I'm Leaving

Holy shit I'm sick and fucking tired of people. People in general, I think. The constant yapping and nipping. The whining bullshit. The lack of sense. The basic human condition.

And they're everywhere. They're at work. They're in my bars. They're in my home. They're all over my motherfucking cell phone. Shit, they're even up my ass via email. They are by-God everywhere.

Everywhere but the motorsickle.

Aboard the two-wheeled instrument of death the rest of the world is little more than a hazard to be avoided. Granted, the same assbags bothering me in person are now trying desperately to run me down while leaving me a voice mail. But the ringing demon is stored in a saddlebag and those four-wheeled shiteyed monsters are easily placed in a rear-view mirror.

All I ever seem to do is bitch on this blog, but in all honesty I have got to be the luckiest jackass on the face of the earth. I have stumbled across, and am still allowed to hang out with, some of the greatest people in the world. Sometimes it takes being cornholed by nitwits and wannabes to remember this truism.

So that's why I am headed south. Today. To points undivulged, so that I may commune with Those Who Do Not Suck. A well-deserved Iron Liver bacchanalia. One good road trip before the ulcer-inducing madness of the summer rush returns to my place of indentured servitude. Much needed barley therapy and in-person healing amongst the few individuals I know would never blow smoke in my ass while fiscally sodomizing me.

Like I said; People Who do Not Suck.

The past few weeks have pretty much pegged my give-a-shitometer. I was fortunate to see a friend soon to be deployed, and managed to sneak in a pile of beer with members of an underground cult. But the Monday midday fallout totaled my reserves of assbag tolerance. So fuck it. I've got a long weekend due to me.

Absolutely amazing the way all the irritating personality cysts melt away as benign bumps when you're on the motorsickle. Two hours into a roadtrip I could care less if I ever make the destination or not.

There was a time traveling on two made me more of a wreck than the work I was avoiding. Pre-travel nerves. The pesky gremlins who ruin so many plans. Jitters. That uneasy feeling in the gut. The litany of things that can go wrong. What if I break down? What if I have a wreck? What if the weather is awful? What if I get there and there's no place to stay? What if I forgot something? What if I get in a fight? What if I have to turn around and come back home? What if I'm gang raped by psychopaths and left for dead in a filthy gas station pisser while itinerant gypsies raid my bags, steal my credit cards, grab my keys, go to my home, and wipe their ass on my wife's curtains?

One or more of those things will eventually happen to all of us. I've had most of them. I'll leave you to guess which.

Anymore I've come to the realization; It doesn't matter.

I used to obsess over the weather channel pre-Sturgis each year. Watching the forecast, checking national trends, spotting lows and predicting the jet stream. And every year, regardless what the the doomsayers said, I went. I loaded the same shit I always did: leathers, sunscreen, and excedrin then launched for another killer time on the road. Because it doesn't matter ...

If Jim Cantore had called for a 60% chance of volcanoes and sulfur rain I'd have gone. And I'd have dug it.

Travel enjoyment has as much to do with who you travel with as it does where you go and what the weather is like. I've spent entire afternoons under bridges and in seedy bars watching torrential rains drown my waterproof bags. Surrounded by People Who Don't Suck it didn't matter. I've frozen my balls off in wet and wind when I'd have rather been doing pedicures for the homeless - until it was over. Then it was fun. A new story. A new bonding experience with Those Who Do Not Suck. Hell, even being cut from the group due to bad visibility and blown off I-90 in a small tornado was kinda groovy when we all caught up at Gunner's and told where we'd been. The rest of the group in a truck stop service bay; my wife and I under an overpass with potheads from Iowa. Kick ass ...

So I'm leaving. All precautions taken. All my good shit packed. All worries stowed under a tool box and left here behind next to the 'To Do' list.

Like every trip, I could care less if I ever make the destination. The ride is the best part. One more reason I'll never understand the trailers ...

Vaya Con Dos Equis.