Day 1 Adventure 2

Cody and Brittany Hawkes have been kind enough to allow me to go 4-wheeling with them multiple times this year. Cody's dad has two machines, so they let me barrow one while they use the other. We have explored multiple trails in the same area directly east of Rexburg, and we wanted to explore that area even more. So we left town and drove up to Kelly Canyon Ski resort. About a mile or two past the resort is a large recreational intersection where you are able to park your vehicle, use the restroom, and take off on the number of trails that start at that point. As we took off from the area, we didn't really know where exactly we wanted to go. But as we road a couple of miles down the road, we took a trail that in about 5 minutes lead us to an area that we had been a couple of weeks before. When we were here before however, we discovered that Cody's machine had a flat tire, so we hid in the woods while we went and got the truck to load the machine and take it home. So when we arrived back in the area, we were excited to know that it linked up to where we had parked, and that we were able to further explore the area. From there, we pick a trail and road down it towards Moody Creek. We got on a bike path that was smooth and beautiful as it road along a ridge full of green pastures and we soon joined up with a trail that we were familiar with. We decided to cross the creek, go back up the other side of the ridge, and loop back around to where we were parked. I know the area that we were in pretty well from before my mission, but I had only done the loop once before my mission, so I wasn't very knowledgeable with those roads. Being the good sports that they were, Cody and Brittany went along with it (although I know Brittany was thinking that I didn't know what I was talking about). We got on the other side, road some trails in order to try to find the road that looped and weren't able to find it. We kept exploring and eventually found a good road that we could go fast on and that lead in the direction that we wanted to go. A storm was on its way in, and it was getting late, so we decided to start going fast. We were flying around corners, and lucky for me, I was in the front kicking up the dust rather than eating it. There were markers on the trees for the snowmobile's to follow during the winter, so I thought we would be on a trail that went all the way through. I was wrong. The trail ended suddenly in the middle of no where. We were driving on that dang trail for about 15 minutes probably going close to 35 mph, so its not like we could just turn around and be back at the car quickly. By this time, I started to worry about my gas, as we didn't anticipate being gone this one and didn't bring any extra gas. We decided to go back and take a trail that we had seen earlier. We did so, only find out a couple miles down the road, that again, it ended at a dead-end. We decided at this time because it was so late, and the amount of gas I had was getting low, that we ought to just go back the way we came. That way we would be able to know exactly where we were, and if we had to hide my machine, we would be able to get to it easily. So that is what we did. We flew down the roads were on, and eventually got back to the truck just
before it was completely dark. My main tank of gas ran out about 3 miles away from the truck, so I had to use the reserve tank. Cody checked his odometer when we got back and said that we had gone just over 39 miles that day. That may not seem like a lot, but when you go on trails that we did, it was a pretty dang long ride. But I know we all had a fun time, even though Brittany would argue that we got lost.
(I outlined our route in purple on the map. It is right in the middle of the map)