mindpollution.org

As Jessica and I slog through the mass of northbound traffic here on the New York State Thruway, inhaling an endless cloud of toxic exhaust fumes from the tailpipes of obnoxiously large vehicles, listening to hipper-than-thou British rock stars sing to us about cigarettes and alcohol and looking forward to lighting off metric f*ck-tons of explosives smuggled across state lines while drinking obscene amounts of cheap beer, I…

Waitaminute, where was I?

I had a thought there - something brilliant and profound and brimming with snark, in fact. But now I’ve lost it. It’s faded away.

All I know now is that it’s a good day to go for the first motorcycle ride of the season, through the mountains of Berne and all of those back-country roads for miles around my family’s home that occasionally provide a beautiful view of the farms, villages and places where the Internet is still viewed as a vanity item.

There’s a beautiful catharsis that occurs when heading north for a long weekend. It feels as if we’re stripping off the various trappings of metro life and dropping them along the side of the road as we travel, peeling off layers of cynicism, unbuckling our skepticism, shaking a leg and letting the last of our dog-eat-doggedness fall to the side of the road to be picked up again on the return trip.

Just 49 miles to go…