Don't mind riding shotgun in this rig!

Hey people! Found this site after my wife and I bought a 2007 FJ from Hansel this last week. Seems like a real friendly group of folks here, looking forward to meeting up FTF in the future.

A bit about me and my partner in adventure... She's Brandy (and the owner of the Beast), and I'm Jack (the happy passenger). Neither of us have ever owned an offroad rig or done any 4 wheelin' in the past, and never really envisioned ourselves owning one in the future. We had been talking about and making plans to get a trailer to make a long summer road trip possible with our 3 boys. Suffice it to say that my Honda Fit and her Scion xD weren't going to be towing anything bigger than a Radio Flyer.

So as fate would have it, local dealers have been advertising their buy back programs here around Santa Rosa, and we decided to see how much we could get for her 2008 Scion xD in order to trade in for something bigger that could tow. Her first choice was a Saturn Vue, something she owned and loved a few years back, but isn't quite as appealing now that Saturn is no longer in business. Then we talked about maybe getting a Honda Pilot, plenty of room to keep the monkeys from killing each other between campsites, and sufficient to pull the Little Giant LGT-1107 we're looking at getting with tax return money next year.

Then she found the FJ Cruisers that Hansel had sitting in their lot. We scoured the interwebs for reviews of this beast, and OVERWHELMINGLY people who owned them loved them (except for the unfortunate few who took theirs for a swim before installing a scuba mod). We had a winner. Tons of potential, a reasonable price, and not ridiculously thirsty at the pump.

I will admit, I had a few seconds of reluctance at the thought of being a dude riding shotgun with his wife in a 4 wheeler with license plates that read "GHRLPWR" and a plate frame that reads "She pays, SHE plays!" (yes, she actually ordered those!), but honestly when I started thinking of all the awesome adventures that await us with this beast, I could care less what anyone thinks. This truck has bigger stones than most of the beefed up pickups that I see driving around SR, so I'm cool with being a passenger. It's got everything we need, nothing we don't, and will get us to here from there, wherever there might be, in style.

We are eager to come wheeling and meet fellow enthusiasts. We'd especially like to hook up with anyone who is in recovery (we have 9 years of clean time between us), but we are definitely not going to look sideways at anyone who likes to enjoy a cold one after getting to the end of a dusty trail. As long as there's mutual respect, we're very easy going folks.

I think Brandy would also enjoy getting to know any other female 4 wheelers so she doesn't feel like the odd one out, tho I don't get the impression that anyone here would ever give her a hard time.

OK, enough ramblin'. Just wanted to let you all know another couple newbs are lurkin' around the site. Can't wait to get wheelin'!