MINI to manufacture scooters

For those of you who don't know me well, I used to be a VW girl. Well, I really still am. But I prefer the old Beetles. Unfortunately I had to give up my bug Gilbert because I didn't have the money to continuously pour into him to keep him in working condition, and without the tools to fix him myself it was a challenge to find someone around my town who could. (Let's face it, old cars require real know-how that can't be taught at mechanics' school.)
A few years back I found Gilbert a new home and settled on a Mini Cooper. I love Mini. They might not be as ecologically friendly as the Smart car, but they are one step above almost everyone else. (Subaru is tops in America I hear. But Mini is tops in England.)
Today as I was writing up an SEO article for extra bucks, (I would never do it full time as a career unless I was desperate. It's selling out.) I came across this article about Mini announcing a new line of scooters to be sold in France in competition with Smart's E-scooter, or electric scooter.
I have to say, they look pretty slick. Much slicker than the traditional Vespa. I'd totally fall for one of these if they were available in America. But that's always the trick, huh. We seem to lead the world in tawdry Hollywood stories and great music, but we are somehow behind in the automotive industry. Especially if it means a non-gas powered vehicle.
While these are just concept vehicles right now, I could totally get behind one. I just wouldn't want one with those stupid U-shaped visors that cover the top. (Check out the photo on the right of the article page.) Though I guess it would be good if you plan to just scoot in all weather.
Hmmm, now there's a thought.

Living without a car

At left, Steph ready for a scooter ride in the rain by Abbysmal from Photobucket.

One broken wheel and a busy week later and I'm wondering if my past desire to only drive a scooter is a realistic one.

I had taken my Mini Cooper to a local tire dealer who at first ordered the wrong tires, then somehow broke my wheel. Yes, broke my wheel.

They had to special order the wheel, and when it finally came in three days later, it was the wrong wheel. This left me more than a week without a car as my poor Mini languished in a strip mall parking lot. (I won't get into my freak-out when a hail storm hit the area and I thought they'd left my baby outside.)

I learned that if I really want a scooter to travel around on a regular basis, I'm probably better off with a 150cc powered one or higher. I love my 125 Vino, but I couldn't go home to visit friends and family over Memorial Day weekend because it just wasn't safe to travel Route 422 on it. I would've been moving much too slow for the traffic and likely would've gotten blown off an overpass by a semi.

The scooter even proved itself a little impractical for running errands around town. I couldn't fit a full load of groceries in the storage compartment, and I don't have the proper ties or cargo holder to carry stuff on the cargo bar. Of course if I did, it probaby wouldn't have been so bad.

Then there is the matter of rain. It turned out to be a pretty wet week, which kept me inside when I wanted to travel to do something. I have a rain suit for hiking, which would have worked fine for the scooter. It's bright yellow and made by Columbia Sportswear.

I don't have a windscreen, which means even with a full-face helmet, I can find myself riding in the rain and feeling like someone is shooting bullets at me. And forget about going out with the half-face and getting stuck in a storm. Miserable experience. Happened twice.

So is it practical to only have a scooter for a vehicle? Well, if you don't have to travel on major highways to get anywhere, have the right equipment, and don't mind driving in the rain, I guess so, but it wouldn't be easy. I guess that's why most populations that use mostly scooters live in warm, tropical places or major cities. You don't have to travel far when you carry something and home is not too far away when it rains. If it rains.

My fear of hitting living things

It's a beautiful day. You are riding down a shade-dappled road with the windows open and the music on.

It's the perfect temperature. Things are going well at work and at home. Life is great.

Then some poor woodland creature ventures out onto the pavement in front of you and bam, you see the critter too late and hit it. Horrible.

Bird photo by Amyjane10/Photobucket

It's a scenario I've tried avoiding. To my passengers' dismay I'd rather slam on my brakes or swerve than barrel through any living thing, even butterflies. (Especially butterflies. So few species of them have a fighting chance anymore.)
Thankfully I've only hit one creature in my lifetime and it was a rabbit that ran under my wheels.

But I've noticed that driving on the country roads that I prefer puts me in more danger of a collision with animals than I'd like.

Of particular concern to me are birds who tend to dart out in front of me as I drive by, likely because they are suddenly scared by my quiet engine. I'm worried about what happens if I hit one of them.

It's not going to collide with my hood or windshield. I don't have a windshield. What's going to hit that poor bird is me: my helmet or my body.

A windscreen is already on my list of must-haves for the scooter, but I don't know if that will make it any better. I'm that much closer to the poor dying creature and trying not to flip over my bike.

