The wettest time i ever had in an open top Jeep was when I was heading on 2.5 hour drive up north to a lake in the Pennsylvania Poconos.
It was in the late 90’s so music was still good and no cells to be distracted by or call for help. I was home from college for the summer working at Hershey Park and I was planning to visit my roommate at her parents lake cabin for the weekend. I picked up another roommate along the way and headed up to the lake.
I had an 89 yj at the time and had known enough to check the weather forecast and it said sunny weather high of 90’s for the entire journey and location we were going to be in... It was a typical Pennsylvania summer of high 90’s with 100% humidity. I left my hard doors at home and headed out to the lake. I had the soft top up without the windows, but i soon found it was completely useless on those models without doors holding in the sides. It was hot as hell and we had the top up like a safari top on the highway when we started hearing the ripping of the top stitching and look back to see it damn near rip off the frame at highway speeds. We quickly pull over and remove the top. I laugh it off thankful it didn’t blow off and kill someone and we soldier on since it was hot
as hell anyway. About an hour in a summer thunderstorm sets in that has us worried but we think it’ll pass... it didn’t the news bulletin that came on the radio describing the said shit storm coming on way confirmed it. The heavens opened up and what I can only describe as a deluge of freaking water or a cow pissing for you farmers, just pours down on us. There’s no over passes or exits, not like we could see them anyway, so basically we are screwed. We start laughing at first and then realize after 15 mins we are completely soaked and everything we own is soaked. Wipers and heater are useless and I turn the radio off so it doesn’t somehow kill us in the standing water. We start freezing from the rain since we were sun burned from the start of the trip so we tried pulling over which gets us even wetter, but we find a dry t shirt at the very bottom of my bag that we use to wipe the inside of the windshield. We keep storing the rag in the glove box to try and keep it dryer than us. We are going really slow which makes it worse. I hadn’t pulled my plugs since I didn’t know about them at this point so I have water collecting in the bottom of the Jeep. We manage to make it to the lake soaking and inches of water in the Jeep. Almost as soon as we pulled in the rain stops and the sun comes out. Absolutely everything is drenched and I pop the plugs and pull the carpet to let the water out which is like turning on the faucet. We spend the weekend in the sun water skiing and head back home facing the sun. We arrive back home and literally are fried to a crisp from the drive, the weekend, and are badly dehydrated.
Absolutely started my love affair with everything jeep. There are no bad years to me since I’ve had an adventure in them all.
Since that day I have owned
An 60 cj5, 79 cj7, 87 yj, an 89yj, and a 2001 tj. I probably have a wet, sun kissed, lost in the wild, stuck in the muck, triumph and glory ride, or chick magnet story for each one lol
It’s like a Harley on 4 wheels!
and it matches the jeep. (aside from oil stains because it was kept in the "trunk" under all this stuff)
. Nothings Spider shade shouldn’t solve, unless they’re sh—-ing bricks 
.