Lately, I have been revisiting old routes that I haven't been on in years. Yesterday, I took another trail to good memories. One of the memories I had was sitting on a hillside and looking down at what I thought was an old red barn. Back in those days, the little plot of land it sits on was in much better shape. There used to be a vehicle or two parked near it also, as I remember. I never wanted to get too close to it, because I didn't know whether or not people might be around. A while back, a friend assured me that the place has been abandoned for some time now, so I decided I would take a closer look. The weather was mostly cooperating, yesterday. Threatening storm clouds dropped scattered sprinkles of snow pellets in isolated spots all day long. There was not much snow on the ground from the recent storm, just a lot of wet dirt and water puddles. The high was about 37 degrees, and I was dressed appropriately for the ride at hand, although my feet got wet from the sheer amount of puddles that I rode through during the course of the day....but that is what wool socks are for. My route took me meandering north and then east in the valley, until I reached my trail to the "barn". Then i was headed south again. When I reached the place, it was obvious that the building was actually a house of sorts, with a concrete slab, dry wall and electrical outlets. There was a huge bird nest of some kind in the exposed rafters of the north end, and a defunct bee hive in the south end ceiling. The place had been trashed and shot full of holes, and just stood there, looking so forlorn. It made me wonder who used to stay there. Was it their permanent residence, or just a place they came to to go hunting or enjoy the outdoors in some other way? Why did they leave it? Maybe they got money from the windmill project, or sold the land to them, and just hightailed it out of there. I guess it really doesn't matter, but there is always some story behind such places. After wandering around on foot a bit, I headed south and then west and back towards where my Jeep was. It was about 3:00 pm by then , and I had put close to 40 miles on Mr. 501. I can't remember the last time I ran that many miles on single track in that area. I probably did it regularly over a decade ago, but I haven't done it in the last few years, for sure. I was really tired by then, and the sky was fast closing with a fresh storm as I loaded up and started my drive home. There was some rain mixed with slushy snow flakes, and finally it was snowing quite earnestly as I drove home on the I-8. As the snow fall reached almost white out visibility, one vehicle managed to bump another, and both of those spun out. Luckily, nobody else became involved with their little mishap. By the time I reached Alpine, the snow had given way to rain sprinkles and finally cleared up, but in the rear view mirror, the storm looked dark and brutal. I think I timed my day pretty well, and finished up just in the nick of time.
Gone are the days of having steady riding partners all the time. It's either ride alone, or don't ride for most of my rides. I think I would miss about 70-80% of my rides if I waited for other people to go with me. What kind of a life would that be? Safe....but boring, and probably a lot fatter.
