My Little Met

I took a little spin yesterday out in the country on my "new" little Honda Met. What a joy, what a gift! To ride again is sweet!

Here she is last Tuesday, parked at Mt. Moriah Cemetery on the way home from the Honda dealership...

It's a pretty place with a lake, waterfall, fountain, and ducks. I saw a heron fly overhead as I pulled up beside the lake...

Once I got her home I spent a good bit of time adding bling and so forth, of course. But then we had days of horrid, hot, humidity and then rain, rain, rain.

So the first time I really got to ride her out into the back roads was yesterday on a favorite rural loop.

Immediately I was eyed by curious by-standers, peeking through the fence at me...

Not too far along I parked alongside a rushing creek and hit the kill switch and just sat and listened to the sound of the water bubbling over the rocks...

The road ahead. I believe in being seen, so Breezy sports a bicycle hi-viz reflective triangle on the back of her Saddlemen roll bag, with no apologies for geekiness...

From the front you can see my "Crazy Critters" marketing motif...my new pet sitting business. My little 2002 Denim Met is part of my business presence in the neighborhood surrounding these back roads...

Up by the old cabin is a pond that today was algae covered. The cabin is on the right...

Looking back at Breezy, waiting to leave the pond and cabin area...

She is named for my sweet "Breezy", who crossed over the Rainbow Bridge on June 29th...

On to Veterans Park in Union Township. Here is a nice lake with a cheery fountain and LOTS of duck and geese friends...

Ready to head home. She came to me with 727 miles on her and we just added another 30 or so.

Such a sweet ride and such a wonderful gift made possible by the generosity of a fellow blogger. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

My little Met, Breezy. This scoot is LOVED!

Big Joy! My Little Met

I took a little spin yesterday out in the country on my "new" little Honda Met. What a joy, what a gift! To ride again is sweet!

Here she is last Tuesday, parked at Mt. Moriah Cemetery on the way home from the Honda dealership...

With Gratitude

A fellow blogger has generously come through to gift me with the money needed to get the little Metropolitan out of lay-away.

I cannot express how this feels, to be in this frustrating position and then have someone help to resolve it almost immediately.

I thank you, fellow blogger, from the bottom of my scootin' heart.

Please know that you have brought joy to our household in a way that only a fellow rider of two wheels can understand.

I hope to take my "first ride of the season" next week and I will post photos of the little Met and the sights along the route.

Meanwhile, safe rides...

Not To Be

Ain't gonna happen...

So yeah, an update on this situation. One day I go down to the powersports store and find this little used Metropolitan scooter sitting there with only 714 miles on it and *BAM!!* that is it!

I've swapped over my lay-away to the Met and the Ruck will have to wait awhile. Difference in price? Try $1500.

Yep, Rucks have gone up in the price that's for sure.

The Met is a 2002, no rust or damage, gone over by the shop, runs like a charm. Just like my 2009 that I woefully sold in 2013.

"The Met is a Ruckus dressed up to go out" with some pluses that are good for around here: locking center stand, locking under seat compartment, rear rack capacity, front basket capacity (already bought and ready to install), and a windshield available for colder weather.

The Met only gets up to 40 mph, is carburated, and has a MUCH more comfortable seat than the Ruckus.

So, for now, on my limited budget, I am going for the Met.

Updates to follow....

Not my photo, but this is what it looks like. Will try to post an actual pic later..

Scooter Fever

The relentless fever runs through my veins day and night...

Well, since I don't currently OWN a scooter, I've spent a lot of time on-line researching which one will be my next.

I've narrowed down a few features and preferences on my list of top choices. And that took considerable effort on my part because when it comes to scoots, I am like a "kid in a candy shop". I want them ALL! And RIGHT NOW! LOL

But I am trying to be smart about this and since I've got just a tad bit of experience "under my belt", so to speak, I do know enough to know what I do not want in a scooter. Been there, done that on some of these issues.

"Meh"...

"Nope..."

"Er, no..."

Yamaha C3...sweet, but hated the lack of a rear rack.

Ok, so yes. "scooter fever" is a painful thing and yet on-line scooter browsing helps to relieve it a bit. However, I actually did cross that browsing line last week and did a very brief visit to my local Honda/Yamaha power sports dealer. I was in a hurry, on my way to somewhere else, so I could not linger due to time constraints that day.

