Blast off -or- A week of firsts

Well, it has truly been a week of firsts.

I purchased a powder blue Vespa LX 150 this past weekend (big thanks to the folks at Northwest Motor Scooters, by the way - http://www.nwmotorscooters.com/ - they are amazing!), and I guess pretty much everything has been a first. I had my first near death experience as someone pulled out in front of me. She looked me right in the eye before she pulled out, and then gave me an absolutely evil look, perhaps because I had the nerve to drive legally on the road at a safe speed. I had a kid at a bus stop laugh at me. Twice. I think that it was the same kid, too. I also had my first scooter-admirers. I thought I would get more “cool” comments, but consensus seems to be that it is “cute”. Take that, bus stop kid.

There is an interesting phenomenon I have noticed that I don't understand. I have lived in Washington since August of 2008, and I still don’t get Washington drivers. Has nobody told them that they don’t have to wait until the absolute last second to move over when a lane ends? Don’t you understand that if you do that, you are causing traffic back-ups? Anyway, I was driving to school down Pacific Ave – a straight shot with no turns and a speed limit of 35 – and I checked my mirrors to see what was going on behind me. I saw that there were no cars behind me, and about 20 in the lane next to me. Is there some kind of assumption that a scooter must be driving slowly? To tell the truth, they can stay in the other lane. I still don’t trust the drivers here, so if they want to stay away from me, they have my blessing.

One of the joys of owning a scooter in the Pacific Northwest (PNW from here on out) is that if you want to have any quality time on your scooter, you’re going to need to get used to riding in the rain. My first experience was a quick trip to Fred Meyer (that’s my local huge grocery store). I took off remembering all of the warnings I received from the Washington State Department of Licensing Motorcycle Manual, which were mostly ways to avoid death. But it wasn’t raining that hard, so there wasn’t going to be much of a problem, right? If you have never taken a scooter out in the rain, be warned: at 35 mph, “not raining that hard” turns into Manila at the height of monsoon season. My pants were soaked, and my lower face felt like it was being bombarded by ball bearings (my face-shield only goes down to my nose). Since I have had only one rain-free day since I got my Vespa – and that was the day I got it – I decided to add some waterproof pants to my collection of gear. That was probably the most useful $25 I have spent so far. I think a full-face shield is on the horizon as well.

Well, I am about to take off again, in the rain as usual. I hope to update this as close to every day as possible, but I’m not making a promise there. My goal is to ride my scooter every day, no matter what. There will be a month (July) where I won’t be riding because I’ll be in Michigan getting married. Other than that, look for updates frequently.