Commuting Curiosities and Phenomena 12/17/09 and 12/18/09

A lot of my riding is just my normal commute to and from work. I tend to take a mostly similar route each day and on most days nothing remarkable occurs. Occasionally, though, I may see or experience something that may be worthy of at least a brief blog article. 12/17/09 and 12/18/09 Our garage is pretty big, not huge, but able to be filled up with 2 Subarus, Max the scooter, a table saw, various tool cabinets and a bunch of other "stuff". We try and think ahead in the parking arrangements. If it looks like I will ride the next day, then Max gets parked behind the Canadian Subaru for easy and quick exit in the morning. Conversely, if I don't think I will ride the next day, Max will be parked in front of the cars. For almost the last 2 weeks Max was forced to reside, somewhat forlornly, in front of the cars. The reasons were partly due to an ice storm we had here. That was followed by some very cold temperatures with lows in the single digits, and a few other days where appointments or other family obligations required the use of the cars. But on Thursday, the weather had improved and I moved the car out so that I could get the scooter out, and I was back on the road, riding this time rather than driving a car. I had to go first to a charity Christmas party at a local pre-school so was forced to take a much longer route to work that day. I did not complain. I will have some fantastic pictures up on the blog on Christmas morning for that event. That Christmas party, plus the ability to ride, made for a great day. I am always in a better mood when I can ride. In the afternoon, the temperatures were close to 50 degrees and the ride home was lots of fun. I frequently wait until 5:45 or so to leave the office, mainly to avoid the heavy traffic. On this day, though, I left right at 5:00 and had to fight a lot of traffic. One cage driver pulled a little stunt on me, for which I later flipped him the finger, but even that was sort of fun. My wife and I arrived home at about the same time. She left her car in the driveway as I approached. Because the forecast was for a chance of snow flurries and or sleet overnight, we decided to go ahead and park Max in front of the cars again, thinking that tomorrow might not be a good day for riding. The snow flurries that had been predicted ended up happening a little to the north and east of us and I awoke the next morning to a beautiful sunrise and even though it was chilly, about 28 degrees, it was a good day to ride. I had to back the Canadian Subaru out of the garage to get Max back out, but this was a very temporary hassle knowing the reward to be able to ride would well override the hassle of moving the vehicles. One thing though, I certainly don't see many other motorcyclists or scooterists out there on the streets in these temperatures. The ability to ride, though, makes me feel alive. It may be a bit hard to explain this to some people, but most of you readers will know exactly what I am talking about. It sure feels good to be riding again! Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed