Act Your Age

Not your IQ. Isn’t that the schoolyard taunt? I don’t know which applies in this instance.

I have always said, when I sell a script, I’m going to buy an egregious sports car no sensible middle-aged woman would be caught dead in. In a similar vein, when the boys in my family decided to take up ATV touring, I thought, well, why not? I’m not dead, yet. And like a lot of things we start doing with boys, it turned out to be really, really fun.

Before I could say, which way did he go, Doc, I possessed a shiny 4 wheel recreational vehicle capable of powering up hill and over dale, guaranteed to destroy the domestic tranquility of every living creature within earshot and, like I said, really, really fun.

The government has divided the forest into places with trails where motorized traffic is allowed during certain times of the year, and trails that allow only foot traffic and usually these are separated by wide margins.

Around here, the motorized traffic acceptable trails are either old logging roads in terrible condition winding through steep canyons over sheer cliffs or narrow ATV specific trails that loop precipitous ridges and declivitous* ledges. Sensing a pattern?

On our first ride, over a trail I’m sure the Forest Service calls HELL and GONE, I learned the 4-wheel drive feature was for sections of trail that went like this.

And later for sections of trail that went like that.

All the while I’m trying not to go …

About the time I’m almost used to balancing, one wheel at a time, over multiple terrain, I see this** in the woods.
And then this***.

When we finally make it to the trailhead that exits on a real road, thank Civilization, I see this roadside attraction.
Yep. One minute, I’m enjoying the spectacle that is nature,
and the next minute, I’m in the Blair Witch Project.
Which illustrates the following:

There is no end to the trouble for which boys are responsible.

We may harken back to the days when sensible middle-aged women made pies, crafted curtains and kept quietly to home. But what fun would that be?

Vroom.



*Isn’t that a cool word? Means “steep downward slope,” from the Latin, declivitas. Sounds dirty too.
**deer, probably.
***likewise, I’m sure.