Screw the Gator, we gotta get some of These!

We have a John Deere Gator that we use for trails maintenance.  It's The World's Greatest Wheelbarrow.  We can haul stuff, tow stuff, mow stuff, and maybe even carry an injured person out of the woods (EMS's job technically).  But it's a great tool and and we've gotten a lot of heavy duty use out of it.

 Here's Jim and Rich mowing the RecPath at Lane St this summer with The Gator.  It's a great tool for trail maintenance.  We've been hemming and hawing about the best time to get the water pump fixed on the Gator this Fall, what Martinka's schedule was, how to fit it into our mowing schedule, etc.

Screw the Gator, lets get a couple of these bad boys.  If we get not one, but two of these (you always need a back up), we could not only do trail work, but we could catch illegal ATV's on the trail.  Heck, if Bill can get the Gator airbourne imagine what he could do with one of these things (Rich, that is not an invitation to Photoshop).   Whatever you do, do not stick Bill's noggin on a Dukes of Hazard photo.

 I was getting a Stihl kit to add to my leaf blower so I could clean my gutters at home. I picked it up at CT Powersports in Wallingford, and they had enough ATV's and off road vehicles to look like the scene from a Mad Max Movie.  I was amazed.

I asked one of the guys there what these go for, ballpark.   He said "$9,000 and up, the sky's the limit".  These things not only have heat, they have windshield whippers, roll bars, and cup holders!  These rides are sweet.

And they had a whole building full of them, a big building, plus more outside!  Plus they had other outdoor toys like jet skis and motorcycles.  This place was impressive.

It's amazing how much money is being spent on these vehicles.  I say in jest that we should trade in our John Deere Gator, but it's been a great tool for us, and we would never get rid of it.  I wonder where are all the places that people ride these off-road vehicles and ATVs; do folks have permission to ride them legally there?  The City of Shelton has banned motorized vehicles from City streets, open spaces and parks due to all the damage and complaints.  So too has the CT DEEP at State Parks, Aquarion Water Company at their watershed property, UI, Eversource, Iroquois Gas at their ROWs, and most of the major farms and landowners at their property.

They look really cool, but where do people ride these expensive toys legally?  Maybe some of the people who sell these things could fund some privately-owned ATV parks where they can ride legally.  It seems like the market is there, the questions are where can they be ridden legally, and how high can Bill get one of them to go.