My boyfriend says birds have "bounced" off him before. I don't know if that means they were OK afterwards but I wouldn't be. I think I'd have to pull over because I'd be bawling.

Luckily swerving is easier on a scooter, but hitting something could cause me to have a serious accident.

I just hope the deer stay out of my way.

Wheelie good fun in Ocracoke

There is an island halfway between Key West and Nantucket in nature and atmosphere.

Ocracoke on the Outer Banks is still truly an island. Unlike Hatteras or the other islands, it can only be reached by ferry, and there isn't a whole lot of land to go around.

Only 14 miles long, it was mostly sandbar except for its southern point until the Park Service tried to save its beaches by constructing giant dunes. The Park Service took over most of the island when the Cape Hatteras National Seashore was created in the 1930s, though the island is in a completely different county in N. Carolina than the islands above it or below it. (In fact it is the richest town in its county, but the people are bitter because they pay the highest taxes than any other residents and get few to no services. Hey, they're an island. It's hard to get basics like trash pickup. It has to all go to or come from the mainland.)

We went at the end of the off season, which was good for us since we hadn't reserved anything. The island has only 800 year round residents, but a lot of rental houses and hotels that fill up quickly during the summer. It's best to reserve ahead of time if you plan to visit between Memorial Day and Labor Day, or you'll find yourself stuck.

They have a National Park Visitor's Center that can help you with everything (the park service workers are all locals so they know the place intimately). They also offer tours about shipwrecks, the lighthouse, pirates and more for free. The Park Service visitor's center is in the village next to the Coast Guard Station and ferry docks. The Coast Guard Station, is no longer in active use since 1996.

The locals consider the tourist draw a blessing and a curse. Many work two to three jobs during the summer and take off for the winter season. But those jobs help them keep their homes, which many have been priced out of in the recent land speculation that caused the housing bubble.

Even today many houses are listed around half a million. (But if you don't mind buying a house to fix up, the Ocracoke Conservation Association is selling two historic houses for around $200,000. Cheap by island standards.)

So what does this have to do with scooters?

Well, the streets are narrow and many aren't paved (they're sand with oyster shells), but scooters are a great way to get around. The business and residential area is 1,000 acres and not all of it can be fully developed (there isn't enough potable water).

So you don't really need a car to get around unless you are carting something. Most of the hotels rent bicycles, but there is a shop at the pier next to SMacNally's that rents scooters called "Wheelie Fun". It did look like someone had been driving them drunk. The front fenders were all bent and cracked. They use Honda Metropolitans.

I did see other people with tricked out scooters who must live or work there because they had meaty jams and were stylin some pretty fancy paint.

We didn't go for the scooters to get around on simply because they were expensive. (Nothing there is cheap because it all has to be shipped in.) They ran about $30 an hour. Yes, an hour.

When you are staying for a while (we were there about a week) I'd opt for the bicycle rentals at the Pony Island Hotel. It's one of the older hotels on the island and is on Route 12, which becomes the main street running through town to the harbor and ferry. Those rentals only cost $2 an hour and you could rent them for $30 for the week.


Cars are a pain on an island that small. There really is no place to turn around, the speed limit is 25 mph or less (there are people EVERYWHERE so you really have to be careful driving through town).

We rented the bikes for one day, after we got rained out of our tent and stayed at the Pony Island (Nice hotel, cheap rooms, owned by a local. Not all hotels on the island are.). It was great to leisurely ride around and not worry about parking. People don't care that you park your bike someplace but good luck finding someplace legal to park your car.

A lot of people use golf carts as well, but there's something so vacationy about riding your bike, and it's the preferred choice of islanders. (There was only one gas station, but they took it out to upgrade it and might be out all summer. You only can get gas after a ferry ride to either Hatteras or the mainland now. They warn you at the ferry to make sure you have a full tank before you get on for Ocracoke.)

Many may say there is little to do on the island. It was a fishing port and entrepot. Ocracoke, and it's neighboring island, Portsmouth (now a ghost town), were founded by an act of the state Legislature after they had too many shipwrecks from vessels trying to get through the inlet into Pamlico Sound. Even today you'd better know the area before you go sailing. The sandbars like to shift around.

An entrepot is a harbor where large vessels dock and transfer their cargo to smaller ships to get it through shallow waters to mainland towns. Portsmouth was a popular, populated seaport in the 1700s and 1800s until new inlets farther up the Outer Banks opened up after hurricanes in the late 1800s, early 1900s. The shipping traffic went north, leaving the island towns with only fishing opportunities, but those soon died out as new, faster ways to catch fish and get it to market cheaper took over. Ocracoke first started as Pilot Town, which was located around Teach's Hole, a small sound east of the current village.


