Mango shake, anyone??: PA

Showing posts with label PA. Show all posts

Monday, August 27, 2018

Sunday, October 05, 2014

One of the contrasts which I enjoy maintaining in my life in the US (such as it is - a few months every year or two), is the comedic lack of proportion between the 18 wheelers I drive for my job and my chosen commuter vehicle, a scooter.

The scooter has two wheels, one floor, a little bit of some kind of style but no rumble whatsoever, and a box big enough for a helmet or a bunch of flowers or two bags of groceries or, I suppose, a free kitten. My commute , it should be said, is twenty miles of about the most ideal scooter roads around. When I go to work in the middle of the night, the highlight is the stars. When I come home in the daytime, I watch the fields and the farms, and it seems at least half the farms have stands out selling something. The summer isn't long enough to stop at all of them, but I do my best! So here is a selection of what's beside the road tempting me on the way home from work.

As my summer commuter workhorse, the scooter is about perfect. Mostly, it is about enjoying the ride on the way to work and back. I don't know about the price of horse feed or coal these days, but its also pretty nice for me to put on 100 miles going to work and bringing home goodies, and then to fill up the tank for this:

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Summer Scootering

One of the particularly enjoyable aspects of my summer here is always the scootering. Riding a scooter effectively forces me to take the back way, to slow down, and encourages stopping to stretch the legs and generally enjoy myself in ways I am less likely to do when driving a full size vehicle. For these reasons, when looking to cross the Susquehanna River this summer, I found the ferry instead of taking the bridge. Yes, there is still a ferry, a wooden paddle boat that takes you across a wide stretch of the river, almost a mile, in a leisurely twenty minutes. Considering that in the summer the river is rarely more than a couple feet deep, one need not be too concerned about the seaworthiness of the vessel! So, here are a few pictures of the scooter and my brother’s cycle on the Roaring Bull.

Most of my scooter miles are, of course, commuter miles. My ride to work is almost always in the middle of the night which, at least in the summertime, is a great time to ride. The stars, the moon and the chorus of bugs that make noises all night long generally make up for hazards such as the occasional sudden cloudburst or the black cow standing in the middle of the black road in the middle of the black night who is not impressed by my scooter whizzing toward her! It’s not generally such a great time to take pictures, but I was impressed by the shadows thrown up by the spotlight on the face of this old mill.

This stone underpass holding up an old railroad, now a rail-trail, was built by Italian laborers back in the day, I’m told. Anyway, it is bumpy under there and always seems to be wet, so it’s a good place to slow down.

Dirt roads are always appealing. Although this scooter is definitely not an off-road vehicle, anyplace with no traffic and summertime shade is hard to resist.