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...