Hair of the Dog
Or what I think is the best way to end a year and start a new year… I had big plans for my time off between Christmas and New Year’s and I didn’t do any of it. ß Not 100% accurate, but close. I did clean the house, I did clean up in the trailer, and I did move bikes around in the garage so I could work on them. That’s where my motivation kind of fizzled out.
So on Thursday morning when I woke up to snow, I got a wild hair to head down to Haystack OHV (Roswell, NM) a few days early. In a mad flurry I prepped the trailer (not quick or easy. I had to de-winterize it, fill water, and make sure there wasn’t any water leaks.), hit the store for some food, packed up my bike and gear, and I hit the road. Lucky for poor Sable there was some left over dry dog food for her, since I forgot to grab some for her.
As it would have it I was the first person to arrive for the weekend. First thing I did was take Sable for a walk around the camping area. As we just getting ready to head back to the trailer. Porter showed up. After a short chat with him I moved the trailer down to the field from the spot I had picked on the edge.
Next person to pull in was Hammer, not long after him was Lance. That would be it for a few hours until the Winkles and Conrad showed up. I had no idea that was going to be the bulk of the people riding for the weekend.
Lance had a brilliant idea about a large tent with propane heaters so we could hang out together outside. Now, putting that tent up was interesting. No. It didn’t go smoothly. At one point I wondered off to let the guys figure it out. It took about 4 to 6 attempts before it finally got some wall and a roof on it. Totally worth it in my book.
I wandered down to one of the other campsites after I saw another XTrainer go by. I tried hard to recruit them to do the trials event. At least we did get them to come hang out with us for a bit and do the fun trials.
I learned a hard lesson that evening. No allsups burritos for me. I was talked into trying my first one that night. It will also be the last one I ever eat. I had to excuse myself to go to the trailer to hurl not too long after. No, it wasn’t the drinking, I only had a small one that was watered down.
There was a fair amount of goofing off and beer drinking the next day as everyone got off to a slow start. I still wasn’t feeling great the next day. It took a few hours for my stomach to settle. Just in time for all of us to go scout out a loop and areas for sections to be set on Saturday. It was then we all hung out in the tent for some food, music and libations.
Late morning, we were all hang out discussing the loop when some others started to show up. So it was a big party where we all went off to set the sections (10 of them) for Sunday.
I went off with Monte to set two of the sections. After that was done, we all had some lunch and training beers, then it was off to the fun trials.
I did not do well in that. I was just happy that I wasn’t last. Sable after we got back from the fun trials decided to run off. I really think it was that nerf dart thing that made noise like a fire work before it explodes. She got totally freaked out by it during lunch after it hit her and me. I should have said something about it at that time. I walked to loop calling her, once I discovered her gone. Usually she really doesn’t go too far from me. She didn’t come, so I got a bit worried. Lance got the others to go off and help look for her. The kids found her about 30 mins later on the loop road heading back to the camper. The lil brat, she likely heard me calling her earlier and just ignored me. After that, we all had some nice dinner and great conversations.
I don’t think any of us stayed up til Midnight, I know I was off to bed earlier that night… I’m getting too old to stay up drinking, then get up and ride the next day.
When left to my own to set the Am, Novice and Beginner lines, I set the hardest line of the day for the novices. I almost cleaned it on the 3 lap. I took a dab that I really didn’t need…. The norm for my trials riding, at least I’m not doing the rapid fire dabs anymore. I stalled the bike in the first section of the day. D’uh. I never cleaned that section, either. There were a couple of other dabs do to not taking my time to really figure out how the ride the sections before I tried to ride them. The 2nd and 3rd laps were so much better. Multiple lessons learned there too.
I didn’t take pictures during the trials. I should have too, the group I was with was with the two kids. They were great. I like the flags and the group scoring. Loads of fun. It didn’t’ hurt that I won the Novice class for the day. After we finished, surprise we weren’t the last group to finish. We all went out to pull down the sections. Very quick work taking them down.
Since I had Monday off too, I just stayed there for one more night. Again, we spent more time in the tent, it was almost too warm at some points. The next day it was time to tear down that tent. It sure came down faster than it went up. (like other things in life) I took the time to winterize the inside of the trailer. I drained the hot water tank once I got the trailer parked at home. In all a fantastic start to a new year.
