Blue Grade to Watershed Camp (SuziQ's first trip--January 27, 2011)

'Twas a great morning for SuziQ's maiden voyage one month to the day after we purchased her. We went wheeling up the rough Blue Grade and then over toward Apache Maid Mtn. We turned around when we came to the snow line not far past the Watershed Camp. Most of the snow has turned into pure sheet ice and we don't have the correct tires (or attitude) to deal with pure ice on an uphill in MOAN Country. We enjoyed a nice brunch of PB&J sandwiches and some cold milk Susun brought in the thermos. We saw no other vehicles during our short journey.

SuziQ performed admirably. It has the least rattles and noises of any of the other Zukis we've owned. It clearly has good compression and handles difficult spots and tall basalt rocks in stride.
It rides well and isn't nearly as stiff and bumpy as some of the other Zukis we've driven. All-in-all: a real good first trip. Now we will shake out some of the kinks in our personal rigging such as camera placement, where to stash our personal water bottles, the binoculars--all that little nit-picky stuff. We did lose cell phone signal up top so we need to get a CB radio rig onboard, too. Heck, maybe it's time to break down and get our HAM radio license.

We took along the Garmin 60Csx for an extended shakedown cruise, too. This time we set the unit to record a track of the journey to its one gig onboard micro SD card. It picked up over 600 data points for this little jaunt. The data points uploaded off the data card seamlessly. They then imported equally as easily to Google Maps and made the graphic you see above. (Click here for a zoomable online copy of the Google Map.)

Two photos below show real nice features of the Garmin. We're gonna have some real fun with that elevation change thingie. It ROX!

This was the Garmin's final test before being put into real time action on behalf of the Verde River Recreation Guide. It passed with flying colors.

Our next SuziQ trip will be a shorty on the 618 Road over to the Cedar Flats Road. After that trip, we should have the kinks out of our personal rigging. Then we're planning an all-day trip someplace TBD.

Life is good. Cheers, jp