Well, once again I’ve been MIA on this scooter blog. Here’s a rundown on why…

1. Spring/summer came extremely late to Boise this year. We weren’t really having reliable dry and warm weather till around Memorial Day, and I don’t like to ride in the cold and certainly not the rain.
2. I kind of took the summer off for me & hubby time. You see, we’d both been working seriously long hours since last summer and we needed to reconnect a bit. So we did… going on two camping trips, doing hiking, biking on the Boise Greenbelt and kayaking the Boise River (more than once). It’s been great!
3. My very first grandchild arrived this summer! (That’s his picture just below) Since my daughter lives in Austin, Texas, that necessitated a couple of trips down there… once in May for the baby shower and then this month for his actual birth. I’m in love… but that’s another story. :) Suffice it to say, I’ve been a bit distracted by my beautiful grandson, Samuel Milo Hunt.

But having all that fun this summer doesn’t mean I didn’t indulge in a bit of scooter riding… I did, though probably not nearly enough. Sometimes I wish I didn’t work at home, so I’d have more excuses to ride on a daily basis. But I do get out at least once a week for a short ride anyway. Still love, love, love my scooter!

But today… I went out to run some errands at a few different stores and it was scooter city. Saw a pink one as I was pulling out of my development. Then, when I parked at Big 5 Sporting Goods, my twin Series Italia Genuine Buddy scooter was parked there too. Couldn’t figure out who in the store might have been driving it though.

Next stop was D&B, a home and garden and ranch type store… yes, I live in the West. Such stores are common and great for finding all sorts of odds and ends. When I came out, my scooter had found a friend, a positively ancient-looking Chinese scoot held together in some parts by duct tape!

Final stop was at the local coffee shop to meet my hubby for an iced latte. As I was leaving there an hour later, what zips by but a speeding Roketa scooter. Fabulous! It’s great to live in a city where scooters are so commonplace.

I’m going to try to get lots more rides in over the next 2 months before cooler weather sets in. Winter lasts far too long around here…

If you’re in the market to buy a scooter jacket or motorcycle jacket, you’ve got to check out GoGo Gear, a company out of southern California. Fronted by Arlene Battishill, this company is selling uniquely designed scooter jackets unlike anything you’ve seen elsewhere.

They have full armor protection, but they look like high fashion. I am in love with several of the designs and currently saving up my money for one. The  original line is for women, but designs for men are about to be released too.

Personally, I’ve never been that much of a fan of the racing style jackets sold in my local motorcycle stores. At least not enough of a fan to spend a couple hundred bucks (I’m self-employed and the wife of a teacher, so I don’t spend money easily.)

But as soon as I saw GoGo Gear’s jackets, I knew I had to find a way to get one… hopefully within a few months.

You can get more details about these fine jackets here:

http://www.motor-scooters-guide.com/scooter-jacket.html

Check them out… you know you want to! :)

Ah… it’s been a long, cold, rainy winter here in the Treasure Valley of Idaho. We had snow in December, quite a bit of it, and constant snow in our surrounding foothills and mountains. But here in the Valley, it’s been pretty much snowless since the beginning of the year. But cold. And rainy. And windy. And generally too inclement for me to feel like climbing on the scooter most of the time. (I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to riding in the cold.)

Spring can’t decide if it wants to come this year. A couple week ago, we had a 70-degree sunny day, following weeks in the 30s and 40s. The next day, it was back in the 50s and has since often been in the 40s… and always cloudy and often rainy. Pretty depressing stuff. Yes, I’m whining!

But now and then, the sun has broken through for an hour or two and I’ve hopped on the scoot and ridden to the gym or Walmart or whatever.

Today, though, it’s been gloriously sunny… all day long! It does look like spring around here, with blooming daffodils and forsythia, flowering trees and a general greening up of grass and trees everywhere. It just hasn’t felt much like spring.

Did you ever have one of those days that you feel kind of down? I was having one of those today. Found out my darling daughter has some pretty significant regrets about her wedding day (not the marriage, just the cake she made and the dress she chose)… yes, the darling daughter who is pictured looking totally joyful in the previous post! My heart hurts for her… such is the nature of a mother, I suppose. I counseled her to leave regrets behind and move forward with her wonderful husband and the baby they are expecting this summer. Hopefully, the pregnancy hormones will stabilize and things will look better to her tomorrow.

