Jeep Rocks and Road Tour

Again with the Jeep obsession. I told you it was mildly unhealthy.

Dave had gotten an email from a friend stating that the Westfield Air Show (which was nearby to where we were camping and going on this past weekend) was also going to host a Jeep sponsored event called the Jeep Rocks and Road Tour. Dave's been to a few events like this, usually ski resort events, and it's designed for the Jeep owner to get a chance to test drive the new vehicles and other branding-type activities. He pre-registered (such a good idea!) and after we packed up camp and had breakfast on Sunday, we headed down to the air show.

The drive was pretty cool--all back roads and no highways through a pretty area of Western Mass. It rained the whole drive, heavy at times, but it was still a nice, scenic ride. We eventually made it to the air show and after a little confusion, ended up parking in the first main lot.

Despite the rain, there were a lot of people headed to the air show and traffic was pretty thick. We were totally unprepared for rain. In the weather reports we caught before we left home, none of them had mentioned rain, so it must have been a late development that we completely missed. Dave had one umbrella in the car, but no sweatshirt or anything (the one he'd had for camping was pretty filthy) and I had a hooded sweatshirt. It was a light rain, so we made do. A little wet, we started trudging through the parking lot (oh, yeah, those were the air fields--yea, mud!) and into the main gate.
We heard a few planes taking off to do their stunts, but with the clouds so low and the fog thick, you really couldn't see anything. In order to get the altitude to do any good tricks, the view of the planes was already obstructed by the clouds. Plus, if you tried to look up and see them, you just got pelted in the face by rain. But we heard a lot of big engines!

The show is big. There are a ton of activities and it's very family oriented. There were several big inflatables for the kids to bounce in, lots of planes to tour and other military stuff. Vendors with food and souvenirs and a few other placed to have fun in between watching the planes. Lego had set up an area where all the kids could go in and make a Lego airplane. That was pretty cute, but I like the decorations around their tent the best.
We eventually made it over to the Jeep area, which was as far away from where we parked as you could get. But we marched on. While the air show itself was cool, we wouldn't have been there had it not been for the Jeep stuff, and certainly not in the rain. (Are you with me on this obsession thing yet?) There were quite a few Jeep related activities going on too. We enter the tent, and since we were preregistered, we could bypass the line (which wasn't that deep) and headed right up to the front desk were a soldier who was helping out gave us our ID tags with our VIP stickers (yup, VIP just because Dave thought to click the link and tell them we were coming) and got us all set up to use the area. She also helped us find the main event (at least for Dave). They set up an "Owner's Playground" were anyone in a Jeep could drive on the dirt course, designed to simulate a 4x4 trail.

We had to go back to the car, out of the parking lot, go up the road and then come back into the air show from another entrance, but it was totally worth it. We got up to the entrance and the guy working in the tent at the Owner's Playground was awesome. He saw we were already registered and said, "Go ahead and do it as many times as you want!" Then he looked at Dave's Jeep and said, "I'd recommend doing it in low, but I'll leave that to you." I told him that we were already disengaged, and he laughed. Then he gave us each a Jeep key chain. I love free swag.
It was primarily a dirt course with holes and hills and good deal of mud, thanks to the rain, but they also put in this uneven bar thing and a teeter-totter, which was pretty cool. But I must confess. This is the last picture I was able to get because the battery died! I was so dedicated to having pictures for the blog (because blogs are better with pictures), that I wore down the battery! So I don't have any more of the course, but it was so much fun that after we did it the first time, I asked Dave if I could drive. So I did it too. It was a little unnerving and I had to back up and try again on this obstacle, but I had fun.

After we romped in the Owner's Playground, the guy in the tent told us how to get back to the nearby parking lot so we could return to the Jeep activities. We headed back and then started to look around at the Rocks and Road Tour. They had a whole area of Jeep history with a 1950s Willys, the original Army Jeep, some of the new models and museum style displays. They also had off-road and on-road courses where you could test drive a new model-year Liberty, Wrangler, or Grand Cherokee. We headed there and noticed the line was LONG. They had a separate line for each vehicle, but there must have been at least 30 people in each. Then we noticed the VIP line. We bypassed everyone else again (ye for preregistering!) and when we got to the front we noticed only one other couple in front of us. It was awesome. Dave took a few pictures for me with his phone. That hill in the background was part of the course.

Dave wanted to try out the Wrangler Unlimited, 4-door please. It was so cool He drove and I sat in the back. A Jeep expert rode shot gun and was pretty cool. Right away she and Dave started talking Jeep and she said to him, "Don't even bother using the brakes on this course. You know how to drive it, so just let it go." That big hill at the end was very cool--you couldn't see the road anymore on the way up, and when we pitched down, it was pretty steep. And the track was so muddy and awful--it was great! And Dave was excited about the Wrangler, which will probably be his vehicle of choice when his Cherokee stops running.

On our way out of the off-road course (we didn't do the on-road--too tame), we were asked to record a video (commercial) about our experience. Why not? So we did. I think they sent Dave the link, so I'll see if I can post it. If not, maybe you'll see us on TV sometime. They also took our picture--this is the style Jeep we drove, except we had that cool burnt orange color. But the green's not bad. We wandered around some more, and noticed they had a few other areas. There was a rock climbing wall (too wet to be safe) and an area for the kids. They corralled a level dirt track and put a bunch of Jeep Power Wheels in it and let the kids go at it. It was so cute! They also had a Soft-Top Challenge where you had to race against the clock to take the soft top off a Wrangler and fold it up in less than a minute. Since we've never had a Wrangler and wouldn't know where to begin, we passed on that opportunity. Then we saw the Teeter-Totter Challenge. This looked interesting. The challenge was to balance the Liberty on the teeter-totter for five seconds, and you only had a minute to do it. So hard. Dave tried first. I took some video of him trying it out.

Wow--posting that actually worked!

Then of course I had to try. Hey, I beat him in mini-golf, can you imagine if I had been able to do this? Alas, I could not, but he took my picture anyway. We looked at some of the displays, took a survey for Jeep and then got more free swag (I love free stuff). The woman taking my survey asked a standard question of why we came to the area today--primarily for the air show, primarily for Jeep, partially for the air show... I didn't let her finish and said, "Primarily for Jeep Rocks and Road." She looked at me and said, "Really?" I said, "Yup, have you seen his shirt?", pointing to Dave's Jeep club T-shirt.

We left the air show after that, not interested in being in the rain anymore and really hungry. We had such a good weekend and I'm totally surprised by it. I never expected camping to be as easy as it was and even engaging in my husband's Jeep obsession was pretty entertaining. Maybe he'll convert me...Nah, we're going away next weekend and definitely staying in a hotel.