(A view of Teach's Hole, though it would have looked much different in the early 1700s when Teach put in there to party with his crew.)

The area once occupied by Pilot Town is now called Springer's Point and it is a preserved area for birds. There is a footpath you can take down to the "hole." and it gets pretty creepy. Some of the island's oldest trees are there and there are still graves, old graves, hidden in the underbrush off the path (don't go looking for them, it's discouraged) and there are old rain cisterns from the houses that used to be there still in the area. The townsfolk believe it to be one of the oldest, most haunted places on the island.


Many of the families that lived on the Point were called pointers and the other half of the islanders were called Creekers. It wasn't until the Coast Guard came and filled in the tidal creeks that separated the islanders and built a road that everyone began living near the harbor. (If the bugs on Portsmouth were any explanation, I know why they stayed away from the marshy harbor. Painful biting flies.)

Our walk to the point was quite cool yet eerie. There is a nature tour with little plaques along the way explaining the local flora, and it's a sandy trail until you get to the highest point of the island which has a large, old oak tree on it, and then you see a grave site. It's the grave of Sam Jones, who had two wives and owned the point, but was buried with his favorite horse Ike. Sam was a transplant who built two of the biggest houses on the island at the time. One is still called the mansion. But he lived on the point.

We took a ghost tour and the guide, the last of the Howard family, directly related to the first owner of the island, William Howard, who is thought to be the same William Howard who served as Blackbeard's Quartermaster before Blackbeard was killed on the island, told us that one of Sam's friends saw quite a frightening sight when he went to visit Sam's grave and clean up the area one night. Apparently it was his habit to go and keep the point in shape before it became a protected area. Kids used to go out there and drink. So this friend, Roy, took his boat around to Teach's Hole and came in on the path from the beach. (Seen in the picture above.)

As he came down the shadowy path, he saw a man sitting on the old cistern opposite Sam's grave. This man seemed funny to Roy and was dressed in old-fashioned clothing. Roy stopped and felt odd, so he decided to head back to the beach. As he started walking he heard someone behind him. When he turned around he saw the man on the cistern was coming up the path after him.

Roy began to run at this point, and when he got out to the beach, he jumped in his boat and started paddling. When he turned around he saw the man come out on the beach and walk into the water, and then he dissipated into mist.
The ghost tour really was worth staying for and we did, spending our last night in a campground at the very first store in town, where the gas pumps were. We would've stayed again at the Pony Island but they were booked up for a wedding. Odd thing is the next morning, we decided to go out to the beach one last time, and as Ed flew his kite, what happens but a wedding party comes on to the beach and got married.

Then, when Ed and I went into the water and were getting ridiculously tumbled around by the rough waves, they decided to move down to where we were and take pictures. I guarantee there is a shot with Ed and I being dragged down by the waves with weird looks on our faces in those wedding photos.

There are several places and activities I highly recommend to anyone interested in going to Ocracoke. You can, of course, go surfing, parasailing, or kayaking, renting equipment or buying lessons at one of the surf shops downtown. But you can also head out to Portsmouth Island, which we did. We took the boat tour on the dock next to Kitty Hawk Kites. There are several of these stores the length of the Outer Banks, and they have some pretty cool stuff.

They really want you to reserve for these boat rides and they need at least 3 people to go to the island because of the cost of the fuel. It runs $20 a person, but the captain will also take you past any site in the area you want to see. He took us around to Beacon Island, which once house a fort and a lighthouse before it was consumed by the waves. Oddly the sandbar that is left was visible and above water when we drove by, which Capt. Ron said was really unusual. He'd never seen it.

The island is interesting. The houses are kept in good shape by the Park Service and there are displays in some of them. I don't advise walking off the main path. We made the mistake of going to the school house and were subsequently attacked by swarms of yellow and black biting flies. (I'm still suffering from itchy bites a week later. We had bug spray and it did nothing. But they don't follow you into the houses. We don't know why.)

We ended up running down a forested path thinking we could get away from them. (The other paths through the village are flooded by the tides and you will see little holes in the sand made by little ghost crabs. I saw one scurrying away from me into the marsh. The marsh is also full of baby fish.)


Unfortunately the flies followed us all the way to the old grass airstrip, and we were beating ourselves senseless with our hats trying to get them all off. The only park ranger on the island came riding by on an ATV and waved as we went running past screaming. Some help he was.

The life saving station is quite neat, and you can climb up to the tower and look out to Ocracoke.

