PICS from the PAST : The ONE That Started it All

wayoflife

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While I was lucky enough to spend a better part of my youth off-roading and exploring the Mojave Desert, I have to say that the 2000 TJ Wrangler Sport that Cindy and I bought back in 1999 was the very first Jeep that either of us had ever owned. In fact, it was the ONE that started it all and was ultimately what helped to create, WAYALIFE. Unfortunately, taking pics of this Jeep was never really a priority for us or at least, when we first got it and this is to say nothing about filming it with a video camera. And, even if it were, what would we do with them? Certainly, there was no such thing as social media back then, the internet was just starting to graduate from dial-up to broadband and we were still taking photos with a 35mm camera.

Well, as luck would have it, digital cameras were just starting to become a thing and in the same year we bought our TJ, we also bought this awesome marvel of cutting edge technology - a Sony Mavica FD-91!
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With then, super impressive 1028x768 XGA resolution and a 14X image stabilized optical zoom, the FD-91 could take up to about a dozen pics that got stored on a 1.4 MB floppy disk. Needless to say, the amount of photos we could take with it, was still somewhat limited.

That said, I recently started digging though some of our old archives and with the hopes of finding whatever pics I could. And, that's what I hope to share with all you in this thread - never before seen pics from our past. :cool:

To kick things off, here are the very first pics we took of our then new, 2000 Jeep TJ Sport soon after bringing it home.
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More pics to come :cool:
 
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THE VERY FIRST TRAIL PICS
Because Jeeps are made to go off road, Cindy and I made sure to take our brand spanking new Jeep TJ Wrangler Sport out out into the Mojave Desert and to do some exploring, paper plates and all. Here are a few pics that we took from that trip using our Sony Mavica FD-91
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It's funny how comfortable a small TJ felt on a narrow shelf road like this.
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Of course, exploring old mines and ruins was always a thing for us.
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Here's a shot of my son Andrew and of course, Cindy holding her trusty old 35mm Nikon.
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More pic to come. Or at least, as I find them anyway :cool:
 
THE VERY FIRST TRAIL PICS
Because Jeeps are made to go off road, Cindy and I made sure to take our brand spanking new Jeep TJ Wrangler Sport out out into the Mojave Desert and to do some exploring, paper plates and all. Here are a few pics that we took from that trip using our Sony Mavica FD-91
20240202154310-b4742ad6.jpg


It's funny how comfortable a small TJ felt on a narrow shelf road like this.
20240202154311-6c6e818f.jpg

20240202154311-6b138e28.jpg

20240202154313-21374c78.jpg

20240202154313-fe4de2f3.jpg

20240202154314-8ad52509.jpg


Of course, exploring old mines and ruins was always a thing for us.
20240202154317-8be6ba8d.jpg


Here's a shot of my son Andrew and of course, Cindy holding her trusty old 35mm Nikon.
20240208181835-effbf359.jpg

20240202154314-c0a7436a.jpg


More pic to come. Or at least, as I find them anyway :cool:
That is so cool that you still have these pics.
 
that's awesome! impressive you still have the photos.

How many times has the thought... "damn we were young" run thru your mind?

Have to admit, I miss the simple life of my first CJ5 Jeep; but I also believe that's when my Jeep brain damage begin lol
 
THE VERY FIRST TRAIL PICS
Because Jeeps are made to go off road, Cindy and I made sure to take our brand spanking new Jeep TJ Wrangler Sport out out into the Mojave Desert and to do some exploring, paper plates and all. Here are a few pics that we took from that trip using our Sony Mavica FD-91
20240202154310-b4742ad6.jpg


It's funny how comfortable a small TJ felt on a narrow shelf road like this.
20240202154311-6c6e818f.jpg

20240202154311-6b138e28.jpg

20240202154313-21374c78.jpg

20240202154313-fe4de2f3.jpg

20240202154314-8ad52509.jpg


Of course, exploring old mines and ruins was always a thing for us.
20240202154317-8be6ba8d.jpg


Here's a shot of my son Andrew and of course, Cindy holding her trusty old 35mm Nikon.
20240208181835-effbf359.jpg

20240202154314-c0a7436a.jpg


More pic to come. Or at least, as I find them anyway :cool:

Now that’s Old School!
 
Awesome!! Cool to jump back to the roots of where it all started and little did you know, a career and passion. I have to say, I love the look of old film and sometimes think about getting back to film photography. Hope you can find some more!
 
That is so cool that you still have these pics.
Yeah, really surprised that they still exist and that I can still access them. I'm sure I won't be able to find all of it and I'm sure some of it is corrupt but I'm hoping to get them up on the net as I go.
that's awesome! impressive you still have the photos.

How many times has the thought... "damn we were young" run thru your mind?

Have to admit, I miss the simple life of my first CJ5 Jeep; but I also believe that's when my Jeep brain damage begin lol
LOL - I don't know man, I still feel like I'm that young. It's more like, am I really this old now??
 
😂 I remember when that was awesome.
I just looked at my phone library: 3146 photos and 302 videos. 80GB of 256 GB used. Who woulda thunk it
LOL - isn't that nuts?!! And the quality of what you can get on your tiny phone let alone what all you can do with it now. Man, how things have changed!
Haha, I can relate to this. Got to use that camera for work. Great pics and is neat to see your boy. Good looking family!
Too funny that you are familiar with this camera LOL
Awesome!! Cool to jump back to the roots of where it all started and little did you know, a career and passion. I have to say, I love the look of old film and sometimes think about getting back to film photography. Hope you can find some more!
Well, to be fair, the pics you see are really old school, low res digital photos. The film prints we have look much much better. I'll have to see if I can find more of those too.
 
FIRST TIME IN THE SNOW
Getting out as often as we could and hitting the trails was nothing new to us and when we heard there was going to be a chance of snow, we called up some friends, jumped in our TJ and made our way up to Big Bear. As you can see in this pic, we were still running a standard plate and with a Sport Chalet frame that says, "I'd Rather be Snowboarding". Oh, how times have changed :ROFLMAO:
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Meeting up with everyone at a breakfast stop, we made sure to park next to the only other Jeep in the group. Oh, and as you can see, it was starting to rain.
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Off of pavement and with the rain starting to turn to snow and the trail turning into mud.
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Everyone getting out to have some fun in the white stuff.
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This is of course, Andrew having some fun sledding down a hill.
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As we moved on, the snow started to get deeper.
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Some of you in the SoCal area probably know where this lunch stop is.
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With the snow really starting to come down, we decided it was time to make our way back to pavement.
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Unfortunately for us, as soon as we did, there was traffic all the way down the mountain.
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Oh joy.
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More pics to come :cool:
 
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