I rolled the windows down and stuck my head out. The air was crisp and salty, with a slight hint of curious adventure. I was officially in Maine. Rolling back up the window, I turned to my parents, who had just picked me up at the Portland airport. We made small talk about how their vacation was going, how life is back home in Upstate New York, how my sister and little niece were doing. 

It’s the only place I feel at home. The open road. Once it gets into your system, you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to make sense of it. The highways, bi-ways and back roads in this country are the circulatory system of America, the blood pump and heartbeat of a hurried people on the move. It is the essence of humanity, for good or ill, and when you take that first journey away from familiarity, you’ll understand what cosmic discoveries lay just beyond the horizon.

I stopped going.

For the better part of the last decade, my life during the summer was music festivals. From Maine to California, Michigan to Arkansas, I was there, in an endless crowd, cheering on the greatest musicians of our time. In those innumerable moments, I felt more alive, at home, and at peace, than anywhere else in the world.

Often times as a journalist, you just simply can’t get to everything.

My dog died.

Not to be Debbie Downer or anything, but that sentence has been ricocheting around my head all weekend. She’s gone. Sixteen years old, with 15 of those as a member of our family.

Standing on the edge of the cliff, I knew what I had to do. Fifty feet above Fort Loudoun Lake in Knoxville, I looked out over the pristine waters, down at my friends heckling me from the boat, and jumped. One, two, three, splash.

Y’all are doing it wrong.

You know, that thing? Social media? What happened? How did the endless fun and unlimited curiosity of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter become so dark, vile and negative? Since when is your neighbor an enemy to be reckoned with or your longtime friend the nemesis you never thought possible?

I fixed my hair in the rearview mirror and exited the truck.

Heading up the steps, I was already five minutes late when I reached for the doorknob. Leaving the heat of a sizzling Thursday afternoon last week in downtown Waynesville, I entered the cool air of Bosu’s Wine Shop.

There is a lot of truth to it.

“Money can’t buy happiness,” the old adage goes. It’s a sentiment that has permeated through society for generations. And while most of us are aware of the phrase, how many of us actually reflect upon it with a true sense of self?

Part Two: The Wedding

As I adjusted my tie in the hotel mirror, I noticed more grey hairs in my beard.