I knew I made the right decision to take part of the day off when....

I'll get to that in a minute. But first, a little background. There are three connected roads very close by that are nirvana for motorcycle riders. The road closest to me has been closed for years due to storm damage and the resulting repairs as well as the annual Summer high fire danger. But mostly because the local idiot kids can't stop getting themselves killed and/or injured on it every weekend.

The three roads intersect about 12 miles up the mountain in the middle of nowhere. From there, they branch out in two other directions towards some sort of civilization. In order to ride this biker-nirvana road, I have to travel miles in either direction to get to the other access points so that I can ride towards the junction then ride back out on one of the available roads. I did that this morning. And a great time was had by... me.

The part where I knew I had made the right decision was when I got to the junction and was trying to decide which of the two available ways I wanted to ride down, when I spied a couple of Deputy Sheriffs opening the heretofore locked gate that leads down the part of the road that deposits travelers 1/2 mile from my house.

After a couple minutes of conversation, one of them asked me if I wanted to ride down the now temporarily open road. I said "Sure!", "Really?" as I hustled back to my bike. He said "Sure. Just don't kill yourself." I assured him that that was not my intention as I motored slowly through the open gate and onto the portion of the biker-nirvana road that has been closed to for years.

"Yep", I was thinking to myself. "I made the right decision."

So, besides having a great ride, I got home an hour earlier than I would have had I been forced to ride around the long way. I took it as a sign that I should get back to work. So I did. But I had a great morning off.

And that's the rest of the story.