Father's Day Weekend...... Day One of an Adventure Trip

Back a couple of months ago, I asked Audra for permission to escape to the mountains on my bike. Originally, I had planned a very challenging trip on my dirt bike….. but with the boys free to join me, we changed our plans. I invited my two good friends, Terry and Matt to join us.
After some research, I decided we would ride the Four Mile area, just east of Buena Vista, CO….. right in the middle of the state. This choice of geography was ideal for early season riding, as all the snow has melted from this area and there is a lot of great double and single track access.
We packed up and left one evening, arriving just after the sun set below the Collegiate Range. Fortunately, we were greeted with a full moon to aid in our visibility to set up camp.

The ride to 4-Mile.

The next morning we awoke to the campsite that Matt had chosen. It was nicely located next to a little pond and amazing rock formations.

By 9am the riding began. We challenged ourselves with the toughest riding of the weekend, attacking some aggressive double-track on our 500lb bikes. The boys have become outstanding riders and I am incredible proud of their skills that they have worked hard to hone.

After riding south for about three hours.... only covering about 20 miles, we arrived in Salida. Unbeknownst to us, this little town on the Upper Arkansas River was smack-dab in the middle of a four day River Festival. We enjoy a phenomenal lunch at the Boat House Restaurant and then headed to the “booth area” where Matt and Terry treated us all to a funnel cake.
Next we walked up the street to see a fellow ADV’er and his wife, Duke and Tami Sheppard. They own two stores, an Artisan Bead Shop and a TShirt Shop. Duke and I discussed the TShirts for RMAR and then asked him for riding suggestions. He sent us to Aspen Ridge, back toward our camping area.

Due to our quick pace of riding, we always have a couple of spills. On this trip, it seems that nearly everyone dropped their bikes at one time or another. In this pic, Tyler picked a great place to loose control..... except for a hidden rock in the deep sand. Tyler had a soft fall, buy his rear brake lever took a direct hit by the rock. After a bit of pulling and prying and bending, we had him ready to go.

Evening activities were fun. Unfortunately, the little pond did not have any fish..... but Terry was able to land a massive Salamander. The boys enjoyed a couple of Matt's firearms and a few games of marksmanship with Tyler's pellet pistol.