New York got to me.

In past trips, she coaxed me with beckoning caresses, this trip she dug in her nails. Biting cold, wind whipping through the urban canyons. I opened my coat and let that cold wind pierce my heart, remembering cold January's in the early 90s. I found no solace in people. None in work. I felt I had lost my path with heart. And in heathervescent land, there's only one thing to do when that happens...

Returning to Los Angeles, brisk wind blowing through her, I was thankful for my new found NY clothing. At first moment, I took Lady Vescent on a long embrace. I was interested if I had grown rusty with almost two weeks of subway traveling. But I was sharp as a knife. Threading the needle at 90 through city streets and favorite freeways. The speed, she heals my soul.
I needed to push my boundaries. I wanted to kiss the edge, go beyond it, etch a remembrance of my tires in the pavement. I went to the wildest place close to Los Angeles: not Latigo, Piuma or the Malibu hills "racetrack", but the raw mountains of San Gabriel, Big Tujunga and Mt Wilson.

Lost, and found.
Lady V and I weave out of Hollywood, through the San Fernando Valley and I finally hit the triple digits on the 2 north of Glendale. Racing up a mountain, top down, wind blowing, white knuckle riding, conversing with my city. I decelerate quickly, pause at the stop sign and head north into the mountains. The stop is as critical as the acceleration. There can be no speeding without being stuck behind the slow car, no acceleration without the stop.
I feast my eyes on the scenery as I pass the 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 elevation markers. It's getting colder, I'm glad for my heated seats. The road is moist, rockfall peppers the pavement. We're above the clouds, a road twisting between the mountains.

I reach the top, view shrouded in fog. There is no Los Angeles overlook today. But that's ok, because I know what my city looks like. I didn't come for the views today, I came for the roads. And off we are again. Painting the double yellow through a burned forest.

Sharing the road with a few sightseers, motorcyclists and locals. I came to the roadhouse, a row of motorcycles parked outside. Lunch stop perfection. Body refued before pressing forward. With the intention of getting lost in the mountains. Easier with no cell reception. I sped again on roads, tracked and backtracked, turned off and turned off again. The mountains eventually changing, until I realized I was entering the desert.

Such was my delight! Lost in the mountains only to find the desert. Look at those wide open spaces!
The afternoon waned and I felt responsibilities calling. My heart rejuvenated, I returned to the mountain roads, pushing faster spurred on with favorite songs, winding my way onto the freeway system: 210, 118, 5, 170 into there's no place like Hollywood Home.

Home again, home again.
