I had just broken camp and was enjoying what would be the last cool air of a hot summer day at ninety miles an hour on the back of my favorite bike. It’s was a minute or two before the sun would come up behind me. I was headed into Kansas from Southwest Missouri and loving every second of the rolling hills and gentle curves of a well kept country road. A few minutes later and I came over the top of a hill onto one of those picture perfect vistas that just tugs at your heart. At the bottom of the valley on the right side of the road was the most perfect two story farmhouse I could have imagined, complete with outbuildings and a freshly painted white picket fence. On the other side of that farmhouse was the quintessential red barn, picture perfect in every detail, and on the other side of that barn was fifteen or so white beehives lined up and framing the red of the barn like a work of art between the beehives and the white picket fence around the house. On the other side of the road was a small stand of trees followed by a large field of flowering clover. It was magnificent and at the speed I was traveling it would be gone in a flash. The grin I didn’t realize I was wearing disappeared as I flew down into that valley and began to reengage with the parts of my brain that were not stunned by the beauty of what I had just encountered. Turns out my brain had been trying to send a message and that message was, “HEY DUMBASS!” “You’re looking at flowering clover on your left and a bunch of beehives coming up on your right, do you need a roadmap or are you seeing the problem yet?” Fortunately for me I was wearing a full face helmet. Unfortunately the pollen laden bees crossing that road were not, and by the time I’d crossed that gauntlet enough of those little guys had left their mark that I needed to take a little more time in that valley to remove stingers and admire the view. It really was beautiful, and I left that valley knowing that the pain of the stings was going to fade, and would just help stick that memory even deeper in my head. There has been nothing in my life like the moments of euphoric wonder that have happened to me while I was riding my motorcycle.

Every direction the American people turn we’re faced with the price gouging reality of another monopoly. Pricing sometimes thousands of times more than anywhere else on the planet. The one thing all these price gougers have in common is more control over our government than we the voters have. The tool the founders of this country gave us to combat that problem was the vote. It is up to each and every one of us to vote for the representative that will have our back. Pay attention to what the candidates have done, their words lie, their actions do not.