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Mille Miglia New England
Lago di Como, meet Lake Winnipesaukee. Passo dello Stelvio, say hi to Jefferson Notch Road. Autostrade Uno, I give you I-93. It’s good that we get to know each other. Because this Connecticut Yankee is going to traverse King James’ old colonial court aboard his very sleek, very Italian motorbike, searching for la dolce vita in the…
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Gunfight at the O.K.idney Corral
Everyone—at least most of us ‘muricans— knows Tombstone, Arizona. Maybe you saw the Kurt Russel/Val Kilmer movie back in the day when you went to see Jurassic Park and it was sold out. Maybe you visited the town as a kid during a “Great American RV Trip” with your parents, and you still have a…
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Switzerland via PA
In order to ride from England to Switzerland via motorbike, you have to take the M20 and Channel Tunnel (affectionately known as the “Chunnel”) from Dover to Calais, and then motor south across roughy 700 kilometers of France to reach Basel in the northwest corner of the Alpen-state. But to ride from New England to…
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September is the Cruelest Month
I remember reading T.S. Eliot’s masterwork The Wasteland back when I was an arrogant, impudent sophomore at the University of Vermont, arguing with my professor (as arrogant and impudent sophomores will do) about the poem’s very premise. As a refresher (or if you’re unfamiliar): The Wasteland is a meditation on the teasing, soul-crushing nature of…
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A Town Called Allis
For American kids who came of age in the Eighties, The Jam were a slightly off-kilter band. Not as iconically punk as the Sex Pistols, not as commercially successful as the Clash (my first true love), and not as sonically original as Gang of Four. Nevertheless, one spin of This Is the Modern World and…
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An Urbane Adventure
Greetings motorized tweed lovers, Goodyear welt-wishers, suspender fetishists, bowtie buffs and Members of the Loyal Order of the Pocket Square. This one is for you. For many riders, motorcycle adventuring has come to mean, almost definitionally, scrambling across hardscrabble terrain in far-off lands, riders clad neck-to-toe in armored, dust-crusted GoreTex spacesuits, their peaked helmet-visors pointing towards…
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Hail, Colorado
Scene: a pair of middle-aged dads staring into the blue glow of their laptop screens from opposite US coasts. One is in California, the other Connecticut. They’re on Zoom. It’s late in the evening on a cold winter night, early in the second year of the global Covid-19 pandemic. They are plotting…planning…a journey? An escape?…
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State of Love
Cal, I couldn’t agree with you more. President Calvin Coolidge was a native and prodigal son of Vermont, whose affections for the Green Mountain State were as authentic and deep as the granite veins running through Mt. Mansfield. I, too, fell in love with Vermont, though not quite as far back as the Coolidge administration…but…
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Alone, Stinking, and Trying to be Unafraid
Before undertaking an eight-day, 2,000 mile moto-camping adventure into the wilds of Quebec this summer, I consulted Reddit about the one aspect of the trip that was gnawing at me. Bears. Here’s what one kind Redditor had to offer in the way of self-preservation: “When setting up camp, don’t eat, brush your teeth, or pee/poop…
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Oh. Canada.
As an American, and not unlike many other Americans, I have this weird spatial/cognitive relationship with our great northern neighbor. Obviously, and just like any other American, I’m aware of the fact that a half-continent-sized land mass looms north of my own country’s controversial and troubled borders. Rationally, I know that it’s a sovereign state…
Longitude & Gratitude 