The weekend is here and it’s the night before the day I have elected to ride my motorcycle all day.  I have to make a decision.  Do I go for a laid back lounge ride and take the Harley or do I get some thrills and take the Ducati?  I want to get out and leave everything behind.  I choose the Ducati.  Immediately this decision gives me butterflies in my stomach.  The excitement is too much and I won’t get a good nights sleep.  I will be leaving all my problems, chores, and cares behind.  I won’t have to explain my every route decision or debate where to eat, if at all, to my passenger as would be the case on the Harley.

Morning arrives and it seems like Christmas.  Today I will live life more than most other people do in a lifetime.  If the pharmaceutical companies could somehow bottle up my feelings and put them into a pill they would make millions off of the most addictive drug ever produced.  I open the garage door and am greeted by blue skies and beams of sunlight.  The sun fills my garage and illuminates the red paint on the Ducati.  Today will be epic.

During my ride everything is left behind.  I am not working for “the man”, performing any routine suburban weekend chores, or shopping for any of those “necessities” we all crave.  It’s just me, the bike, and those lovely rumble notes coming from my exhaust.

I straddle the Ducati, the wife gives me a kiss bye, and I shift into gear and take off.  There is nothing but winding roads in the Texas Hill Country awaiting me.  I ride all day braking in to turns, gliding through them, and powering out.  I simply can’t get enough.  There are nothing but smiles under my helmet the whole time.  At times I can not contain my emotions any longer and I let out a crack of WHOOOOHOOOOO!!!!! as loud as my lungs can produce.  I just wonder to myself how lucky I am to be in the current position I am in while most everyone else is doing those things which I have managed to escape today.

After an entire day of riding I feel guilty.  Guilty at having had so much pleasure through the day.  It almost seems unfair.  Almost.  This is probably one of the few things that even allows me to point my bike back in the direction from which I came, home.  After all I could do this forever.  I do have that wonderful family though and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.  So I cruise home fully satisfied from what the day has brought me.  I glide through the neighborhood and up towards our house.  From within our house you can always here the Ducati rumbling up the neighborhood. This brings my family outside to see me pull up in the driveway.  I coast up into the garage and turn off the engine.  We never “kill” the engine on a Ducati.  We only pause it.  They always look as excited as me when I pull up.  They all have smiles and ask how the ride was.  My oldest boy just shakes his head in fascination while looking at the bike and how beautiful it is.  “Man Dad, someday I am gonna have one of those” he says.  I can only hope that someday he does.  After all, even he is farther along on that path of living life more fully than most people.  He “gets it”.