When the promise of spring is in the air its time to ride. But today's promise wasn't one of spring; it was one of rain. Lots of rain. The original plan for Tracy and I to go get her feet muddy were rapidly sounding like something best left to another day. But we had invited Ryan and he was determined to get out on two wheels. After a quick change of venue and a bit more of his persuasion, Tracy and I agreed to meet up for some back road exploration in the foothills of the Cascades.

I was primarily leery of riding today because I had street tires on the KLR. I swear that my VFR has more traction than these tires. But Ryan just started riding in the dirt recently and Tracy had never been, so I hoped that everything would even out with my little "handicap".

Gearing up in a new-to-me jacket and pants specifically bought for this purpose, I hopped onto the KLR to pick up Tracy at her house. She dragged her DRZ400 out of the garage and it started on the second push of the button. She geared up and then we were on our way to Ryan's house, just a few miles away. The sky threatened rain this whole time, and while the roads were damp there was little active precipitation to add to the ground moisture.

Ryan was ready in about 10 minutes and we let him lead us out of his neighborhood in Mill Creek through the back roads to Sultan. I had been on most of those roads before, but they were on good tires and dry pavement. I didn't care for how these tires reacted to the wet and often slimy surface and therefore kept the speeds down. Ryan and Tracy were understanding and held a decent pace for me to match. Not long after leaving Mill Creek we entered the small town of Sultan and continued to follow Ryan as he took the Sultan-Basin Rd turnoff. We rode through a tacky new neighborhood before the road became rural and the houses further apart. Then the pavement ended and we were left on good dirt road. The rain was falling gently by now, but nothing too bad. I aired down the tires on the KLR in hopes that I'd get a little more traction and that seemed to help as well.

We stopped at Spada Lake, its murky waters gathered before a man-made dam and not very inviting in the cold. But the snow-capped mountains that surrounded it and the dark pines that framed it were beautiful and the grouping made for a nice view.