Gotta Get a Little Mud on the Tires

It's a nice day out.  Sun is out, it's pretty warm.  What do you and your friends decide to do?  Go play a game of volleyball?  Go to the mall?  Maybe go swimming?  All of these are good answers.  But around my town, there is another answer, one that I would choose over all the others.  What is that you may ask?  Go riding of course!

Picture by: Michele Simonet

Around Lilly there are a lot of trails and coal dumps.  These are prime conditions for quad riding.  All throughout spring, summer, and fall you will see people driving up and down the roads (which I may say is illegal, but in a town with 0 cops, who is going to stop you?) to go ride on the trails.  I LOVE riding.  Now, I don't have a quad of my own, but that doesn't stop the fun.  If my cousins come over, they bring an extra quad for me.  Friends also come along, and it's a grand old time.  The one picture I put up on here is in the parking lot behind my uncles house.  It is of me, a couple of cousins, and some of our friends getting ready to go on a quad run.  One of the most fun memories of my life, I will never forget how muddy and dirty we got! (The other picture I put up is not NEARLY the muddiest we have ever gotten!)

I have had many memories while riding.  My first time I drove the quad by myself, I misjudged a turn.  I was going too fast to make the turn, and ran into a stump.  Besides falling off of the quad, I also uprooted the stump.  Every time we go past that stump my friends and I all laugh.  Once, it rained the entire time we were riding.  We came back sopping wet and miserable.  From that time on, we have checked the weather before heading far away from the house.  Another time we were riding for a long time.  Eventually we got lost, which was not uncommon (many times we purposely got lost just to find new trails back home) but we also realized we were almost out of gas.  Not the most pleasant circumstances, but in any event, it was a learning experience. 



Picture by: Michele Simonet



The moral of this story is that sometimes, it is fun to get down and dirty.  Going out into the woods and riding trails can be just as enjoyable as playing volleyball or shopping at the mall.  Though I can be a clean freak, I love riding through huge mud puddles and going around turns, thus spraying my friends with mud.  It's a sense of freedom that I can't quite explain to someone who hasn't been out there.  But for people in Lilly, and I am sure in other small towns, it's a feeling that we all know quite well.  Sometimes, you just gotta get a little mud on the tires.