I hit the road at about 4:30 AM CST with suppressed excitement and a thirst for caffeine. Last minute decisions to stay or go were fresh in my mind as the yellow dots began to blur and a subtle glow hit my dashboard from an ascending sun.
I was hesitant this year. I hadn’t had a weekend at home in about a month and really just wanted a break. With a bad case of FOMO,I realized making my way to Lexington, Ohio was the only option. Furthermore, I decided to make it a one day trip; Twelve hours there and back with an allotted six hours of time in between to actually experience the event.
Three states, two time zones, and a sausage filled crunchwrap landed me at the scene. It was there that I laid my eyes on a familiar site: A tent city of sorts spilling out over what I can only assume is a vacant lot for other eleven months out of the year. It was the AMA Vintage Motorcycle days; a bacchanalia of a festival that hosts a swap meet, racing, and everything in between.
With a finite amount of time, I scoured vendor booths as quickly and efficiently as possible. It’s a different world at Vintage Days, one that can easily consume a person and make them do things they later will surely regret. Unluckily for me, I had been looking for my next motorcycle to purchase and temptation was creeping up on me at every turn. Self-control was at the top of my priority list with each “deal” that I passed.
A normal day for me consists of swiping left and right on motorcycles for sale, and only really ever pulling the trigger when it’s a unicorn. An event like Vintage Days might as well be a false unicorn farm. Decent deals get confused with amazing deals, and restraint is key. I resisted and came home empty handed, and that was okay.
Although I came home with an empty truck bed, my mind was full of inspiration and thoughts of how to expand my motorcycle endeavors. Future projects and business ideas floated sporadically in my head. Fruition of these ideas, however, was questionable at best as my eyes hung heavy at hour eighteen of the day. Either way, only three hundred and sixty five days to go.