I have the luxury of time. I have a job not too far away and I can take sideroads. Drive past the Unique Inn and the Twisty Freeze. Do the speed limit through the small towns along the way and look at the scenery.

Robert Pirzig talks about the heightened awareness you get on a motorcycle- the sense that there is nothing between you and the scenery- but that, to me, is perception. I don’t think about what I’m driving or how. I just see the sights. The town with only apartments or large, stately homes, nothing in between, not even a mobile home park. The junkyard that seems to stretch for miles, filled with nothing but near-worthless late 70’s cars. The bottle blond tat models hauling duffel bags of laundry into the coin-op, trailing rugrats and dogs.

I wish to see this all, every small town in America like this, to wander through and look at it all, before it goes away. So much has gone already. I will probably never have a chance, but I can dream, and when work affords me these little luxuries I take advantage.