pair of ravens flying in front of me. They kept about 50 ft above and about 100 or so ft in front of me for a mile or so, before breaking off and going somewhere else. Guess I wasn't dropping dead fast enough for them.

As long as someone else is suffering more than I, all's right with the world.

Although I do my share of suffering, and inflict suffering on others, and share it with them, there's something about suffering vicariously that keeps me on the edge of my seat.

Or maybe it's the pictures and the potential suffering...

As always, John, your pictures tell the story and the words fill in the rest. Glad you survived to suffer another day. *ducking*

Heh - the icing on the cake, suffering of a different sort. The "day after" trip to the Devil's Racetrack ended up costing me $750 today. Both front shocks completely blown, and a cracked muffler/exhaust pipe.

Wow, that sucks... were you driving a 4wheel drive or is the road so bad that it just doesn't matter?

That washboard was pretty nasty. I am glad I turned round at 4 miles :-)

Well..... it is a 4WD Tahoe, but they have relatively soft suspension, and are not like the days of Dana 44's front and back. The road is not bad in a "leveled" sense (a passenger car with reasonable clearance could traverse it), but the washboard is horrific and goes on for 27 miles. Plus, those front shocks already had 150,000 miles on them, and I can tell by the way the truck drives now that they were close to end-of-life anyway. Between the worn shocks, the softer suspension, and the constant beating, I just hastened their demise a bit.

I once had an old 1985 Dodge Ramcharger that was about as stout a truck as you could wish for. I never could kill it. I prowled Death Vallley and the Sierra for years in it, without losing anything more severe than a fog lamp or step-up. It made the run to the racetrack and back many times without issue - but your kidneys took a beating. Those days are long gone - $4/gallon gas and owning a truck that got 10-13mpg would not make me happy now, but boy was it fun when I had it.

I think the issue is also with the quality of the shocks delivered as standard equipment. 90% of the 4x4 SUVs don't see the dirt during their lifespan as the market was taken over by the soccer Moms, thus the choice of softer shocks to make the truck smoother on highways. For dirt riding Chevy has a Z71 (I think) package with stronger shocks.

I wanted the Z71 and had a nice one picked out, but the wife found this one and wanted it. Guess who won.

Nice to know that BossLady is the one making the important decisions...

You got a lot more miles out of those stock shocks than many soft-riding SUV's. My 96 ForeRunner needed new shocks at 60K! i think the tires lasted longer.

Yeah - I really can't complain about the truck. Other than gas and oil, this is the first time it's starting to cost me some repair-maintenance money. Heck - I pulled the original plugs/wires at 140k, "just because". The plugs still looked nice with a light carmel color, no deposits, and near-new looking electrodes.

3 sets of tires, 1 brake job, 2 HEPA filters for the A/C, 1 set of plugs/wires, and now shocks and a muffler in 7 years and 150k miles. I may have to buy another one when this one is played out. GM may have a reputation for making crappy products, but you couldn't get me to agree based on my experience of one.

Gee, you are a lucky one. My 2000 Tahoe (first year of the new design, I know never buy version 1.0) has been a disaster. Once the warranty expired at 50,000 it was problem after problem; water pump, fuel pump, and the worse blown engine at 52,500 miles due to a defective oil pump. No warning signal. And then it was more issues. I was happy to get rid of it at 80,000. It had received all the regular maintenance, was mostly driven in town (was my wife car) aside to family trips.
Sure it was comfy for long drives to Yellowstone, the Southwest, and Washington State and convenient to carry kids and camping gear but what an expensive toy.

Yikes - mine's a 2000, too.