I promise it'll end soon:

My goal was to get at least 30 miles in today, but as usual, I fell short by the *slightest* margin (28.9 miles, boo), leaving me wanting a little bit more. Story of my life.

Kenosha was quite lovely, as always:

After a very nice segueway, we headed east.

It seems like every trip to Kenosha I take, I have to hit at least two spots: the lake and the cemetery. Odd.
The lure is very pervasive, and I can barely resist...it's almost as if I left pieces of myself behind in my hometown that I keep trying to find. That, and my memory doesn't seem to work the way most people's does: instead of having the ability to sit and recall events, I can only catch snippets of the past, usually through alternative means; smells, sounds, randomly seeing something that triggers a memory, or if someone sits me down and helps me put it together. Thus my past is a disjointed collection of songs, feelings, and mystery odors with the occasional dash of solid reality thrown in (usually by someone else).

The lake is easy enough to figure out, no great mystery there:
Once upon a time, the memories were all happy ones and associated mainly with solitude and friends. I have many fond memories of playing on the rocks, sitting, smoking, contemplating...looking out at the water and feeling the weight of the world, as long as I could stand it.
That, and riding in cars and getting chased, fireworks, moonlit walks on the beach, finding places to make out... and then, later:
The store I opened, that guy I met, the ill advised events that occurred afterwards.
I've come to realize lately that it was these events that led me to leave my hometown, even though I can barely remember them any more. But for years I couldn't go to the lakefront without feeling the weight of bad decisions-- lurking in shadows--revealing to me that your world can change in an instant and take a lifetime to repair.
These days, the ghosts rarely appear and I'm finally able to go back in furtive search of those things I lost.

The cemetery is a quite a bit more complicated... so I'll have to finish this thought a little later.