But I saw enough to know that this shop will probably be where I purchase my next scoot. Why? Well first of all they carry Honda and Yamaha scooters. I am probably going to stick to one of those brands because there is dealer support network widely available for maintenance and repairs.

When I move back out into the rural areas I can get what I need to keep my scoot going and going...

Secondly, these brands are bullet-proof reliable and have what I want in my next scooter.

And thirdly, it is 5 miles from home and I can get a taxi ride up there!

"At your service..."

Now that is not to say that I haven't seen a few other scooters that fit my criteria in another brand's line-up. I have indeed. But the dealer network is few and far between. Plus once I move back out into the rural area they are going to be WAY too far away in case something major goes wrong with the scoot.

Dirt roads are fun, but not when you break down out there in a "cellular dead zone".

Genuine Roughhouse 50, high on the list...

In sifting through the models available I had to get right down to what I like, what I don't like, what I want, what I don't want in my next scooter. Doing this assumes, in a way, that there is a "perfect" scooter out there.

I don't believe that this is possible, at least for most of us, so that leaves a tiny bit of "scrooching room" to negotiate the gaps.

Honda's Ruckus...always a contender...and my roots!

But when you are on a budget ya gotta just get right down to the basics in the here and now and leave the gaps by the wayside.

For right now, my basic requirements for a scooter look like this: large enough to be visible in traffic, fat tires, locking under seat storage is preferable, rear rack potential, strong head lamps for night riding, a floor board, fuel injection is preferable but not mandatory, a fairly comfortable seat height and acceptable ergonomics, a top speed of at least 40mph, light weight and maneuverable for handling and storage.

Pullin' at my heart strings...Yamaha's Zuma 50F scoot.

Right away, with this list, it becomes evident that I am more than happy with a 50cc scooter. This blog is not entitled "49ccscooterlife" for nothing!

This is not to say that I wouldn't go for a 125-150cc scooter. I would.

But for my riding style and intentions, 50cc would more than get me where I want to go.

"Mooove along, ladies..."

Lost along some random creek side road...

Mostly where I want to go is out on the back roads, riding slowly and drinking in the scenery, OR running up to the store or other local attractions on 35-45mph roads. My focus is avoiding traffic as much as I can unless I absolutely have no other way to get from point A to point B.

This is the way I started out riding and this is the way I will continue riding. It is the only way for me to enjoy scooting.

I've got 3 scooters in mind that so far seem to fit most of my "wants and needs" categories.

I have never sat on 2 of them or ridden them, but I hope to do so this week.

If one of them is "the one" then it will be a while before I can get it because I will have to save up the cash for the purchase. I enjoy no credit of any kind after long-term under-employment. "It is what it is", as they say.

However, there is always the possibility for a used one at a lower price to come along. Then I will be riding sooner!

I will name my scooter, "Harley" so that I can outfit her with all the gear and kit from the H-D shop up the street! LOL

Now that I have a good job as of last week (another post coming) I am hoping to set up a "scooter fund" to start saving up for my next scooter.

Anyway, my hope would be that by Labor Day weekend I might have my scooter which would give me about 2.5 months of decent riding season left to enjoy some back road exploration. It might come sooner than that, depending on my in-coming cash flow or the sudden appearance of a cheaper used one at this shop or on Craigslist.

Meanwhile the delirious insanity of "scooter fever" keeps my brain in a twist and a constantly moving twirl of dreaming about sweet rides out among the fields, creeks, and hollers.

When I am ready to pick-up the new scooter I will reveal the model and make.

Meanwhile, ride on and enjoy the summer, you lucky scooter-owning bastards!

NOTE: I "borrowed" a lot of photos for this post. They seemed to be free on-line. If you see one that is yours and you are pissed off, contact me and I will remove it immediately. Or take it as a compliment that I took the time to use it in my blog! Thank you, regardless.Scoot on!

Simply Remember

Photo courtesy of The Dog Files.

A day of remembering all who served and all who gave their lives so that we could continue to live ours in peace and safety.

A day to remember our moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, and friends who have gone on before us.

Think of them all today. Visit a cemetery if you can. Leave a flag or a flower or a thought or a prayer.

Never take any of them for granted.

