Three perfect excuses for a quick evening ride

Motorcycle enthusiasts can come up with any type of excuse to go for a ride. We had three perfect excuses tonight:

• It's a beautiful early Fall day in Vermont, with warm temperatures, sunshine, and the beginnings of the leaves changing color.
• We plan to ride tomorrow afternoon, but the weather report isn't looking good:  high winds and torrential downpours.
• I haven't gone to the grocery store, so dinner is either canned soup or we can eat out.

Even though it was 70 degrees and sunny at 4:45pm when we got on the BMW, we knew it would be dusk before we finished tonight's trip. That means packing the cold weather gear and wearing my Celtic Rider neckwarmer. Of course whenever I put on the neckwarmer, I remember the fun we had this summer in Ireland.

Riding to dinner at Jake's in Londonderry is a familiar trip, which gives me time to pay attention to the small details that I seem to miss when we're in a car. The crisp edge to the air that feels so different from hot and humid weather just two weeks ago. The brown curl to the ferns that line our dirt road. We haven't had our first frost yet, but it's coming, and the plants are already curling up for the winter. The colorful purple, yellow and red mums that our more energetic neighbors already planted. Halloween decorations at Dutton's. Dusty brownish-orange maple leaves that in another week will pop in bright colors and draw hordes of tourists to our mountains.

We sit down for dinner before 5:30, the first ones in the dining room. We don't usually eat dinner this early, but we prefer to get home before it's completely dark to miss the coyotes, deer, bear and moose that prowl the area. After dinner I pull on the cold weather layer I thankfully packed and stay warm behind Mike as we head west over the mountain toward home. The setting sun hung just above the mountains and blinded us for a few seconds each time we crested a hill. I read in today's paper how a woman earlier this week ran into the car in front of her. She didn't see the car until she slammed into it, blaming the sun for momentarily blinding her. We rode in and out of the shadows until finally the sun was completely below the mountains.

We were on the bike for 16 hours our first day on the trip to Missouri this summer, and we've spent 11 days in a row riding in the Alps. Our short ride this evening took less than two hours, including dinner, yet we accumulated memories, enjoyed the cool breeze, and pointed out the signs lining the road for the Peru Fair this weekend. Plus we pulled into the driveway just as our neighbors were turning on their lights. Home before dark.