Happy 4th of July...from the road

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm supposed to love everyone, everything, every town, every lifestyle.  I think that idea was programmed in somewhere between the ABC's, America the Beautiful, and stupid mnemonic sentences that remind you of whatever is currently being considered a planet.  So today I felt a little guilty when concluding that last week's town of choice ... was crap.  Crap. crap. crap. Crap because googlemaps drew a cute yellow line from our sleeping quarters to the nearest conglomeration bookstore, a mere 4 miles away without noting it was a limited access SUPER HIGHWAY and the only way to get to said bookstore...was to careen down this SUPER HIGHWAY at 80mph, an impossible speed even for the most athletic cyclists (unless you are falling down a decline, something we're not encountering in the greater Boston area).   

So when I gently, sweetly asked officer..so and so ...former Gulf war vet, who didn't care to see a double pedestrian homicide on 4th of July, what the back roads were to get to said conglomeration bookstore and he said "There ain't no way, just the highway."  I concluded there was no justice for all, only justice for those who had cars and were inclined to use them, and what kind of place was this where the closest thing to knowledge could only be accessed by riding in tens of thousands of dollar cages made of steel and plastic.  "Really?" I said to him with a scrunched up screwy face. I must have looked strange.

Some things you just can't love.  Riding through neighborhoods with backyards full of grimy broken plastic children's toys, not lovable. Seeing a little boy take his toy gun, eye his dog and shoot with an unforgiving ''bang bang,''  not lovable.  I don't know how these towns came to be, or how so much was left undone.  I'm excited to be cruisin' through Salem, Massachusetts next though - witches, persecution, and the occult...now that's a town I can relax in.

Happy 4th,

Lauren