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| A vintage motorcycle in Spring. (Richard Miller Photo.) |
Lovely. I was just about to write a post for this blog complaining about bad traffic, inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, double parking, texting while driving, and excessive use of the horn.
I was angry, frustrated and sad, and I wanted to take it out on everybody.
Then I read "The Glory of Spring" by Richard Miller, posted on his Red Devil Motors blog. Usually he writes about vintage and classic motorcycles, posting period photos and brochures.
A special delight are the old-timey photos he posts of motorcyclists in the previous century. Other posts show his own collection of vintage two-wheelers.
"It keeps me sane," he notes.
In "The Glory of Spring" he wrote about riding out on his 1955 Velocette Venom to see the best local spots for bluebells in bloom.
"The vibrant blanket of sweet smelling bluebells combined with the tang of wild garlic in flower interspersed with a smattering of wood anemones and wild daffodils is one of life's finest genteel pleasures," he wrote.
Photos of the Velocette amid the blossoms accompanied the post. The ability to smell the natural world is one of the joys of motorcycling. I'd forgotten that, too.
"You've lightened my mood," I commented on his blog.
Flowers in bloom. What a much happier thing to consider than inconsiderate drivers and traffic.
Aah yes, the smells of the open road .... flowers if you're lucky, fresh spread cow s--t on a farmer's field if you're NOT !
ReplyDeleteI dwell in the Plastic 'Burbs where everything smells like "Cheetos, Hand Sanitizer and Mediocrity", so when I'm out touring in the boonies I find I actually enjoy that manure smell...even the odd stench of an unfortunate flattened skunk is somehow paradoxically "life affirming". But very best of all is either stands of laurel bushes on a summer day or the almost "pipe tobaccoey" aroma of peat burning in rural Irish hearths, which is, after all, just dried clumps of rotted vegetation. That's worth the cost of the flight alone.
DeleteIf you live here all you get is rain and cold.
ReplyDelete