Sandi, the Fossil Journey Cruiser at Every Fork in the Road

On this day, the weather forecast was for rain, and the sky was suggesting it was about to follow through at any time.
So, we drove south a bit on highway 550 to the access point for the trail to Mineral Creek (part of the 'Alpine Loop'),
parked there, and went for a hike.

Along the way, we saw a number of interesting vehicle emblems.
I'm sure that, if I were to look them up on Google, I'd find them in less than a minute,
but I'm just too damn lazy for that at the moment :lol:

Oh what fun.

At the place where we turned around to go back down (because it was getting stormy-looking),
there was a nice, lush, green patch of forest just off the road...

This was the first time I'd ever been near this particular optional obstacle when I wasn't in a vehicle. :lol:
If you get here, it's not like it's anything major, but it's just enough so that, if you have the time,
you can do a little experimenting to see how different it is between 2WD and 4WD,
and how much help a locker adds to the situation.

looking north, up the canyon from Mineral Creek
(Sandi is actually visible; parked way down at the trailhead)

there she is ;)

As you may know, other than a bunch of rocky bumps all over the place, there really isn't much for the FJC to do on this trail,
but this is one of the few spots to check out the flex (which, admittedly, Sandi only has a little more than stock at this point).

Of course, I didn't even take her over the craziest spot,
but it is still kind of fun to get on the rocks a little.

On our way back to Ouray, I noticed the Discount Tire guys going south as we passed near the tunnel near the Bear Creek trailhead.
So, why would I even care about the Discount Tire guys driving by in their FJ Cruisers?
Well, besides the fact that I'm actually a big fan and customer, they started a contest on the forum
for people to submit photos of their FJs at Summit....here.

For the sake of saving my time, I'm just going to paste in here the little story I told on the forum about this event...

On Wednesday (the 20th), as JammerGirl and I were heading back to Ouray from a hike on Mineral Creek (we got a late start that day, and it was the only place we could find between the looming thunderheads....wasn't too busy yet), we saw the two Discount Tire Iceberg Toyota FJ Cruisers going the other direction.

I guess I can't absolutely prove that those are the FJs in these pics, but if you look back at your adventures on that day, you know that you were indeed on the Million Dollar Highway, going through the tunnel, then past the construction area just before the turn for Mineral Creek around 12:40 MDT.

After you passed by, I decided to turn around and go back the other direction to try to snap a shot of you guys.

We never did quite catch up. We got caught at the construction stop in the group immediately after you guys just went through.

I caught a couple long-range shots, but then by the time we got to the turn for Mineral Creek, we didn't see you. I figured you must have gone up Mineral Creek, or else it seems like I would have seen you going South-west, up that long stretch on the other side of the canyon.

So, here's what I got...

This one is looking through the tunnel when approaching it fro the Ouray side. I think it was the tail-gunner of the two. Whichever it was, you can see one of the Icebergs through the tunnel...

Here's the Iceberg cropped and zoomed...

Then, once we got to the stopping place at the construction zone, I snapped this one of you guys as you continued on from there, just ahead of us...

Here, you can see them a little better...

Cropped and zoomed in, here you can see the two Icebergs just above the pickup and the chain link fence...

There was another event where we passed them while going the opposite direction further south on the same highway.
That one happened the next day, and the story can be found on this page of the Thursday portion of this trip.