Blog Challenge: Take a Slow Ride

And that is why I ride.

It is why I started riding in 2007 and it is what will keep me riding until I can ride no more.

A slower pace of life. The life I found living out in the country for 7 years. The joys of riding that I experienced riding my first Ruckus.

The little things.

Seeing a family of racoons watching me from a tree on the side of the road.

Watching a flock of bluebirds rise up from a bush along the lane.

Greeting cows who gaze at me and my scooter as we pass by their pasture.

Tracking a flock of geese as they glide overhead.

Parking on a bridge and listening to the bubbling sound made by the water rushing below.

Smelling honeysuckle vines, woodsmoke, and outdoor grills wafting on the summer breeze.

On my Ruckus I visited the organic farm and picked tomatoes, hauling home bags of them in the basket.

I shopped the Amish market and lugged home bags of dog food and bird seed on the floorboard.

I visited neighbors on my narrow ridge road and sat out on their porches and drank coffee and talked about nothing in particular.

I cruised the moonlit path to my neighbor's house and fed and let her dogs out while she was on vacation.

I even herded Holstein cows that had gotten out of their pasture and helped round them to the barn!

During all of these experiences I was not going over 43 mph.

Not once!

During all of these experiences I found a oneness with my surroundings, a deep sense of belonging, a quiet peace, a profound joy.

THAT stuff is what got me hooked on riding a scooter!

Finding that slower pace of life that had become lost in a cage which was always in a hurry.

I knew even when I named my blog "49cc scooter life" that in some intuitive way there was something very special to this slower pace of life experienced on a scooter.

But then I got side-tracked by the notion that somehow I'd be better off going faster and going further than I had been on a scooter up to that point.

I should have remembered what I'd learned living among the Amish for 7 years-that staying close to home and going slowly and mindfully was a richer experience than going faster and becoming distant and losing perspective.

Blog challenge: try a really slow ride on your scooter or motorcycle or bicycle and notice the little things, the little joys around you that you might miss if you were zooming by in a hurry.

THEN, share a photo and tell us about your experience of slow riding and the little sights and experiences you enjoyed at a slow, leisurely pace.