Survived the dirt

Ken took me to Silver City, an old mining town that now has a population of 12 in the summer, and 1 in the winter. There are two open businesses. The ride to there was about half paved and half decent dirt. The road we took out was a bit more challenging. I will say we did about 70 miles of dirt. I had two drops. One was trying to get the bike, a DRZ 400 that is very tall, turned around. I ran out of leg to ground contact. The other time was going up a hill and I ran into a bunch of large (fist size) rocks, the rear tire started slipping, and eventually the rear came around. Again there came a loss of leg to ground (tall bike, semi short legs) contact. But I was able to get the bike back up, point it in the right direction and get going before Ken came back to see where I was.

The pictures above are first, the old school house. It was a museum but now is empty and being renovated. An old Ford pick-up with New Hampshire plates(?). The next two are of the old drug store that closed in the 1930s. They apparently just closed the doors, and left everything as it was. You can see that in the second photograph of the drug store. The other wall was the same as that wall. The last photo is of the Idaho Hotel. We had a good lunch there, and it is very neat in side. A bunch of old stuff and memorabilia. The two bikes in front are the ones we were riding.

There hasn't been any electricity to Silver City since 1940. They use solar panels and what ever else they can find for power. They use propane coolers in the hotel to keep the food cold. There were a few tourist there and a lot of ATVers. I learned a lot about the dirt riding, and I suspect a week of it would bring me into a confident rider or a hospital patient.