Dirt Girl

My 13-year-old daughter decided last week that she was ready to try some trail rides. I planned the first one carefully to avoid a bad experience: short, not too technical, relatively flat.

Every time we arrived at an intersection and I'd point to the trail that led back to the car, she'd point in another direction and say, "Where does that go? Can we try it?"

She rode over rocks and roots, cleaned a bunch of singletrack, chuckled about her mistake when she overcooked a turn, and laughed out loud as she juked around trees on tight corners. As we climbed a hill on Viewpoint Trail, I asked over my shoulder if she wanted to go out front.

"Yeah," she said with a little laugh. "I'm right on your wheel."

Funny. Getting dropped on a hill never made me happy before.