We headed for the beach after leaving it hoping to get rid of the flies. Eventually we reached a wide, flat sandy area with strong ocean winds that swept the flies away. But it was a long walk around to the pickup point for our boat.


If you want to find some really awesome shells, I highly recommend heading straight for Portsmouth's beach. It's known for what washes up on it's shore: large, complete shells. Don't waste your money buying them in tourist shops. Go to Portsmouth. You can find some beautiful shells to make jewelry out of with naturally bored holes in them. Some looked like gold.

The first thing I found on the beach, which is about two miles from dunes to the sea, was half a sand dollar. Then I found a perfect one next to it. It had purple spots on the back and looked awesome, but it broke in my hand when I picked up another shell.

I wanted to look for more, but Ed was so worried about missing the boat we rushed down the beach to the pick up spot.

The beach is a real lesson in tidal islands. There are tidal pools where the birds hovered around to eat the small fish that had recently hatched. When the beach floods again the fish will be swept out to sea where they will grow larger.

The sand was carved into strange patterns by the winds and waves, and there were shell "pools" all up and down the beach.

I also recommend hanging out at SMacNally's marina on Silver Lake, which is the name of the harbor in the middle of town. You can get great burgers or seafood there and watch the boats come and cut up their fish. It's not fancy, but it's good.


I also recommend Diajio, which is down the street and has a great bar opening onto a courtyard with trees and tropical plants overshadowing it.

Then there is Zillie's, which is the local wine bar on Back Road which offers a 5 for $15 wine tasting Wednesday's at 6 p.m. They ask you reserve. We showed up but just bought a bottle of wine and hung out on their balcony. The building is three stories and has porches on the second and third floors with brushed metal tables that are great to hang out at. We met a nice couple from Chicago who'd been going to Ocracoke every spring for 10 years. They recommended the ghost tour that leaves from the Village Craftsman shop on Howard Street.

We also loved the coffee shop on Back Road, but there is also a great pastry shop on the main street as well.

The park service campground is the cheapest, but there are two others on the island, one off Back Road and the one off the main street. I'm not sure either has a real name, and one of them was for sale. They mostly accomodate campers who hang around for quite a while or leave their rigs there.

The only thing I regret is not finding some flotsam. Our ghost tour guide said the locals really like to skim the beaches. Considering most of the wood for their houses came from shipwrecks I can understand why.

Our first day in Ocracoke, we went to the beach and looked around for anything that might be interesting. Ed found a piece of what must've been a ship. But we left it on the beach. You can find some really interesting things out there I'm sure, and it was a rough sea. I was hoping to find doubloons, but our ghost tour guide said that the area near the campground was the site of the wreck of the steam ship Home in which 90 people died. She said she didn't like to go to that beach because they buried the dead in the sand, and sometimes people found pieces of human bone there.

I don't know if any beach on the island could be considered ghost, or shipwreck free. It is one of the worst for them. But I think that's one of the things that make it worth visiting.

If you are heading north on your way home, don't forget to stop at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. I wanted to but we didn't have time.


Next time, when we return. And I won't wait another 10 years. The island might be under water by then, or so they say, but for a sandbar, it's been around a long time. Maybe next time it will just be farther in to Pamlico Sound. Hopefully the old Pilot Town and Teach's Hole will still exist.

May is Motorcycle Awareness Month in Pa.

