Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Road Hard



I think my love of the South is well documented. I have forsaken Las Ramblas of Barcelona, the Rocky Mountains, the urbane and tasteful moodiness of Portland, and wine-guzzling summers on Lake Ontario in favor of a year-round devotion to fire ants, Slash pines, sand spurs, and tea so sweet it makes your fillings sing.

Northeast Mississippi could change all that. The isolation. The heat. The poverty. We like to characterize all small towns as charming, but some of them are small because nobody wants to live there.

I just rolled into Jackson, and the diminutive skyline of DAYS INN, OUTBACK, and MARBLEDY SLAB CREAM CONERY, has the breathtaking appeal of Paris at night.

I am a road warrior, and therefore not inclined to whine and simper about the injustices of the road, although perhaps all of my time spent upon its gritty shimmering surface explains why I reel at the mention of riding bicycles on highways. Why don't we just go play scrabble at your office?

Didn't think so.

The road is for work, not play.

Juancho

8 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Kulture and plenty of it. Uh-huh. Have you ever tried that Kool Kracker Barrel Restaurant?
You should, man. They have a gift shop and everything!
Do they have gift shops in the woods where you ride that bike of yours? I didn't think so.

Juancho said...

Kreative Kultural Klues Ms. Moon!

LoPo said...

You no like Mississippi, Hijo? It does sort of give me the willies, too, but I pretend I'm in a John Grisham novel and then I'm OK with it.'Bout time to come home to yer own sand spurs, tho. Manana?? :)

Anonymous said...

Living in the land of SoCal asphalt makes me miss Kracker Barrel (and it's Kitschy Gift Shop) pretty much every day.

Juancho, it sounds like you need a good long vacation. At home.

LoPo said...

And Libbyllama, it sounds like you need a long vacation in the South. Let's here it for Cracker Barrel. Did you know that they let you borrow audio books and drop them off at the next Cracker Barrel stop? Now that is a company which looks after its road warriors. :)

Ms. Moon said...

I like the soft peppermint sticks myself.
Uh-huh.

Juancho said...

and the gravy. home manana.

Juancho said...

Woooo-eee! I rode some sick trails while i was gone. Expect some bike-centric posts.