What shall we do for Memorial Day?

Shall we jump into the car

And Zoom

That is, Zoooom

I said, ZOOOOM

To some romantic location?

Or, shall we

Go home

Do some sightseeing,

Eat some food,

Visit the family?

Or, should we hop a ride

To some exotic party,

Crash a wedding,

Join-in on some exotic fun?

Or, shall we hop a boat,

Sail and cook our way to strange and wondrous places,

Where the Sun presents itself eternally new, and eternally the same?

Or should we get smart,

Grab our scooter, AND

Scooter For Fun to some real exotic places,

maybe heading to Canada trying to find that wonderful peace officer who chatted with us for a bit, then mounted up and rode off into the world...

Leaving us wondering, "Who was that

sun-glassed rider?" (anyone knows, let me know),

Or, perhaps we should just jump on and, Scootering along, just camp and ride, camp and ride.....

What would you do?

What did you do?

In Maine, you get three answers to a plea for directions:

Turn Right at the Old Humpty Dumpty Popcorn building;

Turn Left where the old Elm Tree used to be;

You Cha-ent, Gea-year-te, Thya From He ya.

Paying no attention to the above warning, Tom Keene of Scooter by the Sea fame


http://scooterbythesea.blogspot.com/

and I, zoomed off on yet another adventure:  This time Goochs Beach (no apostrophe) in beautiful downtown Kennebunk: a mere 45.4 miles (via the scenic route) south.


As usual, we first fortified ourselves with some good, strong, coffee: this time at The Speckled Axe, on Congress Street, in Portland.
http://portlanddailysun.me/index.php/businessx/local-business/6788-speckled-ax-opens-quietly-with-high-end-coffee

We sat there, under the cool looking, but dim overhead lights

 sipping our brew, while Tom reviewed the route with me.

And then, over the meadow, by the reeds at the shore, we toured...

Over the meadow, where the stream runs blue....

To the land of the lobsters, we rode.

Now, there are - to my mind - certain actions that, when they occur, portend of some historic event.  With Tom, it's fueling up....

...And while I wait, patiently,

I wonder, what this fuel-stop means in the grand scheme of what life is about to send our way, because when Tom fills-up, interesting things always happen.


The answer to that question lays within Tom's version of our trip – which you must read: but the short version is that, despite having rode down here innumerable times, somehow, in some yet to be defined manner, we got lost and rode around, and around one small patch of Arundel township before we finally arrived at the sea: an arrival that Tom was Keene to point out...

The beach is fantastic.  It's a long, long, crescent of fine sand, surrounded by period homes - well maintained and each more graceful than the other,

A great place to spend a day.


Tom, with his ever-keene eye, spotted, and started to photograph, a figure at the far end of the beach, doing a dance in the surf.  Only a true Mainiac (what original Mainers are known as) could see a dance in the wild gyrations that were occurring.  Me, I could only see some person, more brave than of sound mind, reacting to the INTENSE cold that we up here call "Beach Water".  But, undaunted, Tom snapped away.

In the meanwhile, we both examined another scooter that we had parked alongside.

Paying particular attention to the upscale footwear....


As we were admiring the scooter, the owner – and his dog – showed up and proceeded to mount up and scoot away.  The dog nestled within a plastic crate strapped to the back: the owner nestled into his high-fashion footwear....

As we ourselves were getting ready to leave, the "dancing surfer" headed our way, and soon materialized into a very attractive young woman.  Tom, in his most enviable manner, started a conversation with the lady, and before you could say Kellogg's Corn Flakes, the lady is posing for Tom – who is snapping away.


Now, it's not that I'm envious, but the only conversation I can elicit from one as young and attractive as this lady was, is: "May I help you across the street, sir?", or, "Are you lost, sir?"


Be that as it may, the conversation was a perfect ending to yet another perfect day riding with Tom.


For all you out there, who haven't got her-ya yet, what are you waiting for?  Riding with Tom is an adventure you must experience.


Trust me.

I'm always up for a challenge,

So when Trobairitz asked

What's in your wallet (or something like that) I immediately dug into my pants and jacket to see exactly what I do carry around with me while riding.

Unfortunately, it turns out that I'm a piker in the "Put it in yer 

pock-et league".

First, the jacket.

In the Left pocket sits the garage-door opener.  Stopping, dismounting, entering the code, re-mounting, starting and driving into the garage is no fun.  I'm a push-the-button kind'a guy.

