BMW R 1100 R - The Princess
On a trip to Seattle I rented a BMW R1100R and spent two glorious days wandering the Olympic Peninsula with my wife. The BMW was the first motor she'd been able to passenger comfortably on, and it performed and handled so well that I went shopping for one when we got back to Texas. We found the same year, model and color for a steal of a deal, and I spent several happy years riding all over Texas, New Mexico and Colorado on it.
In October, 2008, I took the BMW and my FXRS to Prescott, Arizona, for a long-awaited ride with my brother. We had a couple great days bombing around the desert mountains, but on our last day he missed a downshift on a winding road south of Prescott, and he and The Princess were suddenly going end over end down the road in front of me. I've never been so frightened in my life. He broke some bones and caught some road rash, but thankfully nothing he couldn't recover from. The BMW wasn't quite as lucky.