The time a tree gave me a hickey.....

ah yes...FREEDOM or so I thought.

I had a little eye opener last week and it made me stop and think, life offers no do-overs! You get one chance to do what you want and I tend to do what I want. Work was sucking the life out of me. I had no time for friends, kids, my wife and of course my bike! ---this list is not necessarily listed in order of importance.

It was time to make changes in my life and get this show on track. I followed up my eye opener with phone calls to the doctors office and I contemplated what I wanted to do with my career. Ask my wife, I don't drag my feet on much and my job was no different. I made an offer to my employer which allowed me a little more FREEDOM. My employer wasn't so much interested in my offer or my FREEDOM so I politely resigned.

....with no real guarantees in the near future I tasted FREEDOM!

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin' don't mean nothin' hon' if it ain't free, no no
And feelin' good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues
You know, feelin' good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee 

The crazy thing is.....everything lined up perfectly. Once I made the decision to quit, all the cards seemed to fall into place. And once I felt like everything was lined up, the next decision I could make was heading out for a ride, in the woods, with a friend.

We jumped on our bikes and pedaled on down to the trailhead, as we approached we discussed easy or moderate route? We both agreed quickly, start easy and end hard. Two minutes into the easy ride....and my friend hit the dirt. I laughed. Karma laughed. Then I hit the dirt.

I felt every bone in my body crack. I'm pretty sure I hit the tree going 15 25 35 45 mph. After I laid there for a second to make sure I was still alive, all body parts were still attached and I could still move my legs, I couldn't stop laughing. I'll have to admit though, the bruise the hit left behind is pretty badass.


Exhibit A:

The one thing that pisses me off about the entire experience though? I wasn't wearing my GoPro camera. Leave it to me - get my ass kicked by a tree and have nothing to show for it, except a wicked hickey bruise.