Stinger and I woke up a little early a few weeks back to take a quick ride up to Yabitsu Pass in the hills of Kanagawa Prefecture (the closest ride we could find that had anything that felt like real mountain roads).

Even a few hours of riding under these skies really helped clear the mind.

I just got back from another great run around the Izu peninsula, including camping, revelry with good friends, and some of the most spectacular roads in the country. The weather was so beautiful that I found my eyes drawn to the clear blue skies reflected in my tank as I was riding, and it inspired me to explore a new theme with the photos for this trip. (I also got a bunch of great standard touring shots, although many of those also feature reflections.)

Early morning at the campsite, Shu-chan and YOS’s shovelheads can be seen yearning to head out under those blue skies.

YOS’ bike and mine against the old school glory of Shu-chan’s FXS tank

Verdant mountains and azure sky in the more traditional mirror of Stinger’s z1000
(In this one, you can see why I don’t have any reflection photos using the tank of YOS’s FL.)

Stinger’s z1000 and some weird amateur photographer in my Softail’s tank

On the Izu Skyline, Mt. Fuji and my bike seen in Stinger’s z1000 tank
(It’s nice to have a non-Harley logo included in this set.)

Self portrait with Fuji over my shoulder
It’s hidden behind the camera, but there’s a smile of pure happiness on my face—and it hasn’t left it since.

See the whole touring set here

As I get older, my life keeps getting better in all sorts of ways, but I often miss the spontaneous rides I used to be able to take whenever the mood hit me. With a happy family life, busy social life, and a more successful career, riding has to be planned in advance like anything else.

So it was a really refreshing change of pace to wake up Saturday to a tweet from Go, one of the biker buddies I used to ride off with whenever the wind called to us, saying he had a rare free day and wanted to ride. (Go is one of the busiest people I know, lucky to get a day or two off in a month, and so busy that his twitter feed is all I ever see of him nowadays.) I had things to take care of in the morning, and plans for the evening, but my schedule for the whole afternoon was miraculously open!

I jumped on the bike and headed toward the nearest mountains with no real plan, just like in the old days, and met up with Go at the foot of Yabitsu Pass.

It was cold, with the susuki grass under the clear blue skies showing the transition from autumn to winter, but the air was fresh and the mountain roads were just what my spirit needed.

Sometimes the best rides are the ones you don’t plan, where you can just enjoy the roads and the sky and good conversation with old friends.
(But next time I’d like to do it when it’s a little warmer.)

This was Yuri’s first trip on real mountain roads on her new bike without being loaded down with camping gear and a kid on the back, so it was her first chance to fully experience freedom on the new bike. And I just got my bike back from the shop after replacing damaged tappet rollers, dismantling and overhauling the heads and valves, replacing the battery and primary chain, and overhauling the carb, so my bike was also purring along with a steady confident power it hasn’t had in years.

It has rained every day for weeks, and up until the night before, the forecast had been calling for pouring rain all day, so we hadn’t really made any plans. But we woke up on our anniversary to find clear blue summer skies, so I made a call to a restaurant at the foot of Mt. Takao I had been meaning to visit, and then we just randomly headed up to the mountains in that general direction to see what would happen. We stumbled upon a pretty nice onsen resort called Akiyama in the hills above Uenohara and took a relaxing bath to clean off the sweat and exhaust fumes from the grueling trip through the congested Chuo Expressway.

We then had a pleasant ride through the mountains to Ukai Toriyama, a truly amazing restaurant designed to make you feel like you’ve slipped back in time to an idealized version of medieval Japan as you walk through the gardens to whichever isolated cottage contains your table. The architecture and design of this place is just exquisite, and every course of the meal was indescribably delicious.

Even the parking lot was beautiful.

Other than the hot, congested expressways, this was a pretty perfect day. Beautiful weather, great roads, good food, and good times with the woman I love.

I’m a lucky guy to have been able to spend eleven years married to such an amazing woman, and I look forward to decades of further adventures with her.