The wind wailed outside my office window. Leaves, rain and yes, snow, blew past in furious gusts. It was, as this morning’s paper called it,  a “warning shot” from winter. Time to hang it up for the season.

I got out the leather cleaner (great stuff from Australia) and began rubbing it into my chaps, which were still muddy from our last ride. I thought about the places I’d seen this past motorcycle season: the Mississippi River headwaters, B.B. King’s in Memphis, New Orleans’ French Quarter. How I’d learned that Iowa isn’t always flat, and armadillos live in Missouri.

As I wiped smashed insects off of my jacket, I thought about how my leathers had kept me dry during a Tennessee thunderstorm and actually afforded some cooling in the humid Deep South.

As I reached into the closet for the hanger, I realized I had’t put the lining back in this fall. That was one hell of a riding season!