Then I found out one of my gym acquaintances, who always seems happy and outgoing has been asked for a divorce by her husband of 16 years. Having gone through that myself a couple decades ago, I know how much it hurts. So, also feeling bad for her.

Why am I telling you all this? Well… as a prelude to why I felt moved to hop on my scooter this afternoon! I wanted to feel a little shot of  joy, and riding my scooter never fails to give me that. Had to pick up a prescription and run it over to my mom, who is temporarily staying with her sister. On the way home, I stopped by a local park to check on the level of our Boise River, which is currently in spring flood mode after a major release from our local dam/reservoir over the weekend.

It was just a short jaunt, but enjoyable. And now, I’m back to work.

Please, Spring… come and stay for good. I long for more and longer scooter rides on my beloved Genuine Buddy scooter.

Hello out there if I still have any readers of this blog. Wow! I haven’t updated this in over six months. Where has the time gone? I didn’t realize it had been so long. Here’s the scoop…

I live a rather packed life. Besides the ongoing scramble to make a viable living online, I was serving as main breadwinner for quite some time, since my husband could only find part-time work as a teacher. So, for me, it’s been work, work, work! I love the work, but not much time for fun like writing this blog. Or even as much time for scooter riding as I’d like, even in nice weather. Boo…

In addition, I am caregiver for an elderly mother whose health has really failed over the past year. She has emphysema and even doing something seemingly simple like getting dressed has become a major struggle and energy zapper for her. So, again, more work for me… and worry.

On a happy note, my youngest daughter got married in October and is now pregnant too (my first grandchild!), so I’ve been tied up at times with traveling to see her in Texas, talking on the phone, helping her plan, etc. That’s her picture… isn’t she cute?

And then,  on the happiest note… my main scooter site has really taken off over the past year! It’s an interactive site, with dozens of opportunities for people to post questions, submit scooter reviews and share stories about all things scooter. I have a huge community now, and I’m getting new postings in the dozens every single week. I love it, but it’s definitely time-consuming to keep up with it all, especially since some of my contributors don’t seem to understand the first thing about how to write in proper English. Haha…

So anyway, if you’re reading this, and you haven’t checked out my main Motor-Scooters-Guide.com website lately (or ever), go there now… and please… join in the fun! We’ll be glad to have you…

Visit this page to see the latest updates to the site

PS Yes, I’m still riding, though not lately, as I live in the mountain west and it’s been much too cold and wet to be safe or comfortable on the roads for the past couple months. At least in my opinion! I’m looking forward to spring… or at least springlike weather.

Here’s a picture of proud mama (me) with the bride and the maid of honor (my older daughter, Sarah):

I’m fortunate to live in an area where 2-wheel vehicles abound… both the motorized variety and the foot-powered variety. Boise, Idaho is usually a dry, fairly temperate climate at least 8 months out of the year… and there’s lots of beautiful country to explore, from high prairie/desert to rolling foothills to bona fide mountains.

So, despite the dire warnings in the motorcycle manual I studied to get my endorsement on my license, I have never found riding my scooter in this area to be particularly hazardous due to rude drivers. Quite the contrary… people have waved, admired my scoot, and been generally pleasant in every way.

Yesterday, that all changed.

I’m riding down one of our suburban streets, where I ride all the time, which has a middle turning lane. As I passed the library driveway exit on my left, a big luxury car comes roaring out towards me. As I was just preparing to move into the middle lane (which was about to turn into a left turn lane at the light), the car coming out when I was right there quite startled me. I didn’t swerve or anything, but he roared up behind me and then swerved into the right lane at a fairly high rate of speed, considering we were approaching a red light with traffic in front of us.

I have a temper; I admit it. And so I yelled something like, “Slow down, you a***hole!” (So now you know, I’m not as sweet as I might sound on the pages of my site… at least not if you get my dander up!) Well, as luck would have it, we ended up side by side at the light. His rear window had been down and he apparently heard me yelling, because he then rolled his driver’s side window down, looks at me mockingly with a smirk and says, “You should be riding that thing on the sidewalk, girlie…”

Girlie, really? In 2010? He thought he was really hot stuff in his luxury gas guzzler with his fancy business clothes on. I wasn’t impressed. I just spat back, “I have as much right to the road as you do, a**hole.” What a jerk! And then we went our separate ways.

I have to admit, I continued to sputter and mutter for quite some minutes, but in the end, I was grateful that he didn’t do anything more dangerous.

What about my readers? Have you ever encountered behavior like this while out on the road, scooting? Feel free to leave me some comments!