If only I had followed my passion for flying while I was younger, I could have had my RV-7 paid for by now.  This is a summation of the toys I have bought over the years.

Okay, technically I didn't pay for this first motorcycle.  This is a pict of the first motorcycle I ever had, 1979 Kawasaki SR 650.  Dad gave this to me to ride while I was in high school.  It was a "Hand-Me-Down" (and a good one).  I would take hand me downs from dad today too...  HINT HINT...   He now rides Harleys.

I got my motocycle learners permit when I was 14.  Dad and I took a motorcycle trip to the Michigan Upper Peninsula and back for a summer vacation.  It wasn't until after we got back that we found out it was illegal for me to drive on a learners permit out of state.  Ooops.

I rode this until just before I entered the Navy.  I'll bet I put on over 30+ K miles on this thing.  I remember riding this motorcycle when there was snow blowing across the highway.  My girlfriend at the time lived about 30 miles away and it was to expensive to drive my car when I was only making $40/week at Hy-Vee (grocery store).  The motorcycle got a lot better mileage.  This motorcycle could do about 115 MPH (Come on, I had to check it out at least once...  Okay, more than once).  That is just a little over half of what the RV will be able to do.

While I was a E-5 in the Navy, I bought the Honda Interceptor (red, white and blue motorcycle) from one of my fellow shipmates.  I paid $1300 and the seller paid $500 to pay off the loan and I kept the motorcycle.  Good deal for me.  Here, my roommate and I were taking advantage of some liberty (free time) and did a weekend cycle camping trip down to Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Ranier in the beautiful state of Washington.  I sure miss that state!!!

This was my first brand new motorcycle I bought just before getting out of the Navy.  This was a 1990 Honda CBR 600F.  It was not that comfortable to ride, but I was young and could still tough it out.  It was pretty snappy when riding the winding roads of the Rocky Mountains.  This is one of the few pictures I have of myself with this motorcycle.  My dad and I took a motorcycle trip to Colorado after I got out of the Navy.  This picture was late June-early July and on our way down from Independence Pass, it snowed on us.

Jumping ahead a couple of years, Tami and I decided to get into jetskiing.  We felt that this was an activity we could involve the kids in.  Of course to do that, it would take two jetskis to haul us around the local waterways.  I bought Tami a Yamaha Waveventure.  This had a 80 hp motor on it and could haul 3 people around at 40-45 mph.  Thats moving right along on water.  This was a very easy jetski to ride and was more functional than my ZXI when touring the backwaters of the Mississippi.  This was our "pack mule" jetski.

The second jetki I bought was the Kawasaki 1100 ZXI.  I must be compensatiing for some personal short comings with this jetski.  It had 120 ponies under the seat and could do right at 60 mph on calm water.  It could perform flat spins that would literally throw you off the ski because you couldn't hold on tight enough.  WooHoo!!!  It's downside was that at full throttle, the 120 ponies drank a gallon of gas every 6 minutes.  It could easily drink $75 worth of gas and oil in an afternoon.

A view from the cockpit.  No constant speed prop on this thing...

An unimpressive shot of us jetskiing down at the Coralville Reservoir just north of Iowa City.  This was a dammed up river that made a pretty significant "lake" that was about 10+ miiles long.

One of the nice things about a jetski is that you can get to backwater retreats that were not accessible by most boats.  We only needed about 12" of water to ride.  Below is a picture where a bunch of us set up an overnight camp on the Wisconsin River.  This was about 10 miles upstream of where the Wisconsin River dumped into the Mississippi River.  This island we set up our camp on was about the size of two football fields.  It was unbelievably quiet AND dark being so far removed from civilization.  The only thing we saw up this far on the river was one airboat and a couple of canoes.

Getting older and wiser, I traded the jetskis on a motorcycle (okay, maybe not wiser...).  I started with a cheap Kawasaki Vulcan and kept that bike for about a year.  My wife threatened me that if I wanted her to go riding with me, that I would buy a comfortable motorcycle.  So I traded the Kawasaki in on a Honda Goldwing.  Love this motorcycle.  Extremely comfortable compared with the other toys pictured above.  I have been through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and this motorcycle rides great.  It has lots of buttons for the "pilot" to play with on those long, straight highways.

After I finished up my PPL, I had a moment of weakness and bought a '66 Cherokee 140.  It has been a good plane and I have been building hours and experience with it while I work on the RV.  I take a lot of grief at work for being the only person my fiends and co-workers know who has two planes (I remind them I have one plane, and a garage full of a whole lot of parts for a plane).

The Goldwing and the Cherokee will eventually be sold to help pay for the RV.  I have been contemplating selling the Goldwing since I started the RV project,  but I just can't seem to part with it just yet.