The Jeep madness caught up with me in Colorado in the mid 90's. I had just finished a restoration of an old 1970 CJ5 and decided to take it on a a trip to Denver to visit my brother. So I packed up my gear and loaded a couple of Honda XR trail bikes in the trailer and off I went. I pre arranged a tag along with a local 4x4 club in Fort Collins, hanging with the big dogs for a day destroyed any notions I had about being an experienced wheeler, at the end of the day I was a whipped little puppy. At the time I was more into trail bikes (not dirt bikes). I spent a lot of time on the computer researching places to take the bikes and decided on Rampart Range. That turned out to be the best ever bike trail ride to date. If I hadn't contracted the Jeep madness out there in Colorado I'd still be heavy into trail biking.
I've settled into trail riding, not mudding or rockcrawling. Trail riding is much more diverse. I don't trailer my Jeep, I drive it to all the events I attend. People say I'm nuts for driving it to events, they say "what if you break down?" With my Jeep I only have to worry about keeping 4 wheels going instead of 12 with a tow rig, trailer and a Jeep. The odds are in my favor that I will make it home. We all know that stuff brakes no matter how carefull you are, I have been 1500 miles from home with a broken transmission.
The greatest thing about wheeling for me now is introducing new people to the sport. Taking new people out on there first trail run, going places that they never dreamed could be possible, maybe cracking a little fiberglass. Seeing the sense of accomplishment in there expressions and afterwards hearing them talk about what lift they should get, what size tires ect. In short, I plant the seed of the maddness.