West Coast 4 Wheel Drive Club

"Toys for Tots" Toy Drive

The morning started bright early and crisply for me as I arose from bed at 6:30 in the morning. Quickly gathering my clothes and grabbing Belle the Truck Hound I headed out the door for Anaheim, CA. I got to our storage shop at about 7:15 put up some signs for our poor excuse for a garage sale and grab my flag. Soon after I was on the road for The Block at Orange mall for the initial meet-up. I was lucky to find a spot next to Black Sunshine a member of MBB, hoping to meet a couple more members of MBB that ended up not showing.

After an hour or so of looking around, seeing all the different rigs (mostly Jeeps) the driver's meeting was called. At the meeting the organizers of the run went over the route we would take, named off some rules, and bid us farewell for our 5 mile trip to the Santa Ana Riverlakes.

We all then got into our rigs and caravaned down Chapman Ave. through the Orange Circle, a Historical landmark and finally up Tustin Ave. to the Santa Ana Riverlakes. The caravan was an awesome sight to see, Jeeps, Broncos, Scouts, Chevy trucks, and a fair amount of Toyota Vehicles lined up as far as the eye could see. There were people lined up on the streets to watch as the caravan proceeded down its route, those with children were rewarded with treats from a few of the caravaners. But that wasn't the only charity that was handed out. As the caravan was going down Chapman Ave. there was a family walking the opposite way the Father with a new Die Hard battery in his arms. A fellow caravaners took the time to offer a ride to the stranded family's car. Unfortunately I don't know the caravaner's name but I can tell you he was driving a mildly modified Brown Toyota Xtra Cab truck. Dear sir, I applaud you.

Upon the caravan reaching it's destination, all were lined up in rows according to their club affiliation. The most amount of vehicles of course being from the holders of this event the West Coast 4 Wheel Drive Club. Unfortunately I had waited until we had reached our destination before taking some picts of the uniquely decorated rigs that attended. As soon as I had taken my camera out to take photos of the Marines' equipment they brought the batterys for my camera crapped out. A shame too since the rigs that were bought had a lot of time put into them. Many were decorated like train engines, others decorated like reindeer and others decorated like Santa's sleigh.

Not long after everyone had parked and gathered their chairs the raffle started. First off was the kids' raffle for some neat toys. Then the big kids raffle started, everything from $25 gift certificates to a Milemarker winch were raffled off and many folks who attended went home happy. After the raffle most of the attendees help out with packing the Marines' box van with the toys that were brought even though it started raining.