Even though I'm a righty, it's in my left pocket because I've learned that trying to push the button with one's right hand while holding onto the throttle, can produce some fascinating - albeit short - rides.

In my right pocket is my backup water spritzer - just in case my water bottle runs dry.

Although I'v shown my key, it really doesn't sit in my jacket pocket. Instead, I loop it around my belt and clip it to it's ring.  That way, I know it's not going anywhere.

As for my pants – well, on my left hip belt sits my phone, on my right hip belt resides my pedometer ( my BRW wants to see 10,000 steps each day - one of the wonders of being married to a nurse), followed - on the right side with my primary water spritzer.

My left front pocket holds my cash ( I never seem to have much in that pocket), while my right pocket holds my change - which seems always to multiply in adverse proportion to my left pocket contents. By the way, the coin on the left, kind of by itself, is a gold dollar, one of our county's big mistakes.  Someone figured that if you can carry paper money you can carry coin money, totally disregarding that ten bucks, even in one-dollar bills, weigh nothing.  Ah ha! Do you know what ten coins weigh?  Enough to keep you hitching up your pants every 3 or 4 steps.  Ah, well.

The right rear pocket keeps my handkerchief safe and sound.  I say safe and sound because no one can reach into their rear pocket while riding.

My left rear pocket holds my pouch - hand made by my BRW - within which resides my lucky rock and my "keep-safe" fetishes.  Important stuff.  Not that I'm superstitious - but I am a sailor, and we have our good luck items, without which doom and gloom with prevail.

Honest.

The red thingy is an RCA combination camera and video machine.  Unless it's February, or thereabouts (which in Maine, trust me, can be brutally cold) I usually wear chaps over my regular pants, and the camera snuggles into the pocket of my chaps.  Otherwise, it sits in my left jacket pocket.

So, that's it.  Not much, but Hey! Think of Agnes Martin, Frank Stella, Philip Glass and John Cage.

Okay.  This a real call for help on a very important subject.

Now that I've got your attention, here's the deal –

Should we upgrade from the Honda Elite 110 to an Aprilia 250, or buy a motorcycle such as, oh, I don't know, a Honda Shadow, or a Suzuki Boulevard, or a BMW Roadster.

Clearly, I'm in over my head except that the Elite can't do what we need: something that will hold at least 50-mph (or a bit more) steady, with two people aboard plus the usual weekend "stuff".

We went the scooter route - even though we both hold motorcycle licenses, because of my concern about handling a bike.  In particular, holding the darn thing upright.  My fear was, has been, is, that if it starts to tilt, the game is over.

four years ago this wouldn't have been a problem (real or imagined - i'm not sure) but my bout with cancer took 20 some-odd pounds off my 5' 8'' frame, most of it muscle, leaving me with 143 pounds to do my stuff.

So, I'm reaching out for some advice.  Any suggestions as to bike versus scooter and which bike (if that's the suggestion), would be most appreciated.

Or, in the alternative, allaying my fears about keeping a 700 some-odd pound object with the wheels on the road and the handlebars on top.

In the meanwhile, we will continue to merrily chug along on the 110.

ZOOM, ZOOM!!

Can I do two blogs in one day?

Shameless, I know, but here is a out and out plug

Join us: Ray, Adam and myself, at radio station WMPG, on Monday (every Monday) from 1:30 until 3:00 PM, and listen as we take on the ills of the world and solve each and every one of them.

Okay, so we don't solve ALL of them, but..... those that we fail to solve, were clearly not worthy of our divine problem solving powers.

Okay, so we can't solve all the problems.  But, that doesn't stop us from ripping it open and searching its entrails seeking the answer.

For those who are not in the listening area of Greater Portland, Maine, don't despair, we are streamed - live, for your pleasure - at 

WWW.WMPG.ORG


AND THE PROGRAM IS....


SPEAK FREELY! And we do.

I mean, where else can you listen to three people, spanning three generations, express their opinions on such earth-shattering matters as

Who hit Nellie in the belly with a five-pound flounder?

and other deep, dense topics.

Ray and Adam are in the air-conditioned studio, while I

sit in the dungeon on the other side of the glass...

looking at their mugs.

At any rate, it's great fun.

JOIN US.  WMPG MONDAY 1:30 UNTIL YOU GET TIRED OF LISTENING --- OR, 3 PM COMES AROUND.