Catfish, I'm a firm believer that those that sacrifice for others will be blessed in the end. Do the right thing, bro, and let the Lord work out the 'no bike' issue. He might have something wonderful in store! You have my respect and admiration, and I'm sure this wonderful 'gang' will not 'kick you out' for lack of a bike.

Ride Safe & Sane;
Hank, Rusty & Ol'Faithful
Voyager 1300/6~The Original Voyager!

That's for sure....heck we even kept Hank!

I pulled this fromn the AVA forum and I think it portrays how many of us think about our bikes:
"Motorcycling Truth

A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car.

The difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes, and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.

On a motorcycle, I know I am alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it, and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of sun that fall through them.

I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than Pan-A-Vision and IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard. Sometimes I even hear music. It's like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind's roar. But on a motorcycle, I hear whole songs: rock 'n roll, dark orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed. At 30 miles per hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree-smells and flower-smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it's as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane.

Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy. I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I've had a handful of bikes over half a dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn't trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride is one of the best things I've done.

Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep, sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride.

Author unknown..."

So it isn't nust about giving up another possiession but something much deedper. I suspect that the decision isn't as clearcut as you've indicted. Otherwise, I'm sure the decision would't be so difficult. For that reason. it's diffficult for any of us to give advice. If your parents really need the home modifications, the only way to pay for themn is to sell/trade the Vulcan, and you can't ride at all then the decision calls for getting rid of the Vulcan. I don't tink owning the Vulcan means nearly as much as being able to ride it. OTOH, if you're able to ride it occcasionally and there might possibly be some other way to pay for the house mods, then the decision becomes much nore difficult. Looking after your own well being is also in your parent's best interests. You need to be well physically and mentaly to properly care for them. Wharever your decision is, I'm certain you will still be welcome in LSV.

That was awesome, Dave. Good summary.

You still have friends in the LSV and you don't have to own a MC to be friends.!! You are always welcome in the LSV. Good luck with your decision.

Brenda

Thanks to all the great lsv members for your thoughts and concerns, Dave that was great, Thank You, It will probably help me look more closely at other options.

Ride Safe & Long!!!!

If you sell your vulcan you still must ride behind us in your cage. Never know when you will have to give one of us a helping hand.