About to hit 34 years of marriage, and it's been pretty great. We were neighbors, and then one day we looked at each other differently, and a fire started that has never gone out. Beautiful girl inside and out.
She has never liked fishing or hunting or much of anything outdoors. Her idea of camping is being in a nice camper with HVAC, sipping hot chocolate or a cold drink. She does love when I bring home deer, ducks, geese or other wild game. She is amazing in the kitchen, and can make most anything taste incredibly good. The guys always want to come here before or after adventures so they can get some of her cooking.
An amazing girl who puts up with my need to be outside doing something. She's a diamond!
I've slowed down with fishing a lot recently. I've fished a LOT over the last 50 years. Also, I'm getting tired of doing boat work for whiny customers, so I'm selling off all of the motors and boats and parts and going back to contracting.
In the meantime, the kids have gotten me into ATV riding and pickleball, and I enjoy both of them very much. After my 5th time at playing PB, I'm starting to challenge more experienced players. And we have gone on two ATV trips this year, and both were spectacular.
For the latest trip, I borrowed a friend's trailer to pull 5 machines.
The ride was uneventful, except for this following us for a number of miles:
Not a great pic. It was beautiful in real life!
We had about 30 people total, so we had to break up into groups to ride. The fast with the fast, the mediums and then the slow ones. I was in the medium group. We ran up to the waterfall on the rainy day. Why not? We were wet anyway.
I have two machines, both Kawasaki Prairies, a 360 and a 650.
Both were inexpensive, used machines, but in good shape, and VERY capable on the mountain. The Prairie 360 is surprisingly agile and sure-footed. It climbs like a Billy goat!
The 650 V-twin is the same, but that thing has power to go! The P.O. says it will hit 65 on a good day. Unfortunately, someone camo-painted it, but that's peeling off, so it looks terrible, but I'm okay with it. At least no one will try to steal it. My 18 Y.O. nephew's machine went down, so I let him ride the 650. I worried that it would get away from him on the trails, but he handled it well. Very well, better than me, no doubt. He once said he only likes racing quads, but now, he wants a machine like mine after feeling how capable it is.
Riding in the mountains is interesting and beautiful. In the spring, it was lush and alive. The trip we just took was different, with all the trees bare. A little more nerve-racking, too, because with the leaves gone, you can see how far a drop it really is. Some places, it's 1,000 feet almost vertical if you go over the side. In some places you can touch the tops of 80' trees from the trail. That's steep! The trails vary, but lots of 30+ degree climbs/descents, which test you and your machine. We all made it and no incidents, although 3 machines had issues. I brought a spare, and it was ridden every day.
What a blast, though. We probably rode 200 miles on this trip and saw a lot of stuff. Cameras can't capture the amazing views. The pic below looks small and close, until you zoom in and see how high up we are. We were down there in town refueling about 45 minutes earlier.
Can't wait to go again.
But I'm not done with fishing yet. Planning a quick trip out on the lake tomorrow morning for some stripers. Hopefully, they cooperate!
