Peter jumped at the idea, but caving isn't really my thing. I liked doing the touristy thing at Carlsbad and Meramec Caverns on my bike trips, but four-hour excursions to places like "the meat grinder" and "pancake"? Eh, no thanks. So we tossed the XT in the back of the truck and I puttered around the area while the rest of the kids were being grinded and pancaked and muddied up.

When we got there, I started gearing up in the parking lot, only to discover.....

I'd left my boots at home.

Go me! Well now, this is interesting. The only shoes I had with me were my canvas hightop Converse sneakers. Awesome. There went my ideas of finding some cool offroad trails. Oh, and did I mention it was raining? What could be better than canvas shoes?

Well, I made do. I borrowed some gaffers tape from Esther and taped up my shoes the best I could. Nothing but style and class, that's me.

Fortunately the riding itself was pretty cool. Once I realized that Converse meant no Stanislaus National Forest roads for me, I asked the guides at the visitors center/giftshop for suggestions. I wound up with a nice 50-mile loop on some great backroads, including 10 miles of easy dirt.

Michel Road, the road leading to and from California Cavern, is pretty neat in and of itself:

Another great back road, Old Gulch Road:

Fricot City Road is paved up until Fricot City (really just a few buildings; more on that in a second) and turns to dirt afterwards.

The paved section is wonderful and has great panoramas and vistas.

I met this little friend along the road in Fricot City.

The guide at California Cavern had told me that Fricot City is a "really weird little town". I figured he meant in the same way that all rural Sierra foothill towns are a little weird...but no. Fricot City really is sort of strange.

Its main attraction seems to be the Rite of Passage high school, which looks like a normal school at first, until you notice the "visitation" parking areas. The best I can find online is that it's a "residential treatment site" for "at-risk" boys. According to the website, one of the core tenets is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is pretty neat stuff. At any rate, there were no students or faculty around when I drove by, so the residence buildings looked like a gray and misty ghost town on this rainy day.

After the high school, the road turns to easy dirt. I took it slow, second gear, because of the whole no-boots thing. I stopped for a bazillion photos and had a great time.

It started raining in earnest as I neared the town of San Andreas and the gaffers tape on my shoes was giving up. I stopped at the Calaveras County Museum, which was spectacular and well worth the $3 admission.

My favorite part of the museum was the jailyard, which included photos of the sheriffs of Calaveras County from 1849 - present.

The whole museum really is cool, though, and I definitely recommend it if you're at all interested in California history.

The ride back to California Cavern was pretty uneventful and I hung around the gift shop for a while waiting for the gang to get back from caving.

You can see the shoes didn't really work out so well:

The triumphant -- but muddy -- cavers return!

Yuck!

All in all, everyone had a great time. Though next time I'll try to remember my boots.