Come On, FALL!

And by that I mean AUTUMN, not "fall off your scooter". :)

I went out for a ride last evening, into the magnificent, low-humidity, low 80's temperatures we somehow magically had last night. It was glorious in a way I can barely describe. In fact, I even considered a jacket before I left the house, and once I was out, I thought that I probably would have been comfortable in my denim jacket at least.

The wind was cool and nothing like the wet-washcloth slap-in-the-face of a few days ago. The sun was crisply throwing off it's last rays before sinking below the horizon, and I was on a good-deed mission to paper the local area with flyers advertising our church's preschool.

Conveniently, I could fit a stack of my flyers inside my topcase without having to roll or fold or bunch them up. I LOVE my topcase. Love it.

I rode all over town, taking flyers to places I knew had community bulletin boards, and chatting with people who wanted to know about my scooter. A mom said her little boys thought it was the coolest thing ever and dubbed me "the COOLEST MOM on the block!". Fun!

As the sun was sinking, I rode home, realizing that I felt much more relaxed and happy than when I left my house. It's amazing that riding around on my Pumpkin Queen, wind on my skin, miles slipping by me, could make me feel so good.

Yay for scooters!

Mileage

It's been five months to the day I brought home my beloved Buddy (Pumpkin Queen) scooter. Since then, I've gotten my M class endorsement on my license (OMG, I can ride a motorcycle! ME!), taken the excellent motorcycle class, and put on this many miles:

I've gotten over my fear of being blown backwards off the bike, obtained REAL riding gear so I am good and safe, and learned to navigate some of the Richmond traffic, especially in the suburbs.

I was reflecting the other day just how much less scary this riding thing is....it used to really terrify me to commute to my office, because of a couple of divided highways that ended up being faster than the posted speed limit. Over the past five months, though, I have learned to handle more speed, and now I feel pretty confident about my bike at 55 and 60mph. Of course, I don't ride that fast all the time, nor do I want to, at this point. But, I know I can handle it, and I feel good about keeping up with traffic.

I am not over-confident, however.

A couple of near-misses have definitely encouraged my healthy respect for traffic and other vehicles, and have definitely solidified my view that pretty much everyone else might be trying to kill me. It's amazing how distracted people can be when they are all hunkered down in their great big SUV's, chatting away on the phone.

So, yay for me. :)

And in further proof that this house is full of scooter fanatics, I give you this evidence:

Scooter/scooter


Little scooters

Have a terrific day! And if it's nice out, go for a scooter ride!

Startin' Them Early

My son, enjoying a brief up-and-down the driveway ride on my eldest daughter's Razor scooter: