This is FLMNG1 - my Honda Shadow 1100 ACE. Tomorrow, I ride. I ride almost every day, but tomorrow I ride for me.

SIENNA MODE

The picture is taken in sienna mode on my camera. I didn't know I had a sienna mode on my camera, but all I really need to do to find out that I had a sienna mode on my digital camera was to hand it to my 14 year old daughter. As you can see, I did that. Then, when said 14 year old daughter abandons me to go to the mall and leaves me with the camera set on sienna mode, I spend 15 minutes setting up a picture of something - such as my motorcycle - only to discover that the camera has a sienna mode and that the camera is in said sienna mode. Since the 14 year old daughter is now hanging out at Abercrombie and Fitch (although as she read this over my shoulder, she claims she now goes to Hollister), she isn't available to take the camera OFF sienna mode or even explain how she got it on sienna mode in the first place. The result is a picture of FLMNG1 in sienna mode.

FREEDOM

Riding is very liberating. It brings a sense of freedom that can be obtained from only a handful of sources of which I am aware. In truth, the only other thing that I can think of that offers this sense is sailing. I am from Iowa and now live in Arizona; I have never sailed. Not one single time. But I can imagine how wonderful it must be to escape from the confines of land, the noise and hustle and bustle of traffic and slip off the coast running under the power of only the wind. It is exhilirating to consider what it must be like to climb onto a sailboat and have the entire planet open for exploration for the price of a breeze. I subscribe to three sailing magazines but have never sailed. Yet I have dreamed of the day when I will.

For now, the open road is the surrogate. It serves as my sea and provides me with the same endless expanse of imagination and of places unexplored. A turn of the key, a twist of the wrist and the rumbling engine sends me sailing away on an adventure to somewhere. I'll decide where when I arrive.

I once read that "a truly contented man can enjoy the scenery along a detour." Some of the best times on FLMNG1 have been those detours; it isn't the destination that even matters. The ride is the point. The destination is simply one of infinite options; a point on an infinite line. I know that it is at those detours that take me to a place I couldn't possibly plan to see...yet there I am. I am, at that moment, content.

Ride. You can do it. Certainly it can be dangerous - I cannot deny that. I have had several near brushes with the underside of a soccer mom's Suburban when she, without notice and while using her cell phone, absentmindedly decided to change lanes going from the one she was using to the one I was using. But I'll leave you with the same advice I give my children when they are afraid to do something and that is the following: "A ship is safe in the harbor, but that isn't what ships were made for."

Sail!