What is it about Sunday afternoons?  Is it the peaceful interlude between church and work?  Is it the last opportunity to do what we want to do, before the pressure of everyday life takes over?  Whatever it is, Sunday afternoon on a VFR Interceptor is simply the best way to spend that most valuable asset — time.

The VFR Interceptor is a unique machine.  It is a creation of passionate engineers and designers who had no idea that I would one day own one, but an invention they crafted to delight me.  The VFR is at a glance, a racing motorcycle that decided to take the road less travelled.  It has the raw explosive power to launch a rider into orbit, but the grace to carry me to the dance dressed in my Sunday best.

Why is the VFR so much a part of the Sunday Sojourn?  It is hard to explain, especially to those who may have never enjoyed a ride on a motorized two-wheel conveyance.  But, the VFR is so much a part of the experience.  It is not just a motorcycle.  It is a part of you.

Heading Out

I guess that is what makes this machine so special.  It has, in only a few miles, become part of me.  I am not merely its owner.  It does not ask me to ride, but to join with it on the road.  I am not its driver, as it will go willingly wherever I envision.  Without me, it is without purpose.  Without me, it is without direction.  And without the Interceptor, I am merely a man.

Together, we become something without boundary.  To be sure, there are limits.  But, together, we can do anything.  Together, we can restore the soul of the man.  How?  It is difficult to say.  I can show a map of our route together.  I can look up a GPS track of 57 miles in 97 minutes to show anyone exactly where we travelled.  I can make a general statement of “I rode to Ashland and back.”  But, these details or vagaries can’t convey the sensory salvation that is a ride on the Inteceptor.

There is on two wheels a sense of adventure, an expectation of excitement.  And, today, the adventure was in discovering new routes to familiar places.  On the way, we helped a gentleman who was so very lost.  He had stopped at the Rockville Market.  In a nice silver BMW Z3 convertible, with the top down.  We rolled up, simply to adjust the “sound system” which was giving me a bit of a problem.  The headphones intermittently blasted sound, then returned to normal levels.  He made a friendly overture as I fiddled with the cable and settings on the iPhone, and asked which way to Ashland.  His mental compass had him headed west, away from Ashland, and the further he drove, the more confused he became.  I was able to turn him around with directions back to I-295.  Before he left, he complimented me on the Interceptor.  I felt a bit like a caretaker of something valuable.  Privileged to ride it, and devoted to its care.  For anyone to laud the Interceptor, it has to be special.  And so I climbed aboard, and headed somewhere.

That’s another thing about the Sunday Sojourn.  It’s a ride somewhere–anywhere.  It’s a great ride if you take a few curves on Hunters Woods Road, or St Pauls Church Road, or even Journeys End Drive.  The names of the roads stir even more emotion, as one wonders who first chose that name.  Was it truly their journey’s end?  Did they find what they sought there?  Did they build their castle at the end of the road?  Or was it just that the journey ended, in sadness and tired despair?  Whizzing along from curves to straights to curves again, the Interceptor can take me to those places.

I look forward to another ride.  Another chance to go somewhere.  A time when, together with a machine, a man can do what he dreams of doing.  Intercepting life.