Motorcycles are everywhere, and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation wants drivers of other vehicles to realize that. Today they issued a press release encouraging drivers to pay attention to motorcyclists, check their blind spots for them and give motorcycles enough space on the road and not try to invade their space in a lane. PennDOT didn't mention scooters in this press release, but obviously it meant any two-wheeled, motorized, road-worthy vehicle.
The reason for the release is that the weather (supposedly) is getting warmer, and that means motorcyclists are returning to the roads in force. Well, after getting back from a warm vacation I'm disputing the "getting warmer" reason, but it's true, motorcycles are going to be on the roads more often. And because many of those motorcyclists haven't been riding all winter, they're likely to be rusty and not as responsive and practiced in maneuvering their vehicles, at least until they get their initial practice in.
PennDOT is also concerned because there are more and more people signing up for motorcycle licenses. But to get a license all you have to do is pass a written test and a road course, and as all drivers can attest, it's really not that hard, or an accurate test of what could endanger you and the road and whether you can handle it.
PennDOT said there were 12,000 more people licensed to ride motorcycles, but only 3,000 more registered motorcycles. Does that mean the rest are riding unregistered motorcycles or have they been riding without a license all this time? (You can renew your learner's permit repeatedly in Pa., which means many riders may have some experience but never been properly taught how to handle their bike.)
Problem is, and I think PennDOT recognizes this but hasn't pushed for better licensing laws like Europe's graduated permits, there are thousands of people killed while riding motorcycles in the state each year. Just this week a former volunteer firefighter was killed on a highway near me while riding his motorcycle. Police said he crashed because he was going too fast, and though he was wearing a helmet, the force of him crashing into the guide rail threw it off his head. That's pretty fast.
I don't know what his riding experience was or if something caused him to crash, but he's one of several area motorcyclists who have been killed in this area this past weekend. Half the time it seems, at least to me as I write about these accidents, the fault is the cyclist, who couldn't handle their speed going around a curve, but the other half of the time a driver is to blame for not paying attention and cutting in front of the motorcyclist. It's one of the reasons I was so nervous, and still am, about riding on the roads around here. I realize I'm a novice, but the bigger fear is other drivers.
After I posted the brief on the Web site I work on, immediately drivers complained that PennDOT wasn't saying anything about the motorcyclists needing to be more attentive. But if drivers were more attentive to what they were doing overall, instead of goofing around, talking on their cell phones, texting, or even zoning out, then at least half the people who currently lose their lives when riding motorcycles (more if you consider how this would prevent accidents between cars and cars and cars and trucks) could be saved.
Motorcycles and scooters are always going to be dangerous for inexperienced riders, and you can't prevent every accident. Sometimes the elements just work against you, but training and awareness would reduce the danger for both motorcyclists and scooter riders. That isn't going to reduce the danger. Isn't that what everyone likes about motorcycle riding the danger. It's what makes it "bad." But that is turning out to bad for a lot of people who don't know what they are getting into.

Photo by Marc C. Psoras of the Lansdale Reporter

Are Asian scooters a dangerous thing?

According to a Sunday story in the Chicago Tribune
there is growing concern that the cheaply made scooters being shipped from China and elsewhere to satisfy consumer demand may be creating a safety issue.

Why? Because people see them as easy to ride when in fact they require the same knowledge and experience to properly operate as a motorcycle or full-sized scooter. Honestly, as someone who knows what it is like to be on a tiny vehicle on a major road next to a monstrous vehicle, there is nothing easy about it. According to the Tribune article, the problem is people think it is as easy to ride as a bicycle or car.

Nope! You move your body differently and have to understand how the vehicle's weight shifts affect its manueverability and management.

According to the article by Jon Hilkevitch, "But novice scooter drivers tend to have trouble keeping pace with traffic, making sure they are seen by other motorists, negotiating turns and handling emergency situations, safety experts say."

Cars don't see you, and unless you are conscious of this and know how to react because of the poor driving of others, you're screwed.

What does this all have to do with Asian scooters? Apparently because they are cheap and flooding the market, many more people who wouldn't normally buy one (because they are expensive and most people only shell out for one if they really want a scooter in particular) are doing so, and not realizing the importance of knowing what they are doing on it.

Now, I'm all for people riding scooters more often than cars. They use less gas, take up less space and reduce our consumption of oil. (Need to know why it is bad to consume lots of oil? Look at what that greed has done to the Gulf of Mexico.) I hate seeing people barreling down the road in a vehicle that they drive too fast (because they don't realize how fast they are going in those cush mobiles) and there is no one in the car and no reason for its massiveness other than status or ego.

Get on a scooter and you have to look at other people. You can hide behind tinted glass. In fact, you WANT them to see you. You want them to acknowledge you so they don't accidentally run you off the road.

Riding a scooter makes you friendlier. You wave to other scooter riders and motorcyclists because that is the norm. It also makes life seem a little better, and sweeter and less stressful. But that won't happen if you don't know what you are doing.

Want to get on a scooter? Lured by the cheapness? Take a free motorcycle riders class please. No one wants to hear of a scooter rider getting flattened.

Open face ain't so great

After a couple weeks of use I have to say the open face scooter helmet isn't the greatest. I don't have a windscreen on my Vino so I get everything blowing in my face.

My open face helmet has a visor that is shaded for the sun, but the air can fly right up underneath carrying bugs and dirt with it. And forget about riding at night. It don't help at all to have a shaded helmet.

I tried using the pilot goggles I got my boyfriend, but you have to pull them over the helmet since putting them on first will compromise the helmet's fit, which reduces its ability to stay on your head and protect your noggin.

So I've resorted to sunglasses, but once again night is a problem. I'm trying to figure out a solution. But I think the only one I have is shelling out a hundred bucks for a windscreen.

