Modern Vespa

Visiting another small rural area with my Vespa (Ciela).
An observation I've made visiting small towns on my Vespa vs my other bikes: The vespa is just looked at, waved at, or ignored. Doing these same trips on my cruiser would result in continued observation or sometimes a police car following me or even stopping me to question what I was doing. Now I'm just a friendly wasp flying through town. When I parked directly in front of the town hall, I was glanced at by a couple of city workers then they just turned and continued on with what they were doing. This is refreshing!!!!

Took a ride to a small city named Warrior. Taking back roads of course. Passing through a small community named Sardis, I spotted a small one room school.
Upon entering Warrior, there is a popular restaurant named White House. Inside there are photos or other references to all the presidents of the U.S. of A.


Sardis one room school,

The popular White House Restaurant near southern city limits of Warrior.

First pic inside the restaurant of the presidential photo display.
A bit difficult to take good photos without getting the patrons!

Continuing around the wall........

Abe seems to have multiple types of displays.....

A photo in the line up, the large photo, then this one is by the entrance.....

Yes, more than one found favor by the restaurant owners for additional display besides the row near the ceiling.

Continuing on, there are 2 sections of the city. One part is old and one part is newer.
After leaving the White House, there is the new section with strip mall, gas stations, and fast food by the freeway. I took this photo of Piggy Wiggly as it seems to be humorous to none southerners. Maybe they are thinking Driving Mrs Daisy?


Also loving called "The Pig" by locals. Sentences like "I'm going to the Pig to buy groceries." is a common term.

Everyone knows the local furniture store. You are treated much different than at the big box stores.

This old Chevy mural may bring back some memories ....drive-in theaters, street racing, etc.

The old style pharmacy building.....

A few more shots of the main street.......



I'm getting old, but I think this used to be the old Ben Franklin 5 & 10.......
Edit: forgot to say Roll Tide / War Eagle :)


Last edited by Clampett on Fri, 05 Aug 2022 21:44:27 +0000; edited 1 time

And then, of course there is the video presentation:

Today, I visited a small city called Morris, Alabama.


Gazebo in city center. The center has been used for classic car show and bike shows in the past.

Very nice display with the center set up with the gazebo, water fountain, and good location for gathering during the warmer days.

A really nice curvy/sweeping road approaching Morris from the rural side.
Hwy 31 is located on the west side, but several good scootin' roads to the east side.
This is a video of the one I took:

Visited a community called Alden, Alabama. It is a part of Graysville, Alabama.
Once upon a time you could visit and people would be outside walking, playing, & visiting.


In most communities of the south, there are multiple churches. Only one and it doesn't even list on Gmaps.

The BALL PARK. The center of the community where kids and young adults played and the elderly would gather to watch.

2 fields for more participation. Today there is a newer chain link fence to discourage hooligans.

All that remains of the one bustling mining industry

Video showing the main community less the short side street.
There is a loop road going around Alden and this shows the short trip:

During the break-in, I've not ventured far from base. Today was my first trip out of my county (except for original pick up) with Ciela.
Visited Garden City.


As I entered downtown Garden City

The city park. The covered bridges over the little branch are recently built. Good addition to the park.

Sign in the park

The biggest church and they were having a meeting. Young lady hid behind the column on the far right as I arrived and peeked around watching me until I left.

Vacant building by the railroad track where trains used to stop.

Another abandoned business by the rail tracks.

And the video version. It was half a day trip and it's edited down to about 4 minutes.

Nice travels - thanks for sharing!

I'm a member of several 2 wheeled forums. I'm new here on MV.
After looking at the stats on my videos and photos, more views come from this site than any other single source.
Just wanting to acknowledge your support and say thank you to those of you here that have viewed / replied / thumbs-up my posts.

Enjoying your travels. FYI they have Piggly Wigglys up in Wisconsin as well. 😀

Oh no!!!! Cultural appropriations!!!!!

Yesterday I was looking at a map thinking about needing to ride a little ways now that Ciela is broke in.
I planned several different routes. Went in the general direction of one of them.
390 miles in 11 hours. Wonderful day.
Thought about the general store thread when I saw this, but it was a hardware store. That's ok. Ciela still wanted to pose. Didn't even know where I was. Looked at the exif data to find it. Foster, Alabama.




You see crosses by the road as a memorial to accident victims. I don't know who did this, but it is in the middle of nowhere. Just west of Gainesville, AL.



Just a little further west is this horse statue. The farm owner spends a lot of time/effort for this display just so I can take photos of it.

Continuing on to Hwy 17, then north about a mile is the gas station with this display

Across the state line into Mississippi I stopped in Scooba. The remains of the once populated main street. A young local lady asked if I wanted her to help take a photo with me in it. I told her I wanted to keep the camera working for a while.

And approaching home, took the freeway exit and there it was: A beautiful sunset

I made a compilation of my past 2 years riding video into a condensed 3:26 video
First bike was a Shadow 750, then Kymco AK550, the lastly is the GTS 300.

Took a ride today to get a tag photo. Covered about 73 miles in 3 hours.


The tag down a long rutty dirt road

Old gas pump

gas pump II

Outside diaplay at railroad museum

RR museum II

Display in front of a farm store

Great pics! Looks like a nice day on the Vespa!

I Vespa'd over to Pinnacle Motorsport in Bessemer yesterday to see what Kawasaki had with their Demo Ride Event. It was late starting due to rain. I took a Z650RS for a spin. This old fart isn't as nimble as he once was. It was miserable ride starting after about 5 minutes as the leg muscles started feeling like they were about to cramp. Still the bike handled well, just not for me. If I'd had time, I'd have taken a 2nd demo on the Vulcan. Fortunately for me, the only scooter for sale was a Burgman 650, 2009 white. I owned a black one of that same year and don't recall her being so fat, uh bulky, uh well endowed
Didn't get her pic though. Anyhoo, I did shoot some video of the trip. Camera sound is cut due to nothing but wind noise. The nice windscreen on the Vespa was very nice when I returned.

Thanks for sharing. I used to own a ninja650. Really loved it, went for many long tours. Was very reliable! Definitely a different seating position than the Vespa though. The ninja basically has the same engine as the bike you tested.

Did you try any others?

Thanky
I wanted to try the Vulcan but I was short on time.
I've owned several KZ models in the past. Though heavy, I loved my KZ1300s the most. But nowadays even a Burgman 650 feels like a monster haha.
I used to be one of those that made fun of scooter riders. 1991 I rode my first scooter and slowly, fighting tooth and nail, I finally converted to being a real scooterist. Thank you again for your reply and compliment.

I understand about switching from a motorbike to a scooter. I was always proud to ride a motorbike-as in my circles I'm the only female who rides! I never thought that I'd switch to a scooter, I figured if I couldn't comfortably ride my bike I'd be done. (Due to knee/back issues)

I've liked scooters just didn't think they would be for me.

And then I felt like I really wanted to get back on two wheels, somehow. Saw my Vespa in a showroom this past January, sat on in and thought…why not? I should try it!

So here I am. Loving my Vespa.