T OYO TA T R A I L S Interestingly, we decided it wasn’t really about anything different than what it is for the guys: it’s about four days in Arkansas with our extended family. Extended family might sound a little much given that we really only see these folks a couple times a year but that’s just the thing. This event is as much about the people as it is the trucks and the wheeling. Truthfully, that makes a lot of sense given the tight knit club that CottonLand is and always has been. The Event Committee (Bodean, JRob, Chris, Lash, Spivey, JT and Deb) planned and executed the perfect event! By the way, they do have “real” names too; we just don’t ever use them! CottonLand Cruisers started the Southern Cruiser Crawl in 2005. Back then, the Crawl was held at Gray Rock ORV Park outside of Birmingham, Alabama. The first year, 25 rigs were signed up. With time and as people figured out what a great group of people the CottonLand folks are, it’s grown every year. In 2009, they moved the event to Superlift ORV Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas. After finding the perfect venue for the event, CottonLand continues to return to Hot Springs. The rocks are slippery, the climbs are steep, the trees are beautiful and the facilities are perfect for an event of this size. This year, 122 rigs were signed up for the Crawl, the most of any year. Of those, 7 registered drivers were women. Now of course, many more actually spent time behind the wheel and boy, did they drive! Debbie Tolleson (Den Mom Deb) had Sandy out again after a few shakedown runs. Despite continued brake issues and a broken knuckle, she tackled some of the most difficult obstacles in the park. Stacy Roberts It may not be pretty but it gets the job done. Photo by Charles Kim was also out with her FJ40, riding right along with the guys all over the park. Stacy showed some amazing driving abilities, despite some bad luck with an errant log on the trail and a broken driveshaft on Slammer. Sherry Hornsby was piloting “Half Ass” for the weekend and ran with the buggy crowd up and over Ultimate Adventure, Four Fingers and Ingrid’s Revenge. Personally, I put in a lot of time behind the wheel and thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my truck a bit more. I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend and my truck did everything I asked it to do—and more. Again this year, many friends joined us from afar. Traveling from the east were Kitty and Rick Carswell, who won the Iron Butt Award. My brother Dan Kunz also made the trip from Atlanta for his first Crawl in his Lexus GX470. And from the left coast, as always, we were joined by Georg Esterer from Valley Hybrids, Bill and Emily Stayner, Kevin Pekarak and Joel Moranton. The Texans (including yours truly) wouldn’t miss this for the world… or for a couple of broken pinions, as was the case with Perry Lowery. The Baker and extended Baker-Linn- Saunders clan probably won for the most actual family members in attendance, with Butch, Josh, Jessica, Jessica’s kids and her parents all showing up to drive and ride. And some more local folks joined us again, including Bossman (Darryl Hornsby), his lovely wife Sherry and family, as well as a number of folks from the Razorback Land Cruisers. And 46