{"id":6137,"date":"2015-04-30T12:10:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T18:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/?p=6137"},"modified":"2015-04-29T22:10:51","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T04:10:51","slug":"my-unexpected-last-ride-to-work-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/my-unexpected-last-ride-to-work-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"My (Unexpected) Last Ride To Work Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The OFMC on one of our numerous visits to national parks, this one being the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

For something kind of significant it was awfully ordinary.<\/p>\n

I was expecting to ride a bike to work yesterday or today, with that being my final ride to work, but there was no work for me to do so I didn’t go in either day. Now on Thursday and Friday I will go in but I’ll need my car both days. That means when I rode to work last week on Tuesday, that was my last ride to work.<\/p>\n

And I don’t mean just for this job; I mean forever. When I leave the office at the National Park Service on Friday I will be officially retired. Done.<\/p>\n

Of course, I’ll continue to write, both here and other places on a freelance basis. I’m a writer. That’s what I do, like breathing. Plus, doing freelance work gives me an extra push to get out and do some great rides, and it also makes my expenses when I do those great rides tax deductible. Why in the world would I stop writing?<\/p>\n

But I won’t be riding to work any more. So how was my last ride?<\/p>\n

First off, it was a little cooler than I anticipated. In the morning I was glad I did wear my sweatshirt but the electric vest might have been welcome. Traffic on Hampden was seriously backed up for no reason I could perceive, until I got past Santa Fe. Then things opened up and I cruised. It was a totally uneventful ride.<\/p>\n

Heading home I decided to leave a little early. The sky to the west was threatening in a big way and while I had my rain gear I really preferred not to have to use it if it could be avoided. Plus, I’ve got short-timer’s syndrome and by mid-afternoon I really didn’t want to be there any longer. So I left.<\/p>\n

Raindrops were falling as I walked out to the bike but I figured once I started heading east I could outrun it. As I worked my way over to Union, south on Union, east to Kipling, and then south on Kipling to US 285 it was a steady, but light drizzle. Then I got on 285 and blasted and soon left the wetness behind me.<\/p>\n

From there it was a simple, again uneventful cruise on home. No pictures, no stories to tell. And no chance for another, different final ride to work as I had expected. Oh well, mundane is fine, I guess. I don’t really have a desire to “live in interesting times.”<\/p>\n

Biker Quote for Today<\/h3>\n

The difference between driving a car and riding a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For something kind of significant it was awfully ordinary. I was expecting to ride a bike to work yesterday or today, with that being my final ride to work, but there was no work for me to do so I didn’t go in either day. Now on Thursday and Friday I will go in but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[697],"class_list":["post-6137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado-motorcycle-rides","tag-ride-motorcycle-to-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6137"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6144,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6137\/revisions\/6144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}