My First Real Off-Road Ride

For a few months now, Joe and I have been planning on an off-road motorcycle trip to celebrate our graduations from school. Not only was I planning on graduating with my MBA this month, but Joe is going to graduate with his bachelor's degree also. We thought it would be fun to get together and go for a ride before Joseph moves to California to start his new job.

Amber and I were taking the kids to stay with Mom and Jen. They and their accompanying support crew will be tending the kids while Amber and I go to Oklahoma and Texas this week. Anyway, Joe and I decided that this would be the perfect time to go for a ride since Amber and I would be going through Arbon anyway.

Mom was at Jen's house in Idaho Falls so Amber dropped me off in Arbon on her way to Jen and Dave's place. Dad let Joe and I borrow his pickup. We loaded Joe and Jen's bikes into the truck and headed off to Knox Canyon.


We drove up to the top of the canyon and parked the truck and got the bikes out of the back. We rode down the road a ways and snapped this picture of Joe on the side of the road. The weather was perfect. The sun was out, but it wasn't too hot. Also, there were some bugs out but they didn't bother us too much.

Joe had done some searching on Google Earth and found some trails a week ago. However, as we rode the bikes to those trails, we found out that it was all private land. We didn't want to trespass, but we really wanted to go on those trails. After some soul searching we decided it would be best if we found some other trails to go on. We headed back to the top of the canyon and started riding down offshoot roads from the main road.

Whenever we would find what looked like a logging road or are a makeshift trail, we would take it to see where it went. Oftentimes, the trail would be obstructed by fallen trees or debris. The following picture shows one such incident where Joe and I had to get the motorcycles over a couple of fallen trees. This picture was by far our most trying obstacle. It took both of us at the same time to give the bikes some gas and lift them up at just the right time to help them clear the tree that had fallen across the path. Joe's bike is much bigger than Jen's. It fell a couple of times as we were trying to get it through brush and over logs. Good thing it is not one of our old Chinese bikes. It came out of the falls without any damage.



Another thing I had hoped to do on our motorcycles was to find a trail that would take us up to the tallest peak in power County. It is the same peak the Aylee and Johnathan and I tried to hike last year. However, it was not to be. We searched several trails but nothing got us close enough to a bare ridge that would take us to the peak. On one such search, we went up a ridge that took us to a great lookout point. This picture is of me standing on the edge of the viewpoint. There was not a trail up to this area. Rather, it was just a bare ridge line with many rocks. It was a fun climb.




We also found a small canyon that had a small creek running through it. We had to cross the creek several times to continue up the trail. It was a lot of fun. The water was really rushing down the mountain. Even though it was a small narrow stream, it sure made a lot of noise.




This was my first ride off-road. When we first started, I told Joe to take it easy on me because I wasn't very sure of myself. However, I gained my confidence fairly quickly and really enjoyed it.

We started our ride around 2PM and got back to Mom and Dad's house by 8PM. Joe told me that this was the longest and most challenging off-road ride he has ever done. That is a great compliment considering the Joe often goes out to do trail riding.

On our ride, Joe was trying to get me all convinced that I needed to buy dirt bikes for my kids. I told him that the other day when Aylee and I had to go to the auto parts store, they had a mini motorcycle there in the store. Aylee pleaded with me to ask the store clerk how much the motorcycle was. When he said it was only $300 for the little minibike Aylee started to calculate the dollars in her head. I think she has started to dream about it. It would be a fun activity, but I'm not sure I'm ready for my kids to be doing that kind of stuff. However, I have to admit that it would be a fun activity to do with them.

I cannot explain how fun it was to be out there with Joe. It was fun to spend some time with him. We are sure going to miss him as he moves to California in a few weeks. I hope that we can find time in the future to still get together and do things like this. This was definitely a fun day that will become a great memory for me.