Modern Vespa

As usual, up at 5:30 AM this morning, and also as usual, I had to make a quick decision as to whether I should ride one of our bikes up to Deadwood before work or not.

'Work' right now consists of picking up a group of pre-registered riders with a quaint-but-fake 'Trolley' (modified Ford one-ton truck) and take them on a two-hour city tour, but I need to be back home at no later than 9:00 AM to change out of my biker grubbies and assume the personage of 'Kindly Old Mr. Trolley Driver'.

The coffee run to Deadwood won out (as it almost always does) so today I chose the Vespa GTS300 as my conveyance.

Taking the Vespa, however, means that I will ride the fifty mile back road highway all the way to Deadwood, rather than the 75 mph I-90 interstate that takes me the twenty-five miles to Sturgis, then an additional ten miles of back road to Deadwood.

The 'scenic' route takes almost exactly one hour, while the quicker, mega-highway route takes forty minutes.

So, I leave the house at 6:00 AM, and roll into Deadwood's Pump House coffee shop at 7:00 via the back roads.

(I can just IMAGINE how fascinated you kids must be reading this).

Anyway, once at my destination, I will have from thirty to forty-five minutes to have my coffee, muffin, and also a scone that I break up and feed to my posse of English Sparrows that congregate there and await my arrival. Seriously!

I will also engage in predictable and mundane conversation with the small group of biker trash and 'regulars' that also show up every morning.

Then, before before I know it, it's time to gear up, mount up, and zip off on the Vespa towards home.. and work.

I run the Vespa at speeds between fifty and seventy mph on these Black Hills backroads, and always enjoy this ride immensely when astride the GTS, and it has never failed to impress me with it's performance on these roads, and I might add that I'm certain that it also impresses those who I encounter and overtake on this road that watch as a fat dork on a blue scooter flies by them in the passing zones, and disappears over the hills and around the curves ahead.

It's a damn hoot, I tell you...a HOOT!

I always roll back into our driveway a happier, more balanced, and perhaps even congenial person than the cranky curmudgeon who left it two and a half hours previous.

A Vespa can do that to a person.

Okay, enough of this crap, I know that this is what you were waiting to see, and here it is...The One Hundred Mile Muffin. Today's selection was an orange/cranberry model, accompanied by one paper cup of strong, black coffee.

The other photo is of my morning birdie-buddies partaking in the crumbled blueberry scone that I broke up and tossed to them..

Tomorrow morning I will almost certainly repeat this ritual, though I may not take the GTS....or maybe I will take the Vespa, because I'm a big boy now and can ride whatever I want...neener, neener, neener!!!

You are currently off your trolley?

For the past week or so, they've suspended the 1:30 PM tours due to the excessive heat lately (and my bitching about the shitty AC) and the 2007 trolley's woefully old and inadequate AC system to deal with it.

For the next few days at least, I'll only be driving the 10:00 AM tours.

I have a "Bakery Run" I do a few times a year. normally go there for one of their awesome sandwiches . roughly a 200 mile loop ride.

home to

Tellico grains bakery
cherohala skyway
deals gap

back home

I only do this during the week, part of my retirement plan.

It's a different world.

Haha! My new(ish) job is a Trolley Driver too. LOL Looks identical to the one you are driving.

Show us your Muffin.

This morning's muffin is... chocolate chunk.

This morning's bike is the 43 year old Honda CB900C.

My Sparrow posse had a raspberry/white chocolate scone.

Missed the joke by a mile then.

If I lived in France, I would have missed the joke by 1.6 kilometers.

But you don't. You just don't have a sense of humour.

Actually this one is funnier.

If you lived in France you'd know what an innuendo was.

Nice one, Bill. That one was very clear.

Now, if I asked you nicely, would you go insult someone else for a change?

Mods, is there some way that I can block this insufferable asshole?


Edit: I suppose I should have typed 'arsehole', considering the source.

Seriously, lighten up. It was a joke.

JBlack,

It is difficult in posts to communicate back ground emotions. Bill Dog is a great guy, just slightly or uniquely a very different personality. Perhaps born to inadvertently piss everyone around him off.

My opinion from afar. You are a great standup Midwest guy that is pretty much as you appear occasionally doing bizarre stuff that makes you so popular on this forum. (Like who gets up early and drives two hours round trip to a coffee shop and feeds birds before going to work) The Dog is that strange guy in the room that doesn't care for idle conversation with strangers who can predictably come out with contrary stuff and is immune from what the heck you think about it.

Not my intent to over define anyone - I enjoy the hell out of both you dudes.

Back on topic: I put field corn and black sunflower seeds out next to the forest in my backyard and watch birds, ducks, squirrels and rabbits eat it all up. If I forget to put this out, the squirrels and rabbits will come up to the back sliding glass door and look in - perhaps wondering where the heck am I.

Bob Copeland
Minnesota