Ocotillo Wells OHV - Camping for 2 nights April 16-18, 2005

Still jonesing for more riding opportunities, I got a cheap cargo carrier for the Van, and planned a riding-camping trip to meet Mark and his buddy Brett back at Ocotillo Wells the next weekend. I put the Yellow Hornet on the back of the Van and left on Saturday.

After a "test" ride that turned into several hours and a dozen or so miles of fun riding on the outskirts of Town, I ferried the Yellow Hornet out to the OHV Area where I established camp. I took an afternoon ride up to the "Just Blu Inn" on Highway 78 and got a wee bit lost on the way back, having to forge a mile or so thru a deep wash to get back on track.

The next day, on Sunday, after some asynchronous cell phone transmissions and a bit of good Navigation by Geronimo, Mark and Brett drove into camp around noon. Mark had his trailer and in it his Suzuki 350-bored-out-to-450 dual sport. Within minutes, camp was set up and Mark and Brett suited up for battle. Whoa! These guys are serious. Body Armor, Motocross Boots, and even Fully Padded Hockey Pants for Mark just to name a few of the protections. Anyway, the gist of it is that once they started riding (even with Bret on the Honda 70), they just left me behind! I'm more of, how should I put it, a putt-putter. I don't really want to rip up. I just want to ride around. When we all got back (separately) Mark said off-handedly that he went over the handlebars on his ride! Yikes. Go for it LOL!

That night, after I had cooked and eaten my food, we made a fire in the stiff evening wind. It was really blowing and made it almost impossible to get a good fire going. But after enough wood was added to the fire, and little fire-water was added to the people, we got it going pretty good. We broke out the Guitar and Mandolin and started singing songs and got friendly and hilarously drunk. Brett turned out to be a really interesting guy, and we all talked motorcycles and told stories and jokes and sang songs and drank all the whiskey and most of the beer, which is all you can ask for!

The next day, I broke camp to head home and Mark and Brett headed out for more adventure.