These past five years have been a wee bit brutal. My subscription to adrenaline ran out with little hope for my ability to afford its return. I used to play in the world of adrenaline junkies and while I wasn’t a pro I liked to do a lot of the same things. You know, things like mountain biking, rock climbing, sky diving, snowboarding, whitewater kayaking, etc. Those things. I had kids and converted them to a few of those events, my goodness, I even got my wife scuba certified at The Hole in Colorado (she doesn’t deal with cold very well, it this was a cold one. All so we could go to the Caribbean and dive). One of my sons is on the high school mountain biking team. Another one got scuba certified in another hole-like place in Utah (don’t worry, I lived in Hawaii and did diving there too). And my oldest son works at a ski resort so he can snowboard as much as possible!

Despite my marvelous success at fatherhood (passing on good hobbies is really the only thing that really needs to be done by a father) my own adventurous pace seemed to hit a wall about 3 years ago and I’m just now able to admit it. But I certainly don’t like it.

This week I took my boy to his mountain bike practice session and instead of electing to ride with a group I firmly stood my ground and went about it solo. Maybe I could of kept up but it sure sounded like a lot of work. I hardly whipped down the trail and I didn’t catch any air this go around. Those high school kids are fast these days on their 29 inch wheels and full suspension. Some “coaches” accompany with E-bikes but I’m not there yet. I went half the distance I’d planned on and decided that was good enough. That’s a weird phenomenon that’s never happened before. Am I less of the man I once was because my nerves are a bit strained on the gnarlier portions? That even happened while going up a not-so-gnarly part (granted I was newly using the clipless system). My kids are stealing my man card! Not cool! Or maybe it is cool…

View from North Fork Park into the valley

Out there riding I saw this guy taking care of his horse and I think I was more inclined to talk with him about his horses than I was to finish up my ride. So as I stopped and looked at his operations I realized there were millions of dragonflies out there. I don’t know how they knew to stay away from the MTB trail but I was thankful. I’ve seen a handful of these things at my house as well but never have I seen them in the population like now and up in the mountains. Maybe it has to do with all the water we’ve had this year, like the mosquitoes.

Then I went surfing Ogden style (flow boarding) yesterday, it’s the kind where you ride on the jet waves over the blue rubber, super fun. Fell down a few times and that was enough for me. We still had another 30 minutes but I was good not carrying on any further-the kids kept having fun.

Turns out I’m mortal after all I guess. The best I can do now is take pictures and basque while watching my progenity fully enjoying God’s creations. Ah who am I kidding? I’ll keep trying to keep up or just be fine going slow for a long time yet. I’ve still got to learn how to kite surf after all.

And here’s a helpful tip-go buy your Snowbasin Season Passes, prices go up again on 5 September after Labor Day. Oh, and now they have pins to give you for making it up on the lift 25 days or more; so definitely worth the life savings price of the season pass.