My father just retired, and my Dad's wife had arranged a surprise weekend down in some large house in a lake in Maryland. The area was called Deep Creek Lake, which my girlfriend informed me was sort of the Hamptons of West Virginia. I didn't think I'd get any riding in, as she was coming along, and 40' rainy weather isn't the most conducive atmosphere to convince a girl to ride 2 up for four hours.
But my brother in law let me know (after I had left all my gear behind), that he was sentimental about our ride through northern Italy and Switzerland last year, and was thinking about bringing two dirtbikes down to Maryland, in addition to his three and one year-old children. He threw some riding equiptment in the back of his Toyota Tundra, and strapped down a kick-start KDX 250 2 stroke along with his dad's Husqvarna TE 610 single.
Friday and Saturday were miserably cold and rainy, which was alright as we had stocked up on plenty of beer. However, by Sunday, the seven kids were getting a bit rambunctious, and Alex and I decided to brave damp, 45 degree weather and get a little ride in.
So we made sure the bikes had gas. Alex estimated his KDX could get about 80 miles to a tank, though the "Husky" had two pannier tanks, one filled with two-stroke gas (a mixture of engine oil and gasoline) and the other simply gas.
The morning was freezing, and the vacationing wonderland, built for watersports and wintersports... was basically abandoned. I was a little sad I had missed a bear wandering across our front porch, but not 10 minutes after we set out, 3 bears lumbered across the road, not 50 feet in front of our bikes.
We rode for a while, making it most of the way around the lake till our hands began to feel freezing.I was determined to do a little bit of offroading, though it wasn't quite to be.
There was one stretch, an access road to the state park, which we thought had some nice trails, but they were blocked off to ATVS and other vehicles.
We made it around the lake, though it didn't get any warmer out. Luckily, there was plenty of beer, a warm hot tub, and women to keep us warm when we got back.
There was some sun out the following day, and we decided to go for a quick jaunt again before we had to leave.
There were some pretty good roads, and we agreed that we would both like to come back, but hopefully in the warmer months when we could enjoy ourselves a little better.
We packed up the bikes and headed home, to Pennsylvania and NYC respectively.© 2016 Tigh Loughhead
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