I woke up early this morning and, after looking out the windows to see the beautiful views, decided I would get up and go for a walk. I grabbed the camera and told Bill I was going for a stroll. I took my time and wandered around the property a bit enjoying the quiet of the morning. While my knowledge of photography is virtually nonexistent and my skills with a camera don’t even qualify for amateur photographer status, I nonetheless very much enjoy taking photos and looking at the world through the eye of a camera lens.
Happily snapping photos, and keeping vigilant for bear or moose, I smiled when I looked up to see Bill heading my way. I’m not much of a morning person but, when we're on vacation, I always find myself wide awake in the early morning and it's these early morning walks that are some of my fondest times and memories. Case in point – while I’m writing this, I’m thinking of our early morning trek in Badlands National Park and the early morning lake hike in Rocky Mountains National Park last year. Anyway, I enjoy the solitude that generally accompanies these little jaunts and enjoy sharing those with Bill. Once he caught up to me, we held hands and walked along for a bit until one or both of us were drawn off course by an interesting sight of some kind.
He perched on a rock for a bit while I continued to take photos.
The property is over 300 acres and I could have easily spent all morning traipsing about and exploring it, but we figured the Sitts would be up soon and ready to start the day, so we slowly made our way back. I picked some wildflowers along the way and soon had a nice little bouquet.
When we returned to the site, they were still in their camper but were up and preparing breakfast.
I put the wildflowers on the table and once breakfast was ready, we sat down at the picnic table and enjoyed a leisurely meal together.
After breakfast, the Bills loaded the ATV onto the truck and drove to Jericho Motorsports to have the winch (which wasn’t working properly) repaired. Shele and I relaxed at the campground while they were gone, and once they returned, we geared up and hit the trails around 11:00 am. Truthfully, I was totally beat and wasn’t feeling it but I didn’t want to be a party pooper so I tried to psych myself up for the ride. We stuck to the trails within the state park boundary and hit those we hadn’t yet ridden. Bill wanted to ride Holt’s Revenge a second time (he had ridden it on his own the day before) so we all blindly followed him. The beginning of the ride wasn’t too bad, but I quickly learned that I was not sufficiently skilled or mentally motivated to ride this trail. Throw in being tired from yesterday's ride and cooked arms and it was only a matter of time before I bit it. The trail had a lot of undulating single track with a myriad of conditions. Basically, what I mean by that is the trail consisted of steep ascents/descents, rocks, ruts, and…SAND. Oh joy. Bill was having a great time speeding along like a mad man. He likes to test himself and relive his youth. I just like to live. I started to lag behind and was not really enjoying myself all that much. As I was climbing a rocky ascent, I heard the unmistakable sound of a two-stroke engine quickly gaining on me. Once I reached the top of the climb, I pulled off to the side of the trail as best I could and waved him around me. I resumed my ride only to hear another dirt bike approaching. I jumped off as far as I could just in time for him to scream around me. These guys were hauling. I was not. I cautiously continued on and then slowly increased my speed as I adapted to the terrain. As I approached a long right hand sweeper that slowly gained in elevation, I was riding along at a decent pace when all of a sudden I found myself slammed abruptly to the ground. My front tire had impacted with a large rock that was hiding in sand and the bike shot to the outside of the turn where I promptly lost rear traction. At this point, gravity oh-so-gallantly stepped in and aggressively and expeditiously overcame any forward momentum I had. I pulled my right calf out from under the bike, turned, and bent down to turn off the bike. By this point the Sitts had caught up and asked if I was okay. Bill eventually recognized that I was no longer behind him and returned to find me in a quiet fury.
It’s not that I mind falling (okay, maybe a little bit) or that I’m not used to it by now, but it does get old very quickly and kind of takes the fun out of the ride. Normally, I fall at very low speeds. It's usually as I'm climbing a rocky section or encountering slick mud in the trail. This particular fall was not at the low speeds with which I'm accustomed to falling. Ouch. Turns out, getting slammed to the ground at speed kind of hurts. My right hand was throbbing and my right knee was talking to me a bit. I was grateful that I had on my Dariens but that was the extent of my gratitude. I was irritated enough that I just left my bike lying there in the sand. Bill picked it up and commented that the bikes “aren’t that light” when you have to pick them off the ground. Ya’ think? I continued to quietly simmer with irritation at my husband for dragging me on this wretched trail. In my red-hued mind, he had ridden it previously so he should have recognized that it was out of my skillset and told me that it might be more challenging than I was prepared to ride. I mean, he KNEW I was tired and that I wasn’t feeling it. Like I said, it was all his fault. :) (I'm such a cow.) Fortunately, my childish fits of anger don’t last very long so I climbed back on the bike and wished for a quick end to the trail.
After a few minutes we popped out on one of the main connecting trails and continued hitting all of the side trails. We found ourselves at a really cool beaver pond and took a few minutes to check out the engineering. Pretty impressive.
Next, we found a trail that led to a "playground" of sand pits, jumps, steep climbs, and mud pits. Knowing full well that riding my bike in the sand would not end well, I decided to play photographer and took videos and photos of the Sitts on their machine. Bill was zipping around on the bike and flying all over the place. Mr. Sitt offered up the ATV to me and I happily jumped on and took it for a spin. FOUR wheels in sand is FUN!! I took an offshoot trail that was dirt packed and then....EUREKA...found a big 'ole mud puddle to ride through. SPLASH! The look on Sitts' face when I pulled up was priceless. His brand new, shiny machine was clean no more. He quickly came to terms with it getting dirty and by the time we had all taken turns on it and had all splashed through the mud puddle a few times, he was fine with it being covered in mud. :)
Clearly, Shele didn't have quite the issues with getting dirty and was enjoying herself immensely. :)
We rode the Panorama Trail (pretty self explanatory) and pulled over to take some photos.
After riding through all the looping trails, we eventually popped out at Jericho Motorsports and saw that Stacia was outside with a customer. We rode over and chatted with her a bit and got some advice on where we could grab a late lunch. She gave us a few options and we headed "downtown" to Tony's Pizza. We ate outside at picnic tables and people watched while we ate lunch. The afternoon was slipping by and when we discussed how much longer we wanted to ride, we all seemed ready to call it a day. Of course, we still had to ride the trails back to the campground so still had a fair amount of riding to do. As we headed through town (before the point where we could pick up the trailhead), Sitt pulled into the car wash and cleaned up their machine. I donated a dollar for our portion of the mud. :)
We returned to the campsite, dumped our gear, and one of us...who shall go unnamed...quickly fell asleep in his camp chair. I told you this riding thing is exhausting!! :)
Not long after we had arrived, Steve dropped by to check on us and make sure we were all set with firewood. We handed him our “campground donation” to aid in the continued permitting process (we’d love to come back here again) and he sat and chatted with us while Mr. Sitt started a campfire. We discussed the trail system and the politics of ATV trails in New Hampshire. We tossed out some ideas for promoting the campground and bringing in additional financial resources. It’s always fun to suggest ways other people can spend their money. HA! After more than an hour, he headed home and we enjoyed our last night together around the campfire. It was really a great day (well, minus that pesky crash) and we've had a great time here. The Sitts have been awesome and seem to really be having a great time. I'm really glad - I see many more camping adventures together in our future!
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