After I pulled out of my neighborhood this morning, as my scooter gained speed, a moron (who was waaay far back when I turned in front of her) decided she needed to suddenly gain speed. She was pissed I pulled in front of her (she was two and a half blocks or more away when I pulled out) and had to pass me. Double solid yellow lines. She just missed the oncoming car.
Seconds later, the next moron behind me did the exact same thing.
They beat me to the red light by like FIVE SECONDS!
Morons.
People like that scare the crap out of me when I’m on two wheels.
I’ll tell you what, that Moto Guzzi is crying it’s so intimidated by my little Metropolitan!
At the final turn on my route to work a few minutes ago, the SUV in front of me was stopped. The man got out of the vehicle and investigated a turtle in the road. I am always pleased to see compassionate people helping turtles cross the road. This snapping turtle was big, probably a foot and a half long, maybe longer (I’m a bad estimator).
Well, the turtle was not happy at all about being helped. The guy tried to pick the turtle up by grabbing both sides of the shell (between front and back legs). The turtle promptly turned to bite, and was dropped. Later, rinse, repeat. At one point, the turtle peed all over the guy’s hands. Heh. After that, the guy starting kicking the turtle.
By this time, I was stopped, had pulled into a parking space right there (lawyer’s office), and had dismounted my scooter. “Oh, please don’t kick him. I’ll help you.”
“I’m just trying to get him into the grass without losing a finger.”
Snappers can take your fingers off when they’re that big. No, really.
Anyway, he kicked the turtle over into the grass, on his back. The turtle righted himself and posed for a picture, while hissing at me:
his tail is almost as long as my hand, palm to tip of fingers
He’ll be dead by now. He was trying to cross a four lane road that I am afraid to cross, else I’d carry him across the road. (They say you should always move the turtle the direction he was heading or they’ll just try again after you have moved them to safety.) I hope his encounter with the man in the SUV encouraged him to turn around and go back to the lake rather than try to cross the road.
We went back to Universal on Sunday. On Saturday, it was too crowded. We walked both parks and managed to go on no rides. We wanted to ride the new Simpsons ride. So, we got there just after the parks opened on Sunday. The sky was ominous on our ride there:
I-Drive & Universal
Universal over I4
We found scooter parking!
The rain started to pour right as we pulled into the parking garage. At least it waited until we were covered.
We walked through the rain, secretly mocking all the tourists who apparently melt if they get wet. We only waited about 25 minutes for the Simpsons ride (hated it), and even managed to ride the Mummy in under 30 minutes. Not too shabby.
The entrance to Universal Studios Orlando on Saturday. It was our first time scooting to the park. The route took us along two busy roads that each have very small sections of 55mph. My scooter does a blazing 40. And, there was a massive head wind on the ride there, so I had a hard time coaxing her above 35.
Scary ride.
Since purchasing our scooters in March, I have been more and more aware of other scooters on the road. At first, I thought the scooters were just now on my radar. But increasingly, I think more and more people are buying and riding scooters, and that’s why I’m seeing them now when I didn’t before. CNN agrees.
With the average price of gas closing in on $4 a gallon, many cash-strapped motorists are turning to fuel-stingy motor scooters and smaller motorcycles. Dealers across the nation report brisk sales this spring, particularly for those that get from 75-120 miles per gallon.
In our house, we have two Honda scooters and a Honda Element. My work is thirteen and a half miles from the house; hubby’s work is only ten miles from the house. We carpool, since we’re lucky enough to work only three miles apart. In the Element, I have to get gas every five days. I think it takes twelve to thirteen gallons with each fill up. That’s a lot of money to spend.
Our scooters get almost 100 mpg.
We try to scoot as much as possible, and it killed us to have to take the Element for two and a half weeks due to weather, after-work activities, and then the scooters being sick.
We rode our scooters today. It is such a joy to ride them!
We are aiming for three days a week to ride the scooters. Now that husband is back on a four day work week, I’ll ride on Mondays. We ride on Thursdays. And he’s going to renegotiate which afternoons he has his daughter after school so we can do another day on the scooters. It saves us a lot of money on gas.
And it’s so much fun!
Here’s hubby modeling his new helmet the morning we discovered our scooters were not working:
I retrieved my scooter (again) last night! I rode her home, and then we rode our scooters up to the local home improvement big box store. My little scooter wanted to haul something big. I had to remind her she’s a little scooter!
It felt good to ride again.
Two weekends ago, we bought new helmets. These have face shields.
That same day, we discovered our scooters died. My scooter is still at the repair shop (day 10). I have not yet tried out my new helmet. And I really, really miss my Met.