Until then I'm back to using the full face helmet. I must say it made riding long distances easier this week. I don't understand how people can ride without a helmet or face protection. It's annoying.

Wishing for a free fountain

After our disappointing ride to Swiss Pines in Charlestown, Pa., yesterday, Evil Ed and I stopped in Phoenixville to get a bit to eat. On our way into town, stuck in backed up traffic on Bridge Street, Ed noticed a fountain shop raffling off a free fountain. Ed loves fountains the way I love flowers, though it is not practical to put one in our current garden, especially since we don't own the property.

But these fountains are small, and when we went in to browse we found out an awful lot from the very friendly and non pushy owner, Charles Kern, who makes the fountains himself by hand. He'd been making fountains for almost 20 years before he opened Natural Creations, which is at 110 Bridge St., Phoenixville.

Kern told us all his fountains are made from pumice, a lava stone, which is a natural filter, so these fountains don't have problems with gunk collecting on them. (A big issue I have with my current petmate water fountain for my cats.)

He hand carves all the crevices in the stone and even adds real or silk flowers to create a sort of sculpture fountain. These fountains weren't big. The largest was probably about a foot tall and two feet around. They plug into the wall, so they are best used inside.

Kern even had fish in two of the fountains. He said the water only has to be changed every four months and you don't have to scrub off the stone. Just reacclimate the fish. Amazing! But I can't have fish in an open fountain since they will be sushi for the cats.

I asked about using his fountains as a water dish for pets and he said it is perfectly safe and even better for the cats since there would be no bacterial buildup thanks to the natural purifying qualities of the pumice.

Kern said the fountain pumps, which are aquarium pumps, last about 19 years. He just replaced a fountain pump for one of his first customers the week before, which is how he knew.

He even rents the fountains out for weddings, and also sells "cave candles." What these are are pumic stones carved out to look like caves with a holder for a candle in them, so they give a great ambient light. (Makes me really wish I had a green house for a home.)

I looked up pumic stone, and while I don't like it particularly as a source, Wikipedia confirmed that pumice is a natural lava rock formed when lava and water mix.

Pumice is soft and lightweight. Ground up pumice was used by the romans to make a type of concrete that made their buildings last for such a long time. It was used in the roof of the Parthenon, according to wikipedia.

I couldn't find why pumice is a purifier, but it may be due to the numerous pores in the stone that allow oxygen to mix with the water. Not sure. Still have to look into it.

But with the cost of another petmate being $60 or more, and then nuisance of cleaning it driving me up the wall, I might just shell out the $100 it would cost for one of these fountains and rate its use and pleasure here on this blog.

If you would like one of these fountains and don't want to shell out so much money (it is a tight economy), then you can sign up for Kern's raffle. He's giving all the money he collects from the tickets to a program in his church called Love Works, part of Hope Community Church in King of Prussia, which Kern attends. Love Works, Kern told me, helps people in the community (church members or not) who go through terrible circumstances. The organization recently helped a family who lost everything in a fire and raised funds for surgery for a child who suffered from a brain tumor. So if you are nonreligious, you don't have to fret about that cash going to evangelical activities. Kern said he was raffling off fountains every two weeks, but I'm not sure how long he will keep doing so, so you might want to check him out and put in your $2 to win one of these great little pieces.

You can check the Regis & Kelly Web site to also see a video of Regis receiving one of Kern's fountains on their show.

Whatever happened to Swiss Pines?

(The picture at right is from 1976).
A private gardens open to the public and managed by a little old lady doesn't sound like something that would last, but I wish it had. When I was about 6, I recall visiting Swiss Pines near Phoenixville. I remember a winding road with trees on both sides. Then a pulloff and a Japanese gate across the road.
There were paths lined by bamboo that led to little private gardens with koi and or rocks and tea houses.
I also remember a mansion on a hill with azaleas and rhododendrons all around it. There was only one lone gardener in the midst of it all.
The last time I visited Swiss Pines, I was about 14, and it seemed a little run down, but still there. Still open to the public, and by the looks of the clientele, still loved by the upper classes.
Today my boyfriend and I decided to find Swiss Pines. I didn't really know where it was when I was younger, but when I asked my father, he pulled an old, yellowing pamphlet out of the drawer that had a crude map from a time when the Phoenixville area was less developed.
It gave me a general idea of where it was and after googleing it I found a few references. The most recent was this entry on an unofficial Charlestown Web site.
It was last updated in 2003, but I believe the picture may be much older. There are too many trees, even in spring, throwing shadows on the gate for it to be new.
Swiss Pines is on Charlestown Road, known as Route 113. You drive past Valley Forge Christian College and Cat-Pickering, the Chester County/Phoenixville area technical school where I learned how to ride a motorcycle. We drove (I on my scooter, Ed on his motobike) and the road became more rural and windy, but the traffic certainly didn't slow down. After some harrowing turns at the tops of hills I saw the old pull off to the right of me (heading south) but didn't have time to stop for fear of a truck slamming into the back of me. (That section of 113 REALLY shouldn't have trucks on it).
After a quick, and rather deadly, turnaround and an attempt to go back, I realized it was shut down. The gate was locked up and there was a rope across the old parking lot. I didn't have a chance to stop, but my boyfriend saw it in time to pull off and said there were signs everywhere saying "No Trespassing" and "Area under surveillance."
From what I could see through the fence as I drove by was an overgrown area with smashed pots and toppled statues. It was sad.
The bamboo was still growing profusely along the fence, shielding any more of a view. I stopped at the Charlestown General Store (an old empty, but well-kept building a short ways down the road) and wondered what would become of it.
Ed said there was a row of mailboxes outside, as if the place now housed tenants. Is that what has become of the old mansion? Has it been broken up into apartments with the gardens left to become overgrown? It was very sad. What will happen to Swiss Pines?

