All things considered, I had a really good weekend. On Saturday morning, I woke up at zero-dark-30 to drive down to Annapolis and pick up Zachary for another snowboarding day. We were able to get to Pennsylvania, get our gear and be on the slopes by 8:30.

Years ago, when I was mountain biking regularly with Rob, he taught me everything about how to do it right. Being a full 6 inches shorter than me, and having spent a ton of time on the West Coast biking on original trails, he knew what he was doing and would launch himself down mountain sides with abandon—but the key was that he was always in control. He showed me how to lean all the way back in the saddle and control my balance on the bike itself, anticipate obstacles and the right way to get over them, and just to generally not be afraid. After riding with him for a couple of seasons, I could keep up with him and follow him down steep mountainsides without blinking—often we found ourselves laughing the harder things got.

With Zachary on Saturday, we started on the intermediate slope and I followed behind as he snowplowed back and forth to get his balance and technique sorted out. We ditched our heavy winter gear after the second run, opting to go in longsleeve shirts under the warm sun, and by the fifth run he started carving back and forth—and I had to work to keep up with him. I found that I had to push myself to stay behind him, and that old familiar feeling of unease and exhilaration put a smile on my face. We went nonstop from 8:30 until about 3PM, and I tapped out when my right leg (my steering leg) started getting wobbly. Zachary did one more run by himself (another excellent sign) and we packed it in at 3:30. He’s ready to level up to the advanced slopes, and I’m going to have to spend some serious time this summer working on my core and leg muscles to be ready to follow him down those trails next season, as well as screw up my courage to follow him, just like I did with his dad 30 years ago.

Sunday morning Finn and I woke early, got some breakfast, and took Hazel for a hike in Patapsco State Park near the house. It was a beautiful day to be outside, and we got to talk about a bunch of different things while waiting for Hazel to smell the smells. She was happy to be out on the trails, and even though she claimed she wanted to walk as far as possible, I could tell she was gassed when we got to the top of the steeper climbs. I’m resolving to make hiking a weekly activity, both to get her out of the house, but also to try and re-connect.

Back at home, I put the carb back on the Travelall, drained as much gas out of the tank as possible, and did a wet compression test on the Scout 800. After monkeying with the distributor for a bit, I finally got it running! Once I sorted that out I jumped in and got it in gear and moving forward and backwards. This is a HUGE relief, and I’m extremely pleased with myself for sticking with it and diagnosing all of the issues up until this point. Now I need to sort the front brakes out to get at least a little stopping power, and I should be able to pull it around to the garage and swap vehicles out.

Back inside after the sun went down, I sat on the couch and mindlessly surfed the web with the dog snoring next to me, feeling the soreness in my entire body—my legs, arms, hands, back, neck, and brain. It’s been a while since I’ve gone that hard and it left me righteously tired. Given how fucked up current events are right now, it was good to have a bunch of wins close to home.