Yesterday was a perfect day for an ATV ride. It’s a short drive through Wellington to Farnham Dome (or the Farnham Anticline) and I’ve been wanting to ride there for a couple of weeks, so that’s where we decided to go. We’d ridden in that area once before right after we bought the ATVs, but we didn’t really get to explore it well. Our ride was pretty short, only 6.5 miles, but we spent almost four hours there. There are a lot of old gas wells in the area (I believe they’re either natural gas or carbon dioxide, or both), and we stopped at nearly every one that we saw. After seeing a few of them, I was able to figure out how they used to work. There used to be brick furnaces (none of which remain standing) that heated water in a boiler, and the steam was used to power the well pumps, which were supported by enormous wooden timber frames. Only one of the timber frames remained, so all the rest must have been hauled off.
The first half of the ride went slowly because of all the stops we made. After we reached the south end of the anticline, we stopped to eat a quick snack. Then we hit another trail that looped around to the west and then back north toward where the truck was parked. Before heading off on this trail, I mounted Traci’s camera to a bracket I’d made on my ATV so that I could capture video of us riding. The trail roughly follows a wash, sometimes crossing the wash and other times following the bottom of it. It was a really fun ride, and we did it pretty quickly. The ride south had taken about three hours, and the ride back north took about 20 minutes. Here’s a video of the ride:

The next time I shoot video of a ride, I’ll try to get a combination of ATV-mounted shots, helmet-mounted shots (I have yet to try the helmet cam out), and handheld shots. I may even try to make another mounting bracket somewhere else on the ATV where I can get a better view of the trail ahead of me. I hope that Traci’s camera can stand up to the abuse. I hit a few bushes with it yesterday, and my tires flung some mud on it, but it’s a pretty inexpensive camera so it won’t be too painful to replace, if it comes to that.