Looking for America - A Listening Tour

Dillon, Colorado - With Janis, Bob & Nancy Levy - E-Bikes The first leg of my tour is at a close; 6000 miles in a month.  I drove from Laramie, WY to Steamboat Springs, CO, then to visit the Edelmans in Beaver Creek, CO, and then to Breckenridge, CO where I will stay until October 1, 2022.  The second leg for my tour will begin on October 1 - when I will travel through New Mexico, Texas, the deep South, ending back to where I began in Florida. I want to thank Reed & Cathy Edelman for their hospitality while in Beaver Creek.  One other highlight of my trip from Laramie to Breckenridge was Seedz Restaurant in Steamboat Springs: my favorite place to eat in Colorado.  If you are in that neck of the woods, you must stop for either lunch or dinner; or, in my case, dinner & lunch :). Google it! Since this is my last tour post until October, I thought I would add a few photos that did not make it into the blog thus far: Acadia from Lincoln Mountain, ME Acadia, ME...

  "Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour" (Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour), was featured by Cheap Trick, the warm up band for Rod Stewart.  What is the story behind this blog entry opening?  Well, this week felt like a magical mystery tour. I closed my last entry with me hugging my first grandchild, baby Kennedy.  The next day I went to the Harley Davidson Museum before heading out of town: My Ducati was a little out of place at H-D :) A high school friend, Chris Smith, who I have neither seen or talked with since 10th grade, contacted me on Facebook.  He provided a detailed itinerary of his RV campground sites; and, if I were close, I should drop by for a visit.  So, I decided to take him up on it: I backtracked 5.5 hours and drove up to Lake Superior, Ontonogan, Michigan.  Chris and I took up where we left off 55 years ago : Chris & Robbyn in their wonderful RV. Chris and Robbyn are truly amazing people.  Many people contemplate getting an RV...

  Small towns, family-owned/operated motels/restaurants, and fire pits by the lake where strangers meet -and then leave more enriched than when they came.  Juxtaposed to expensive, impersonal, posh, and sanitized Interstate fare, which "reality" do I prefer?  A rhetorical question. Somehow, existentially, I have come to think the increasingly commercial de-personalization of our culture is the culprit for much of our collective malady.  It is hard for an "individual" to "break through" the wall, and we feel powerless to effect change.  As a result, we form opinions based on what attracts us to our passions, without any grounding in education and history.  As Kierkegaard said, the public space, and public morality, is an abstraction: ripe for incessant manipulative marketing.  The solution, as expressed by Aristotle, is: a happy virtuous life is only achieved by a good upbringing.  The responsibility is on parents. The bar inside the Fairmont Le Ch...

I had departed from Burlington, VT and drove back roads through New Hampshire, and to the tourist laden Bar Harbor, ME.  The joy of Bar Harbor is that it borders on Acadia National Park.  A ride up Cadillac Mountain was worth the ticket.   And enjoyed meeting fellow bikers Nathan and Marcus from Virginia: During this lunch with my new friends, they observed a contrast in culture right there in the restaurant (Geddy's):  Notice the Amish women eating lunch next to a nude mermaid :) I then took the ferry from Bar Harbor, ME to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  Taking Canada 3 and 103, I traveled north, stopping in Liverpool, Peggy's Cove, and Halifax.  I had been informed of a pirate's festival, called Privateer, held in Liverpool, so I dropped by: The real fun began after leaving Halifax (a big industrial port city), and took coastal road Canada 7 up to Cape Breton.  I had never heard of Cape Breton, nor had I heard of Cabot Trail.  I had to make a deci...

I thought it a little bit coincidental that I would be arriving in Canada just when the news commentators were reporting on the overturning of Roe v. Wade back in the US.  Canadian television broadcast Justin Trudeau guaranteeing all Canadian women the right to choose.  I was actually entering a country with fewer guns, and provided more freedoms to its people, than in the US. We have some very unhappy, spiteful, unethical people in the US.  The most hypocritical people on the face of the planet.  If you think that politicians care one iota about preserving a fetus, you are wrong - their vote (and yes Supreme Court justices are politicians) was purely politically motivated.  "Leave it to the States" is their motto.  I say, "Leave the choice to the individual".  Politicians who cater the uneducated masses who believe themselves to be Christians; who celebrate stupidity and fascist anarchists; who clearly are not living up to Jesus' commandment: "Love th...

  It has been one week, today, since I left Boca Raton, Florida.  Driving up to Sanford (Orlando area), Florida to catch the Amtrak Auto Train to Lorton, Virginia, the heat was almost suffocating.  I thought the heat was bad in Florida, but nothing topped the heat from Lorton to Damascus, Maryland - especially in bumper to bumper traffic in 98 degree weather. A sea of humanity in metal cages (i.e., cars) on Highway 15 from Leesburg, VA to Frederick, MD.  I used my "motorcycle card" by zipping past miles of standstill traffic via the shoulder.  I justified it by a legitimate rationalization: I am exposed to heat without the luxury of air conditioning that was enjoyed by those in cars.  A typically 1.5 hour ride took me 4 hours.  I arrived in Damascus to attend Janis' family reunion - a great first 2 day stop filled with fun and human interaction. Amtrak Tamara, my host while on the Auto Train.  She has three boys; the oldest is 29 years old and who...