Realize that someday YOU will be remembered for the good deeds you did,the love you gave, the memories you left behind for others.

Simply remember, smile in your heart, and hold dear the memories of what once was.

It's Memorial Day.

Photo courtesy of Mad Mikes Memorial Day.

ScooterLess-Ness Stinks!

It seems sometimes that nothing is right with the world, even though God is surely in his or her heaven.

Such it has been with scooterless-ness this spring.

It is the first time since 2009 that I have not ventured out on the back roads as the daffodils burst forth and the greenery starts to be-speckle the road side bushes and trees. At least not on a scooter.

And oh how I miss it!

In 2009 I was laid off along with 5 other clinicians and one RN from a rural mental health center because of Medicaid cuts at the state level. This was during the height of the "Great Recession" in Ohio and it was a really rough time. Like a panicky fool, I put my first scooter, my 2006 Ruckus, up on Craigslist and two guys from Akron bought it within days.

I remember watching their pick-up truck roll down my gravel drive, my Ruckus leaning over in the back, and tears rolling down my cheeks. I almost chased after them, crying "Stop! I can't do this!", but we needed the money just to keep surviving out there in the impoverished Appalachian woods.

And so it left my life and my spring and summer of depression set in.

One day months later I was browsing through Craigslist and saw an older Honda Elite 80 for sale about 3 hours away. And they only wanted $600! I called and asked if they'd hold it for me for a few weeks with a little deposit and they agreed. In October I borrowed a friend's old pick-up and drove the 3 hours to Lancaster, Ohio to pick it up.

It wasn't a bad scooter. A 2001 black Honda Elite 80 in pretty good shape. I put a basket on the back and rode it all over the ridges and valleys out there until it got too cold to tolerate. It was a "crumb to a hungry dog" and it gave me some solace, but funny thing is I did not take a single photo of it. Not one. At least if I did I never found it or remember posting it.

It was like that horrible person you dated after your break-up or divorce. Just not a fit, a "what the heck was I thinking?" sort of experience. I wound up selling it to a guy in the city and I bought my first Honda Elite 110 in April after I finally got a job that previous February.

But nothing was ever the same after that and I swore no matter how poor I got I would NEVER sell my scooter. I would rather be poor and ride than be poor and walk. Life without a scooter was like life without an identity. At least for me. An empty, sad, lost feeling.

A feeling that I've lived with here since February because that promise to myself got broken this past winter because I could not work outside the home due to my partner's illness.

So we pretty much lost everything all over again and I lost both my scooters, both my bikes, and my "get by" job during the Winter of 2015-2016.

But things are getting better. They really are.

She is doing great in rehab and walking and can be alone now enough for me to work again and I have one part-time job at a florist (which I love) and I am interviewing for other part-time jobs.

I have a bicycle on lay-away and I am already planning to do everything I can to get back on a scooter this summer too as soon as I can.

ANY scooter to start. Even that old black Honda Elite 80 if one pops up for under $1000.

I don't care what I am riding, just so I am riding a scooter of some kind again soon.

And after this I will NEVER be scooter-less again no matter how bad things get because let me tell you, "scooterless-ness" stinks!

There are only so many "riding years" left in this old girl and I hope to not waste any of them.

First Snow and Bicycle Dreams

Snow on the Little Miami Bike Trail last winter

Today I awoke to a light snow fall outside my window. At first I said, "Oh, shit!" Then I found myself gazing quietly out at the lacy twigs and branches and the softly drifting snow flakes and I said, "Wow! It's beautiful!" And it was.

Not predicted, not expected, but a gift of quiet and a much needed small joy nonetheless.

I have been trying to rest yesterday and today. Just hang around the cottage, do some laundry, eat some good food, watch football and comedies, and hang out with my 4 girls.

Jolly back on the farm...

Martha has also been resting and we have talked on the phone every few hours. There is no therapy on the weekend, so she has had a reprieve. Tomorrow at 7am the ball starts rolling again for a full day of PT, OT, ST, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner for her.

I think about spring and I long to walk along the local wooded rail trail pathways that run not far from here. Ohio has some of the most fantastic rail trails running north from the Ohio River area and all throughout the state.

