Milestones

We hit a couple of milestones this week. The first was a truck. We went with a 2006 Ford F-350 Super-Duty. We got it for just under Blue Book value, and with slightly lower-than-average miles (55k). The tonneau cover will be sold to help pay for the hitch, and the bedliner carpet will probably get sold as well. We now have three-fourths of our transportation needs. Still looking for a cargo trailer.

We continue to downsize our belongings, and that’s been almost excruciating. As we go through different rooms in the house, I keep finding things I meant to fix, or projects I was going to get around to and didn’t. Those are painful reminders of a variety of character flaws, not the least of which is my procrastination. I’ll tell you more about that later.

One of the downsizing decisions that I had already made was that I would sell my 1997 Honda Goldwing. I bought it back in 2007 when I had a job and needed economical transportation when gas was over $3.00 a gallon. Motorcycles aren’t new to me. I bought my first back in 1989 after I got out of the Army. I kept that one (a Honda CB650) for a couple of years, then didn’t ride for a long time.

My next bike was a 93 Harley Davidson Ultra Classic that I bought from Diana’s mom and stepdad. I kept that for several years, even as I was working for Police Motorcycle Escort. Over about 7 years, I figure I rode about 100,000 miles on a bike—and got paid to do it. I loved that job. There was little in the world better than being able to say “I get paid to ride a motorcycle.” I just love to ride, and those who feel the same way understand how rough this time is for me.

But there’s no easy way to transport the Goldwing, and I’m not sure about the economics of storing a bike for an indeterminate time. We just don’t know how long we’ll be on the road, and we don’t know where we’ll settle when we’re done, so it doesn’t really make sense to hold on to it.

My birthday was last week, and the bike is registered in my name, meaning it was time to make a decision about the bike. Spend $54 to register it, even though it would be sold in the next three months that didn’t have a lot of good riding weather, or let it expire, and go ahead and list it. The money isn’t that big of a deal. We can afford it, but should we spend it? Tough decision, really. But there are a lot of tough decisions here as we downsize.

So some time tomorrow or Friday, I’ll start it up and head out for the last ride. There’s no guarantee I won’t get another bike. But this will be the first significant length of time I’ll be without a bike in 13 years. Even back in 2007, I was only off a bike for about three months. This time will be much longer, and not knowing when I’ll be on a bike again makes it that much more painful.