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Near-Perfect Ride, too! - Sandy in Canada
I don't know how I came to be on your mailing list for the first time
today, but I want to say "Thanks" for the email about your short
breakfast ride to a friend's house. It was just what I needed this
morning. As I was riding my Road King into the office this morning,
April 29th, temperature about 45 but with the sun shining, I was feeling
just a little frustrated about working my 28th straight day without a
break, the joys of being an accountant in tax season which here in
Canada ends on April 30th. Being one of the senior partners in our firm
doesn't make any difference, tax season is tax season.
I was thinking
about my wife and several of our friends heading out without me this
afternoon for a ride up to Lake Huron for lunch. My wife said she
wasn't going to go and would wait for me to get home and maybe we could
take an early evening ride together, but I said she should go ahead
because by later in the day it would be cool again and she should not
miss a great day.
Anyway, I am sure you are getting sense of my
frustration. It is only about a 20 minute ride from home to the office
but I can take one road that runs along the river most of the way. It
is just perfect on a sunny morning and as I was riding along feeling
sorry for myself, I looked up and saw a hawk flying up over the river,
just floating along. I thought, if I was in my car I would not have
seen it, but on my bike I saw that beautiful picture of the hawk soaring
over the water with the early morning mist still rising off the water.
It was one of those special moments on the bike, when you are totally at
peace and have a smile on your face.
When I got to the office you email was one of several waiting for me,
and reading it gave me a moment to reflect on my ride in this morning.
Life is good even if I am in the office on Sunday, and you are right,
even a twenty minute ride can be near perfect. After over 30 years of
riding, being on a bike is still one of the best places in life to be.
I am going to attach a picture of my wife and
I. It was taken about a year ago on a trip just after Claire got her
new FXR. It was one of those perfect days.
Ride long, ride safe.
Sandy
Everybody questions the wisdom of riding a motorcycle from time to
time. Whether it be the safety aspect of eight square inches of road
contact at 80mph or the discomfort on those 30 degree April mornings
or the inevitable rain showers. But the answer is simple... Often
enough to bear up to those headaches are those "Near-Perfect Rides".
The ones where you raise your chin to the sky just a bit higher,
suck in the clean air, and smile, knowing you're in the middle of
another one... the kind of ride that keeps us going.
I found that feeling again this morning on a 60 mile ride home from
a friends house. Stopping off for breakfast John Boy's cafe in a
small backwoods intersection in rural North Carolina - eating
eggs and grits and sausage patty (hand patted from a fresh home-made
batch of country sausage that you city boys'll never experience) and
contemplating the view out the window past the silk flowers and
Coca-Cola memorabilia that cover the insides of this place - I began
to realize this short ride has the makings of a Near-Perfect one.
After listening to a mother correct her 2yr old son that my bike was
a 'motorcycle' not a bicycle... I found myself correcting her that it
was a 'Harley' not a motorcycle. May as well make the proper
distinction and teach the boy good taste at an early age!
With the temperature in the low 60's, comfortable enough for the
lightweight gloves and no chaps, the rising sun obscured from my
eyes by puffy high clouds, little or no traffic, and one of my
Rock 'n Road tapes keeping me company on the two-lane backroads,
breakfast settling in and no time limit to have to be home by....
a wide grin spreads across by face.
Seems like every turn added to the conclusion that this is definately
a ride to add to the list. Deer watching from the shoulder as I
putt by, toothless grins from the porches of the homesteads that
dot the roadsides, every stoplight turns green at my approach and
every stopsign clear of traffic. Ol' Huck is purring and what few
cars get in my way seem to be at the dotted yellow line with no
approaching traffic. Life is good.
Only thing missing is Kim in the ol'lady seat.
But...."Near-Perfect" is good enough!
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Hope you have yourself set for another year of Muthuh's Rides.
Been on a few short ones already and looking forward to some good
ones this year. Not as many, but good ones. Don't look for me at
any more rally's. Not gonna do those anymore except for one day in
Myrtle. I find the bikers that define their experiences by the number
of rally's they attend are tiresome. Traffic is awful, bars are
crowded and price gouging is criminal... I'm going to concentrate
on the adventure of the open road and backroads America.
Look forward to seeing ya at http://www.Muthuh.com
 For Information, contact: Muthuh@Muthuh.com
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