Do you notice little things?

Today my motorcycle rolled past 77,777.7 miles, and I know right where I was.

I bought the bike in January 1999. On the day I looked at it in St. Charles, the owner had blocked his driveway with a little step stool. As I parked in front of his house, I wondered why. When I stepped onto the slight slope of his driveway, I found out why. His driveway was a sheet of ice.

Needless to say, I didn't test-ride the bike that day. But I did buy it, and I returned three weeks later to ride it back to Woodstock. It had 2,000 miles on the odometer, so it's easy to calculate how many miles I have traveled on it since then.

I've been as far west as Boulder, Colo., as far south as Arcadia, Fla., and as far north as Cushing, Maine. I'm planning a ride next year to North Dakota, Montana, Washington and Oregon, and then I shall have set foot in all states of the Lower 48.

Do you watch your odometer and take note of special times when mileage reaches certain points?