About 6 years ago I picked up a remote control truck to see if Alex would be interested in them. I had some general worries about getting them into Radio Control anything but that is another story. Any way Alex took to it at 4 years old pretty good and it wasn't long after that Drew joined in. Over the years we had a few different ones but seems we have settled into Electronic Off Road vehicles.
For whatever reason they have been shelfed for over a year. Ok not really whatever reason I didn't have time to keep them up so we could never take them out, realistically it was more I never made time.
Fast forward to now and it was off to Home Depot we went to pick up a few supplies to make a little area in the basement where we could work on the trucks, cycle the batteries (this is a major pain in the rear to try and do in the garage), clean the truck and store parts and tools. Tammy was awesome at agreeing would should set something up. The boys and I did the shopping and then commenced to get the stuff to the basement, it was awesome to see how excited they were.
Alex and Drew cleared the a spot and commenced getting the flooring down. We picked up some foam interlocking mats so that little parts don't get lost in the carpet and also to keep dirty trucks from getting the carpet dirty. The boys were awesome at cooperating with each other and no disagreements or fighting broke out..........clearly they are pumped to get back at the trucks.
After the boys finished setting up the floor we got all the gear moved over and got the trucks set. Seems that one table wont be enough. (Yes Tammy you were right............again :) ) so I will blast out to Home Depot tomorrow or this week sometime and get another. So that we have a little more room to work with.
There are a bunch of trucks. We have 3 Traxxas Stampedes (2nd Gen) 1 Traxxas Stampede (1st Gen) 1 RC10 Buggy, 1 Losi XXX-4 Buggy, 1 HP Racecar, and one non working race car. The Stampedes are great for the boys as they are tough, fast, fun to drive and they can handle most of the standard maintenance themselves. Oh and a bunch of spare parts.
Once we were all set up it was time to start cleaning up the rigs and investigating for any obvious damage and to start cycling batteries (Cycling batteries will help to refresh the rechargeable batteries that the trucks run on so that we get some good run time out of them - we have lots of batteries in various condition - hopefully I won't have to get any new ones) The boys jumped right in carefully cleaning the trucks and yammering away about which ones they were going to drive first and reminiscing about driving them years ago. It was cool to sit with them as they worked, we need a little more space to be comfortable and we didn't have a ton of time, but it was a great start. I like doing things with them that we all enjoy............usually I spend more time charging, changing batteries, roadside fixes, and general monitoring than driving but that is ok the boys have a blast and yell and laugh and drive like maniacs.
There is still snow around and it is a bit too chilly to be running the trucks yet..........although the boys don't think so. They will have to trust me, I fully remember a couple of times we tried when it was windy and cool. Also we need to find a good open place to run them......I will start looking more carefully when I am biking for a good spot or two. And well its going to take me a week or more to fully cycle all those batteries, but its early May and we have lots of time to get things up to operational speed.
I am looking forward to getting out with them and running the trucks, maybe Piper will join us and like it too, we certainly have enough rigs for all to enjoy.
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