Borrowed image, Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail, WI, courtesy of aboutbikes.com

The Ohio to Erie Trail and the Little Miami Bike Trail are the most notable in my area of southwestern Ohio.

http://www.ohiotoerietrail.org/

http://www.littlemiamibiketrail.com/

Kings Mills, Little Miami Bike Trail last winter...

Before I moved out into the rural area in 2006 I was an avid bicyclist. I had a recumbent bike, a recumbent trike, a road bike, and a mountain bike. I had really gotten involved in cycling as my primary passion starting back in 2001.

I was visiting the bike trails 3-4 times a week in those days and had built my fitness level up to where I was doing 50 mile round trips rides regularly. I loved it and became quite the "bikeaholic" as noted by the number of bikes I owned.

Once we moved out to the farm house in the summer of 2006 I rarely visited my beloved trail system which was 50 miles west. I decided to try to ride out there on rural lanes and in the villages, but it was not the same for me.

Borrowed image courtesy of Wikepedia

I longed for the quiet rides along the river on the bike paths where I did not have to deal with cars and all the tension and fumes and anxiety that comes from riding among them. So I more or less quit riding bikes.

By 2007 I had purchased my first scooter, the Ruckus, and that became my "getaway tool" of choice. Eventually the bikes all got sold during the Great Recession amid lay-offs and sparse income.

Once I got back here in 2012 near the bike paths I had the desire to ride again, but it never took hold. I was still on the scooter but working to obtain at least 2 bikes again, which I eventually did. They got sold this summer due to my inability to get hired in a decent paying job. It broke my heart to let them go, but times were hard.

They still are, but I am once again dreaming of getting back on a bike on my beloved bike paths. I belong to the Rails-To-Trails Conservancy and see the awesome rides that members post on their Facebook page.

http://www.railstotrails.org/

I long to ride on those quiet rural routes away from cars and noise and pollution, to escape into nature as I always did on the scooter out in the country.

But "cars and noise and pollution" are just about all that I experience riding my scooter while living in here and I am ready to give it up until I move back out in the country. That could be next year or the next, I do not know. I am no longer focused on that as I have a job here and Marty's health care providers are here.

Anyway, that's right, I said give up scooter riding in here. It's no longer fun, it never felt safe, and I found myself doing it less and less.

It also felt more and more lonely as I know no one who rides a scooter or motorcycle and I got tired of always being out alone on the back roads.

It actually became boring and a chore that I avoided more and more.

If I can ever get a bigger scooter (150cc+) then I might scoot out from here to the countryside that I love. But for now it is too far and too tedious to try to do that from this location and I am letting go and focusing on getting back on a bike.

So my last scooter is up for sale and I have already picked out the bike I hope to replace it with, another Townie 21D in Matte Black. A stunningly beautiful beast!

Not only all of that, but I have lost SO MUCH fitness by riding the scooter alone. I want to get back on the bike to recover my legs and my lungs and ride like I used to do.

I don't think it's too late because I have a very physical job and my body has been able to adapt to that kind of strenuous activity and I have gotten leaner and stronger just doing that labor.

It has also sunk in my brain that I am THE caregiver for my little family. I know that every time I rode that scooter in this area that I took a risk of being hit by a car and injured to the point that I could have become disabled or worse.

I was never actually afraid, but I always knew it was a risk. I am no longer willing to take that risk. It is just not worth it to me and the impact on my family would be devastating.

Then there's this: the quiet ride of the bike, gears whirring, smells from the wooded trail, the sounds of birds over head, the peacefulness of riding a bike along where other riders pass you from time to time. Just the immersion in the experience and the community of fellow riders is something I long for and miss.

I loved the feeling of working the lungs and muscles and heart, the joy of physicality in the pure simple pleasure of riding a bike. I need the work-out on so many levels.

I miss it, I do. I want it back. I want to eye my bike in the living room over the winter and sneak in a ride on decent sunny days as the spring breaks through.

Bicycle dreams, long dormant, are flowing through my brain like the run off from a long frozen mountain stream. Where or why I do not know, but it is happening.

I am now watching Ebay with the anticipation of a scooter sale and the ride over to the bike shop to pick up my black beauty!

Something new is emerging, joy is stirring around in my heart for the ride, I am having bicycle dreams and it feels really, really good!

My long gone Liquid Silver Townie...

Fuji Saratoga grocery-getter and dog taxi on the farm...