Kathy and I have heard many tales about Savannah, Georgia's great food, fun pubs, and its arts atmosphere for years. And though many Southern sojourns have taken us tantalizingly close, the quick going-elsewhere spell of the super-slab has always prevailed. Until now our glimpses of the grand, old city have been relegated to the green blurs of exit signs rushing by on Interstate 95.

As we are finishing a preview of a typical Frank Lloyd Wright museum tour, our gracious guide, Kimberly Higgenbotham, tells us that when asked which of his projects was his favorite, Wright would invariably reply "the next one." It occurs to me that this might be my own response to the question of which is my favorite road trip... but then it is becoming clear that my answer is invariably "this one."

Road building in eighteenth-century America had always been a local responsibility, but an Act of Congress in 1806 called for a federally constructed road that would connect the waters of the Atlantic Ocean to those of the Ohio River.

The sign is up for "Free Beer: Tomorrow" in the pub where Steve, Jim and I sit planning our Vancouver Island tour. And it seems that the gratification of good old West Coast sunshine will be delayed another day, too. The forecast promises the weekend will be fine, but we're not convinced. Those same weather wizards failed to predict the showers that have been falling all week.

When I first learned to ride a motorcycle over a year ago, there were two places I wanted to go: Alaska and Saline Valley, a long, remote desert basin on the west side of Death Valley. Within the first year of learning how to ride, I did both.

Clinging precariously to the northern tip of Africa, Ceuta is the last Spanish enclave in this vast continent and the point from which our Moroccan adventure begins. At the border, it's late November and 100 degrees. We park in the shade, and Lisa has to remain behind, guarding the bikes, because, under Moroccan law, wives are still regarded as 'property'. The officials won't deal with her. Visiting the row of low beige offices, I collect an assortment of brightly colored immigration documents and start the process, which is surprisingly fast in this far-flung outpost.

Between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies lies a mystical land that has attracted pioneer farmers, statesmen, soldiers and settlers. It brims with scenic beauty and inviting roads of escape, all interwoven among the valleys and hills of this lush region.

Piaggio - parent company of Aprilia and Moto Guzzi motorcycles and Vespa and Piaggio motorscooters - wants to be your motorcycle and scooter supplier. To demonstrate its commitment to the U.S. market, the company recently opened the new Piaggio Group Americas (PGA) technical center in Costa Mesa, California.

In his best-selling book, Blink: the Power of Thinking without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell describes the usefulness of rapid cognition, the two-second critical judgment we all make when meeting someone new, walking into a building for the first time - or when riding a new motorcycle. I thought it would be useful to apply this principle to my sampling of Kawasaki's new range of premium cruisers - the Vulcan 1700 Classic, Classic LT, Nomad and Voyager - at the April 2009 press introduction in Mill Valley, California.

In 1959, Triumph's legendary 650cc Bonneville began rolling from showroom floors. Named after the Bonneville Salt Flats, where speedster Johnny Allen had piloted a Triumph-powered streamliner to record velocities three years before, this model would go on to become one of the iconic machines in the history of motorcycling.

Up until the latest bubble burst, nearly everyone was extolling the virtues of behemoth motorcycles, often to the near exclusion of smaller machines. Back then, with some form of "size matters" splattered on nearly every bike magazine cover, it seemed like everybody was taking out equity loans on their houses and buying big, heavy, expensive large-displacement motorcycles.So, perhaps one positive aspect of our economy tanking, if there is one, has been the newfound interest in smaller-displaceme

The moral of the age-old tale is: Sometimes you have to taste a lot of porridge before you find the bowl that's "just right."