It was originally created and developed by Arnold Bartschi, who is credited with saving Charlestown Township and working with the French and Pickering Creek Conservation Trust to preserve the natural area. Swiss Pines was built upon the old Llewelyn Estates.
Bartschi also preserved that still beautiful general store as well as a 55-acre farm on the same road.
With all that still in good shape, it would be a shame to see a gem such as Swiss Pines be lost.
I began looking for anything else about this garden and found pictures on a flickr account from 2008. So I'm not sure what to make of it.

Scootatime, It's scootatime

My boyfriend stumbled upon a forum that I thought might be useful to those of you out there looking to repair your own scooters, or upgrade them. It's called Scootertime.net and it has full manuals on many makes and models of scooters available for free in pdf form. No more begging a dealer to get you one or paying for it.


It also has a virtual garage where you can share mechanical information and pictures of your scooter as well as get tips from other riders.

It also has gear reviews by other riders. It's technically a forum so you can seek out help or information that's not already on there by registering and leaving a post.

Frozen to a motorbike

A springtime trip to Longwood Gardens ended with near hypothermia after my boyfriend and I didn't take into account the temperature had dropped greatly from the day before.
I should've said "Turn around" when he asked me about half a mile from home if I thought it was too cold riding the bike. A cold front had moved in and the temperature was more than 20 degrees cooler than the day before.
It's easy to forget, esp. early in the season, that riding makes the air temp. feel different than if you are just walking. While it felt like 60 for someone standing on the street corner, to us it was like 45, and that was at noon.
We had to make an emergency stop at a hardware store on the way down so my boyfriend could get a sweatshirt to keep from freezing to death. You don't want to be too cold while riding cause it affects your senses, and we were driving through some dangerous traffic areas (Route 100 and 30).
We got to Longwood and warmed up a bit in the Conservatory before realizing it was getting rather dark and stormy looking above. We tried to race it home, but the temp. had dipped to 50 and my teeth were chattering. (Mind you I wasn't on the scooter, I was riding two-up on his bike and even with him acting as wind block, I was freezing.)
We attempted to stop and eat somewhere as we thought it would warm us up and allow rush hour traffic to clear out, but no luck. Friday in Chester County and everyone eats out.
So we endured the windy, cold weather and headed north to Pottstown.
The wind was really kicking up and at one point I thought we'd get swept off the road by the gusts. My boyfriend and I both leaned when a large gust came breezing across a wide open field and I wondered if we could make it home without crashing from shear exhaustion. But we got there, unfortunately, I had forgotten my keys inside the house and we were stuck shivering outside until we found a neighbor with a ladder that could get us in a 2nd story window.
I believe it took two hours for my body to stop shivering.

Lesson: If you are going out, always be prepared. We would've fared better if we'd had thermal underwear in the luggage on the bike. At least my boyfriend had his gloves and a balaclava.

Nervous about riding? Join a group!

