Adventures in scootering (Part 3)

So I just returned home from one of the longest episodes of “Family Guy” ever. Apparently a side affect of being away from home for a while is basically, complete loss of brain function. Let me explain. I walked Jen to the car tonight as she was off to do some Jen type things. She waved goodbye to me FROM THE CAR and I waved back, so far so good. An hour or so later the kids and I decided on pizza from a local pizza joint. No problem…pick up the pizza in 20 minutes. Perfect. Have I mentioned that we only have ONE car? It seriously didn’t dawn on me that I couldn’t actually retrieve the pizza and I didn’t have a car until I was walking out the door. This is when I realized that due to a completely unrelated story of Christmas friendship and generosity, I had a working Vespa. Intriguing. Here’s how it was going to go down. It was dark, the temperature was a cool 55 degrees and I was about to traverse one of the busiest intersections in our area, next to the mall, a week or so from Xmas. I made it to the pizza joint no problem, paid for the pizza and then spent 15 minutes trying to determine how in the hell I was going to get a large pizza home on a scooter. Here’s what I worked out.

I’m sure my fellow Floridians had a good chuckle at the middle aged pizza delivery guy who got stuck delivering pizza in the 50 degree weather on Friday night. Eh, whatever. It was actually kind of adventurous. Sad, but true.

Vespa story – part 2

So I have put off writing the “Tale of the Vespa trip” for a whole bunch of reasons. At first I thought I could make up a really good story and keep everyone on the edge of their seats with a story of adventure and intrigue. I realized soon after this thought that I don’t have a good enough imagination and I could not lie to such a vast legion of fans. I did not want to become the James Fry of the blogosphere. Truth be told? I was the recipient of a last second offer of a truck ride back from Clearwater which probably saved my a couple of hours of love bug encrusted boredom. The Vespa is safely quartered here in Wesley Chapel and I’m sure there will be more opportunities to tell Vespa stories since the thing still isn’t running right. I already imagine it…”It was a dark and stormy night…”

Road trip!!

Tomorrow is the great scooter adventure. I think I’ve posted some commentary about our Vespa scooter before, but here’s a bit of background. Just prior to moving to Florida we purchased a 2004 Vespa scooter like this one.

It’s a 50 cc monster capable of speeds up to 44 mph. For the most part this is ok for putting around the various subdivisions and a trip to the grocery store, but for anything more than a couple of miles you are risking life and limb on Florida roads. This is why I will be riding it for almost 45 miles tomorrow. We had a friend of ours cart the Vepsa to Clearwater a week ago because I broke the choke housing trying to start the thing. It also apparently needed a rebuilt carburetor and some various other tunings. The problem became…How do you get it back? I have decided that asking the neighbor to cart a non-working Vespa 45 miles was not out of line, but asking him to go pick it up when it runs perfectly fine is not. I have mapped out a 45 mile trail back to our place that keeps me off the interstate and main roads for the most part. I’m calling it an adventure. No one else is of the same opinion.

Check out my route.

You might want to turn off CNN for tomorrow. Who knows what trouble I might get into and I’d rather you find out here first. 

Area 51

So we have this Vespa scooter. We haven’t ridden it since we left for Europe and the battery has since died. The other day I purchased a battery and had the lovely experience of filling it with battery acid. For some reason I decided that working with sulfuric acid isn’t a big deal. Don’t need no stinking gloves, glasses, skin on my fingers. I proceeded to fill it and get acid on my hands as I picked up the battery to put it in the scooter. I also took this moment to put the screw package in my mouth to hold it while I did this. Mind you the screw package had been in the same box as the acid…which had some leak spots on it when it arrived. I’m surprised I didn’t just decide to chug the acid, since I was being so stupid. I finally got the battery in and decided to take it for a spin. I hesitate to ride the scooter because it reminds me of a joke that is pretty much true. The clean version of the joke goes something like this. “Scooters are like ______. They are fun to ride until your friends see you.” See..I couldn’t really clean it up. To top it off the helmets we have for this scooter make us all look like Marvin the Martian, minus the brush thingy.

Here is a picture of Marvin. I MIGHT send a picture of someone other than me riding the scooter for funny.