It was a Honda 650, fast, loud, and shiny all over. It was my dream, my pride, my power.

I’d been cruising along I70, westbound, dodging thunderstorms all day, and taking refuge under overpasses when the dodging didn’t work. For hours I hadn’t seen a campground in which to rent a small piece of grass to sleep for the night, and it was getting late and dark.

It started to rain, and rain and rain. Soaked to the skin, except for my pack which was tied to the back of my bike, containing sleeping bag, and a change of clothes, I roared into the night, searching with increasing desperation, for a campground where I could afford the modest fee to sleep.

Finally, around 10:00pm , tired, shivering, hungry, a KOA appeared. I pulled in, and with shivering hands, gave the man $2 to spend the night, and proceeded to pitch plastic painter’s tarp for shelter. I folded it over, tied one end the my bike, and put some rocks on the other, thus protecting me from the wet below, and the rain above. Slipping into my dry sleeping bag in my wet undies, I shivered myself to sleep, still hungry, still damp, heavily tired, but sleep came cruelly slowly.

Last night I was having trouble getting to sleep. For the several hundredth time in my life, I thought of that cold, wet night, and how now, I was warm, dry, under a down quilt, my warm wife lying next to me breathing deeply as she slept. I have replayed that miserable night in my mind hundreds and hundreds of times over the last 40 years, with similar results each time. Contentment was followed by still deep sleep.

Sometimes bad isn’t so bad. One night of discomfort has led to hundreds of nights of peace, satisfaction, comfort, and sleep.