Two Old Guys Roll Through the Hills at Breakneck Speed

I had never ridden one of these little beasts before, but I'd often thought it would be fun. Actually, I did ride one on one occasion back in 1991. In October of that year I got a 6x6 bull elk. Several friends helped me dress him out, but they wanted to go back to hunting then, and it was close to a mile to our camp. A fellow on a four-wheeler came along. I hailed and halted him and offered him $20 to take me and the elk (all parts) back to camp. Best $20 I ever spent.

Yesterday's riding was done with Dave Wilkins' whom I may have mentioned before here. He was in combat almost constantly for 3 months of 1969 in the Ashau Valley of Vietnam. He was one of 13 guys who went over there together. Two came home. He can tell you stories, as they say. Their collective effect is to render you uncertain whether to cheer for all such young men or to cry for a long time.

Dave kept up a pretty good pace on his little red machine. I had no trouble keeping up on his dark green Yamaha. I hit one puddle at 35 mph and got liberally doused with muddy water, but it only made me laugh. It also made my face dirty which is visible in a couple of the photos.

Then we stopped to shoot. This was very pretty country above the tiny burg of Inkom. I'll throw in a few shots of the scenery. Dave had brought along his Rossi (Brazilian) stainless steel five-shot revolver in .44 Special. Last year I gave him a few boxes of loads. We used two of those. One box was a snake load I'd made about 22 years ago with #7 1/2 bird shot. The load that kicked a little was the 240 grain Lead semi-wadcutter bullet in front of 6.8 grains of AA#5. The little revolver with its 3 inch barrel would jump upward fairly well under the recoil of this load. One photo shows that. The little Brazilian handgun shows impressive accuracy for something with such a short sight radius and fixed sights.

Would I want to own one of these 4WD vehicles? Only if all my other desires of a worldly nature had already been met. But they sure are fun!