One of our favorite trails, the less traveled Oakridge Trail, was closed. That has been the norm for the last several years now - one or more sections of trail are closed almost all summer long. Something about culvert washouts this time. Shit, I remember many years ago when there were no culverts and very few bridges. When the trail crossed a swamp, it crossed a SWAMP! Nowadays all the trails are sissified. A little rain or mud and it's automatically closed for most of the season.
Whatever happened to our more than doubled ATV registration money anyway? I recently read that they are cutting back on grooming the Jackson trails to once a month, due to rising fuel costs. I would like to earmark all of my registration fees for the Jackson trails, exclusively. I mean, come on! No new trails have been developed and now we can't even afford to maintain the few we have and keep them open all summer? All since more than doubling the registration fee, not to mention the explosive increase in the number of registered machines? Maybe we should cut the registration fee in half and go back to the way it was when the system worked better.
That money is being wasted somewhere instead of spent on the trails. For one, the state association and their TPA program are sucking us dry. Hopefully someone will step in before it's too late and cut the funding. It only makes us look bad anyway. I've had anti-ATV people comment to me that ATVers are so evil they are the only recreational group to need their own civilian police force! What kind of an image is that to portray? Let's continue to behave ourselves as usual and leave the law enforcement to the real law enforcement officers in the few instances where they are actually needed. No need to shine a big "civilian police force" spotlight on a problem that does not exist, just to get a large slice of the registration money pie!
Ka-bump, ka-bump, ka-bump, my $ at work, my $ at work, my $ at work.
