This weekend with my dad hasn't been much different than the other ones. As always, we need adventure, so we'll go well out of our way in search of it. 

Last night, Dad and I went over to an old friend's house. Jay has been my dad's best friend since before high school, and followed my dad to Denver in search of opportunity like he was. I've known Jay since I was born, and while I hadn't seen him for nearly two years up until last night, he hasn't changed... Only, he's now a father. Jay lives up in the foothills with his wife and toddler son. It's a nice house in the woods. Dad and I have stayed there before, although we didn't stay there last night. 

Jay already had dinner ready for us by the time we arrived. He's a master at cooking, and the steak and pork chops were amazing. While we ate, Dad and Jay started sharing stories about their teenage and young adult years. It seems like every time I go up there, they share more new stories, especially since neither of those guys have actually lost their teenage love for adventure and excitement. 

Jay recently "accidentally" jumped his pickup truck over a friend's driveway, and was showing off the minor scrapes and bruises he got from it. This of course opened the door for more wild stories, so I showed off my newest scar I got from my failed dirtbike wheelie. I thought it would eventually heal, but since it's been a couple of months and the injury is clearly visible on my arm, I guess it won't be going away. My dad also showed off some scars from his teenage and young adult years, and said he didn't really calm down until I was born. 

Wabasha county keeps on getting stranger and stranger to me, as I hear more stories from Dad and his friend. Dad used to joke about a grandma in an old classmate's basement. Turns out, that wasn't actually a joke. Jay was talking about he actually met the grandma in the basement, and it took ten minutes for my dad to calm his laughter enough to explain who this grandma in the basement really was. My dad never met her, and Jay never told my dad she actually existed until last night. 

My dad and Jay also remembered the time two classmates went to Jay's house, just to TP and egg it because they weren't invited to his birthday party. Dad and Jay jumped in my dad's truck and chased them around the blufflands near Lake City for a couple miles, before the two got bored and drove back to eat the birthday cake. Once they were done, they helped Jay's parents to clean up the mess the two troublemakers left behind. 

Today, we woke up early to beat the traffic to the mountains. We stopped for gas and food, before heading up to check out a different trail to ride, that was supposedly easier and lower in elevation than Rollins Pass. Well, my dad was right about it being lower in elevation, not so much about it being any easier. 

Cascade Creek trail is just a few miles west of Idaho Springs, Colorado, off of a busy main road called Chicago Creek. It's steep and sandy at the start, and not very far ahead of that, the trail gets steeper and turns into mostly loose rocks and deep ruts. It's a slow, harsh trail that I learned the hard way is too difficult for my dirtbike to ride, unless I want to spend more time and money on the dirtbike than I already have. 

I started off pretty fast, but when the trail turned to steep loose rocks, I was slowed down considerably, and about halfway to where the trail turns around a bend, my dirtbike started sputtering. I stalled thrice, but kept going. In fact, I kept going until my dad caught up to me and my dirtbike finally quit for good, only after I tried getting up a cluster of large loose rocks twice. Dad and I contemplated our next move while we took pictures and looked around. It's a lot steeper and rougher than it looks.

We decided it wasn't worth it, so while dad turned the Xterra around, I carefully turned myself around, making sure to keep the dirtbike in first gear with the front brake and clutch firmly in my fists, so I wouldn't be dragged down the trail. 

I didn't even need to kick my engine to life on the way down. I kept my dirtbike in neutral while I silently sped down, making sure to keep the back brake under my toe because I was picking up speed fast! I would've "dropped the clutch and gave 'er hell", which means to kick the engine to life and speed off, if I wasn't so worried about cars and people on the shaded road. Because of the woods and my silence, I was invisible to everything until it was too late. I almost hit the dog of a family of campers on the way down, but I kept the brakes applied, and the little French Bulldog ran back to its owners instead of saying hello (Thank God! People still need to leash their pets though. Bears and Cougars love dogs.) I drifted down the sandy part of the path almost faster than if my engine was running, and almost slid into the main road. I shifted into first gear to apply the rear brake automatically, and used both my heels and my front brake to stop just a few feet from the main road.

I was slightly disappointed. It was only a 30 minute ride, and it wasn't as fun as I wanted it to be. I didn't leave the trail sore, but I wasn't satisfied either, so we agreed to search for other possible OHV trails to ride on between Idaho Springs and Evergreen before heading home. 

We searched far and wide. We used Google when we could, and when we didn't have any cell service, we pulled off the road whenever we could and scoped out possible roads and trails from where we could see. We saw plenty of possible trails, but every trail we tried, it was either just a regular county road, a road to a private campsite, a road to a scout camp, or a driveway. We also ran into lots of traffic around Mount Evans, and while we contemplated driving up there, we knew the traffic would be even worse than it already was, so we passed. 

We drove for a few more miles before turning around and heading back to Idaho Springs, in hopes of getting some food and walking around a bit. Idaho Springs was a Labor Day zoo! Someone in a Volkswagen minivan from the 1990s almost took out my dirtbike on the back rack, and someone in a little Chevy Impala thought it was a good idea to pull out right in front of us, brake-checking my dad in the process, all within 15 feet in a parking lot. It was enough to make us call it a day, and we headed out of the mountains in one piece.