1-month, 2- wheels, 3- dragged foot pegs....

I have been drooling over motorcycles for 33 years now. It really is my parents fault. When I was5 and my brother was 6 we moved to a house on the other side of the railroad tracks. The other side of the tracks from 2 different motorcycle dealers. My brother and I used to go over and hang out in the shops looking at chrome, rubber, aluminum and steel. There was a Honda dealer right behind our house and a Kawasaki dealer down the street from him. Lots of CB's, KZ's, and all sorts of things to grab the fascination of a 5 year old. We used to wait till the new models would come out and we would BEG the shop guys to give us the old posters from the previous models and we would decorate our rooms with them. In the next 33 years my motorcycle experience other than reading every monthly edition of Cycleworld or Motorcyclist I could lay my hand on was limited to rides with uncles, cousins or friends who I could mooch rides off of. Vfr500 Interceptor, Kawi LTD440, briggs and stratton scooters, vespa scooters, anything I could lay my hands on. In my teens my mother would always speak of the evils of motorcycles and how our family friend Huckle had been run off in the ditch on his bike by some drunk crazy and he laid there for hours until he dragged himself up to the road for help. Then recently we got onto a discussion about bikes and she brought up the fact the around the time she was pregnant with me and right after my brother was born that she had ridden the 125-250 size enduro street bike that dad had bought as backup transport for the family car. So evidently I was bitten by the motorcycle bug while in the womb. Flash a couple weeks forward and I set my sites on a certain bike, call them, do the research and drive up and pull the trigger. Hello to one 2005 Honda Interceptor 800 sport touring bike. Picked it up with my pickup and took it to Dads house and put it there. Sign up for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation beginners class the following weekend. $300 at the local Harley dealer in Lakeland, FL. Dave and Bill are the instructors. I wont bore you with the details, but it was a hugely informative class and I would highly encourage ANYONE new or old to take it to pickup new skills and safe driving techniques. The highlight of the weekend was leaning over far enough in the cornering skills exercise that I actually dragged the footpegs in turns in both directions on the cool little Buell Blast 500cc bikes they provide for the classes. I was able to work thru a lot of the jitters and relearn the proper techniques to do battle on the streets without being a total idiot. So I aced the riding test Sunday afternoon and aced the written test Sunday afternoon, and picked up my paperwork and headed to Dads house. I had ridden around the neighborhood on the new Honda a couple times. Enough to realize that it is a supremely powerful bike, and while it seems intimidating at first, what it really needs is smooth throttle, clutch and brake skills and it responds well. So I filled her up, loaded her up with my weekend bag and pointed it south towards Sebring by way of Grandma's place and a friends house in Winter Haven. The Winter haven part was a last minute detour when the south to Sebring route was filled with a dark sky and rain. 123.4 miles later I was home safe with a huge smile on my face, a sore butt from 2 full days of sitting on motorcycles, a numb finger from the vibrating clutch lever on the Blast motorcycle, and sense of accomplishment from completing the class and my first long trip on my new Honda. I dont think I can fully explain my sense of wanderlust and anticipation to the roads ahead that I want to cover. I cant tell you what they all will be, because the wander part of wanderlust is striking me again for the first time since I used to drive a semi-tractor cross country about 10 years ago. Keep your ears peeled and if you hear a Roadrunner style "beep beep" in your driveway that is probably me!