I keep this in my (firefox) bookmarks because:

1. I might make money and time to visit Italy and how better than on an Italian bike?

2. 100 hundred degree days like these have been in Wisconsin lately, and 40 below days like they are every other day. My brain is already neurologically wedded to the Internet, so fantasizing about traveling to Italy is almost the same as being there.

3. Scott and Valentino might finally come to some kind of agreement so I can spend my winters with my Italian boyfriend.

I came to Wisconsin and decided I wanted an old toaster BMW. I found out about a BMW club who hung out in Hudson on Saturday mornings and approached them. They were wary, but finally gave me a name: Walter.

Walter has a huge garage. I believe it is smaller than his home. The front is filled with bikes, some in dusty disrepair, like the 850T with the seized engine and then the bright yellow Ducati. Eureka! This old guy and his wife Elaine became our lifelong friends. After tooling around on the Honda Dream my sweetheart had procured from yet another toaster owner in Hudson, I knew I was ready to step up to the 500. I just wasn’t ready to leave the vintage class. Not yet. I ended up selling her right back to Walter when I bought my own Ducati a few years later. And just like Walter, we can’t even park our cars in our own sizable garage–just too many bikes.