I went on my first group ride today, if you don't count riding with my boyfriend as being in a group.
I was a little nervous about riding with other people. The thoughts running through my head ranged from 'What if someone wipes out and takes me with them?' to 'What if I suck at riding and everyone tells me so?'
It was not like that at all. In fact, afterwards someone told me that I kick ass on a scooter and am a really good rider, though I know I took corners a little too tight (out of fear from my past crash when I went over the center line) and didn't keep up with the group.
But we did four rides and were out several hours, and I felt much more confident by the end of it, the reasons being 1. I didn't have to worry about where we were headed or what road I should be looking for since we were following a leader. This kept my head and focus on what I was actually doing and what others on the road were doing. 2. Because I was in a group, I knew if I crashed, the people around me would know exactly what to do and would prevent a car from running me over if I was on the ground (a big fear of mine actually because I know it has happened). 3. Everyone encourages or corrects you at every step. 4. Cars pay more attention to you. Except for one, I saw that everyone who drove around us slowed down or stayed at their stop marks rather than inching out, which is what I'm used to, and which tends to create a lot of anxiety for me.
What really helped is that Hammy, our ride leader for the day, used to be in my shoes a year ago. He told me when he got his first scooter he brought it home, looked at it and asked himself "What the hell was I thinking? I'm gonna get killed!" He joined the Wild Hogs, which broke up and became the EZ Riders Scooter Club (you can find them on Meetup) and he now is a big spokesperson for the group, encouraging riding.
He even sent me an email addressing my fears before my first big ride and saying he would gladly ride around with me in parking lots to get me warmed up.
And everyone was super nice, not at all like I feared. (Of course my fears come from the mean looks from those rider super bikes that are likely stolen in my town. Yes, that is a big problem here. In fact, the police in this area are still looking for someone who broke into the Yamaha dealer in Exter, Pa., and took off with two expensive motorcycles in the back of a van.)
Will I go on another group ride? You betcha. Esp. with that fun group. (Heck, we visited 2 ice cream parlors in one day. How can you beat that! And they love to take rides to hot dog joints.)
Will I be more likely to ride my scooter on my own. Yes, but I think I need more practice on those turns.

Sick days are no fun

It was a beautiful almost spring day today and where was I but stuck inside sick. Thanks to someone or something I came down with some kind of stomach bug on Saturday that left me delirious and unable to eat for two days and weak in the legs today. But thanks to Dannon I'm feeling better and starting to be able to digest food again.

Since I am stuck inside, and since it is getting nearer to scooter season I decided to share with you a photo of my lovely new helmet, a Christmas present from my boyfriend Evil Ed.

The helmet is from Nexx and has a leather outer covering over a hard shell that actually wraps around your jawbone when you tighten the straps, which protects your mandibular way better than the average open-face helmet. I felt as safe wearing is as my full face helmet, and it's nice that it has the shaded eye covering if needed. You can also buy a clear one if you want to wear it at night.
It pretty much covers my nose, but that doesn't make it bug proof. Heck, not even a full face helmet is bug proof, as I can attest to after getting a couple up my nose riding one-up on my boyfriend's Honda 599 last year.

It is xsmall, but my boyfriend was worried about it being too loose. (Didn't feel that way to me.) But fit is really important with an open-face helmet since it can fly off a lot easier if it doesn't fit right, and there goes your noggin'.

I'll let you know how it wears.

The power of the group

Martin's Motorsports, where I bought my scooter, offers seminars and other fun events to keep the motoring community interested during the long winter months.

I recently attended one of these lectures, on riding in groups. Unless you count riding with my boyfriend, or avoiding other cyclists on the blacktop course, I really don't have experience doing this. But it's important to know because at some point it will happen when you ride on two wheels.

The seminar was very good, but even better was the group that had sponsored it, and offered some really, really good grub afterwards. The EZ Riders Scooter Club had hosted the speaker from the Valley Forge Star Riders Assocation. Afterwards they offered anyone not in the group to come up and find out more.

And I soon learned that a group might be a way to get on the road, despite my nervousness, and gain more experience and confidence.

When you start out on two wheels, it's hard to feel confident talking to those who have more experience. You don't want to look like a fool, or feel like one. But when I met Hammy, who had spoken about the group, I felt perfectly at ease, maybe because this wasn't a group of people riding to be "bad" or "cool." They just rode for the love of it, and they weren't afraid to admit that love was hard to come by.

Hammy made me feel at ease because he told me when he first got his scooter, he hadn't been able to get through the motorcycle class (kept stalling out when he worked the gear shift) and was deathly afraid of riding his scooter because he kept thinking about how he was going to die while on it.

Those are my fears exactly!

But then he told me once he started riding in the group, he began looking forward to it, and he's riden more than 10,000 miles in less than two years! All because he rode in a group and was no longer afraid.

I always thought it would be harder in a group, because someone could slide out and into me. But they said they've never lost anyone and all ride as much as they can -- even in the winter.

So I'm going to give it a shot, and hopefully it will be the beginning of something good.

Better get to studying my hand signals while I can.