Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

"I'm happy to be riding back into this country. It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that. Tensions disappear along old roads like this."

"I've wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it and yet we didn't see it. Or rather we were trained not to see it. Conned, perhaps, into thinking that the real action was metropolitan and all this was just boring hinterland. It was a puzzling thing."

Now this trip of ours, like any trip I suppose, can be viewed as a Chautauqua "intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer". It's that and more. Quite honestly it's an opportunity to play again. I don't think I ever fully appreciated the ramifications of never having a summer vacation again. How I wish I could kick my young butt for squandering so many days ripe with potential swathed in the comfort of air conditioning and the glow of the television.

I can't take a motorcycle apart and put it back together again, as Phadrus did but then again I've never had a lobotomy so I guess that sort of balances things out a bit, wouldn't you say?