The Quad Experience

It is not a shocking fact for most who know me, that I love to do extreme things. When I was young the only thing I ever wanted for Christmas was a knife, a sword, a gun, and a horse. I was a little Davy Crocket, and my childhood heroes were Zorro, Spiderman, and Batman. Finally, when I got my pony at the age of about 10, I got bucked off twice the first day, and kept getting on to show that pony who was boss. These are only a few of the stories that help shape who I am now as a guy that likes to do extreme things. One of these fun things I like to do is go quad riding, and luckily for me, my dad just bought an awesome 2 person quad a few weeks ago. So, about a week and a half ago a bunch of guys were up at Bison Ranch for a men’s conference and I had a blast . . . it is the Saturday night quad experience that I want to share. Though this story could be a great one about the time that I got thrown off the quad earlier that afternoon, that will have to be for another time. However, it was about 11:00 PM and I had the urge to go out and take the quad for its first late night ride through the hills of Bison Ranch. So Aaron Rohr and myself put on all our jackets, gloves, and other equipment and proceeded to ride through the night. We were a little crazy being that there were jumps to go off, it was super cold, and that it was pitch black except our headlights and the stars. We had a blast though. It was great when you can have that experience of being out in the middle of no where with God’s majestic creation all around and a 50 mph beast right under your control . . . WOW, what else could a guy want . . . URRRR. . . growl. . . . manly noise . . . yeah. Well, since it was such an awesome night, Aaron and I decided to turn off the quad, fellowship, and look for shooting stars since we were by now about five miles from where we started. It was amazing to see God’s creation, and together in that half-hour time, we saw about 10 shooting stars. One of the conversations that we had was about how completely illogical it is for some to doubt the existence of God. We were both blown away by the majesty of God, and we overwhelmed by how marvelously he is seen through his creation. Here is where the story takes a turn. We decided at about 12:30 that since we had already been out for and hour and a half that we should probably get back cause we didn’t want to scare the guys that were back at the cabin. So we both put back on our helmets, and we proceeded to get on the quad . . . HOWEVER, I hit the start button and nothing happened. I pushed it again and still nothing. In my head I was thinking, “oh crap” this could be a very long and cold night. I said to myself, “well it is pitch black, maybe I’m pushing the wrong start button.” Aaron got out his cell phone to use the light to check the gas gauge. We were fine with gas but as he looked at his phone he saw that he had 3 unheard messages. I scrounged around the controls and frantically searched for a different start button. I hit one. All that we heard was what sounded like an engine that tried to start but wouldn’t. I tried this a few times and at this point Aaron and myself were both wondering how we were going to stay warm all night. Finally, I discovered that we had never put the bike in park or neutral cause we had only turned off the engine. Naturally, the quad needs to be in park to start it or the brakes have to be held very tightly, and finally it started. However, I wondered what had made the earlier noise of an engine that wouldn’t start . . . that was the wench that we had to ravel back up. WOW. The night was not over though. It was my turn to drive home, and as I was driving back there came a fork in the rode with three possible ways to retreat. I yelled as we were going about 40mph “AARON, IS THIS THE RIGHT WAY?” He yelled back, “YEAH, I THINK SO.” Let me just tell you that the words “I think so” were not to reassuring in my mind, and we actually ended up going the wrong way. Thankfully, the trail we went on led us back to the main highway even quicker, and it saved us about 10 minutes. Wow, that was fun, and I look forward to many more exciting times with the quad.