I will forever carry the memory with me of the spectacle I saw one Monday afternoon as I played IOM TT boy on CA140 east of Modesto.

Imagine the flashes of color as a fully loaded saddlebag leaps, flys, tumbles and spews its contents all of the way across an occupied cow pasture and on into the depths of a muddy creek.

“My! What a strange thing to see! Who could have lost that?” I said to myself. Then, I looked down and slightly back. Only to find that the fool who’d lost the saddlebag was me.

Getting my speeding steed stopped and walking back the hundred yards or so to the beginning of the carnage, allowed me to contemplate the wisdom and engineering prowess of the folks who designed my motorcycle. It also allowed me a brief window of opportunity to decide how I was going to get through the multi-strand barbed wire fence, fetch my lap-top and my skivvies, all while avoiding attracting the now piqued attention of the rather large bull who was watching over his girls.

Getting through the fence and into the field wasn’t all that hard. Getting OUT of the field and back through the fence, that was a challenge. Especially with a pulse rate of the elevated variety. Freaking huge things those bulls are.

I recovered most of my manties, a quart of oil, a couple pair of socks and my laptop.

Everything else was left behind to distract the now pissed off horned critter.

Take heed – the leaps of a motorcycle into the air may cause it to exceed the luggage design limits of the motorcycle manufacturer upon landing.

Have I lost other stuff off a motorcycle? Sure, but that’s another story.