The Road Ahead
Autumn amplifies my recognition of the passing of time. It’s more than the visual recognition of leaves changing color and falling to the ground. It’s a deeper connection to the cycle of life.
I’ve been taking little rides for the past couple months, in part because of the limitations of a slowly healing lower back, and partly because I just don’t have time to ride. Despite all that, riding in autumn is a lovely experience, heady with the fragrance of drying leaves, lovely for eyes filled with the glowing warmth of light and leaf, and all packaged with the label, “Pass Through Time”.
On the scooter or on foot, the road ahead is taking me somewhere new and I’m loving the ride.
Autumn Leaves
I’m lucky to live in the heart of Pennsylvania’s hardwood forest and the canvas of color it creates this time of year. The leaf-peeping season doesn’t last long but oh what a show.
Riding a Vespa
A BMW R1200 GS passed me today on the way home from work. The yellow version from 2007 or so. I covet that machine from time to time along with a short list of other motorcycles. But none (yet) have the addictive and overwhelming good feeling of my Vespa GTS scooter. It’s perfect in many ways and good enough in others.
Will the spell break at some point and allow something different in the garage?
Riding a Vespa, a modern four-stroke version, is just plain magic.
Really.
And I’m not getting paid to say this…
The Lure of the Canvas
Along with many other things on a list of “before I die” activities is painting. Acrylic on canvas. I want to try my hand as a painter. Seeing the autumn leaves and the wonderful landscapes of the season triggers the desire. Perhaps something to do in retirement.
Funny thing about the list, a bucket list I suppose, is there’s really nothing on it pertaining to riding.
What’s that mean?
Riding to Work
Stopped on the way to work one morning last week to stretch my back that was starting to cramp. Striking a yoga pose while simultaneously grumbling and cursing might create an odd mix for anyone passing by. Despite the need to sometimes stop I’m grateful to be riding to work. Every commute is an adventure. Every adventure is a reminder of the damn great life I have. Even is it’s just to pass through time.
You experience the nicest thoughts when you’re a rider.
Your postings get better as time goes by.NH was nice and warm yesterday,so had a great sea coast ride myself.Still hav’nt figured out how to deliver flowers on my LX,but enjoying the ride.Safe riding!
Thank you for the kind words John about the posts.
A seacoast ride. Sounds lovely. Even if the weather isn’t all that warm!
Seems to me the colorful leaf season is exceptionally long this year. I’ve been riding through it for over a month. Of course that includes Virginia and S. C.
Rode to Mamie’s for lunch yesterday. Thanks for drawing my attention to it. I wouldn’t have known about that great eatery without your pictures and writing.
I agree, the season of colored leaves has been long and spectacular in places.
Mamie’s is a great place for breakfast and lunch. I need to get there more often. Glad I could plant the idea for a visit.
Loving the colors on the leaves! Hopefully they don’t go away too soon!
They’re still here but departing fast now.
“I covet that machine from time to time along with a short list of other motorcycles. But none (yet) have the addictive and overwhelming good feeling of my Vespa GTS scooter. It’s perfect in many ways and good enough in others.”
I don’t think that the occasional ride borrowed from Kissel allows you the time to connect with a bike. I have a few motorcycles to hop on in my collection along with a pair of scooters. I find myself drawn to my 1991 250 Honda Nighthawk that I acquired as an un-runner. No big restoration, just a new starter motor and carburetor and it was off and running.
It is like a small version of the 2000 Kawasaki W650, Truimph Benneville look-a-like I previously owned. The same classic beat of the 360 degree, twin cylinder engine, the same pull from low RPMs and the same flickable handling that makes old Brit bikes so appealing.
It didn’t have any special appeal at first, especially compared to the crushing power of my Classic 750cc Kawasaki. The appeal came with time and the part in every motorcyclist that enjoys a simple, rumbling motor. Spend more than a few days with a BMW and I’m guessing that the Vespa’s appeal may fade a bit.
I fell in love with my vespa in the first 30 seconds of riding it!
And you just might fall in love with a Bonneville Speed Twin in fifteen. Infatuation is instantaneous.
The “addictive and overwhelming good feeling of my Vespa GTS scooter” comes with time. In Steve’s case, nine years and 32,000 miles not an afternoon on a borrowed bike.
Thanks for your opinion but have no desire to go thru the huge hassle/costs to get motorcycle licence here in canada. Perfectly content on my modified 50cc primavera. In the future who knows, but I live for today not for tomorrow!
Pennsylvania’s flora had me spellbound when I was there a few weeks ago. The closest I can get to trees and colors is when I drive up to Utah for camping during a very short Autumn season. Then before you know it, everything is winterized and to be honest, my blood isn’t thick enough for the cold. Maybe a move to a more “seasonal” state is in the stars.
I love Autumn as well, but without the ambient temperature change, it feels like being stuck in a strange stasis. Halloween came and went with no chill in the air. Maybe I’m just traditional when it comes to transformation. I can feel it inside, so can’t the environment reflect that back? Ah. It’s no use, ego.
Time, what is time? …currently, it’s time for class. Have a great rest of the week!
I can’t say with certainty that Autumn is my favorite season of all, but I do love it “lots.” I loved it while riding the bicycles in New York (one of the few times NYC gets a shot of much-needed color), and I’m loving it here in my chosen section of the Garden State on the Vespa. More greenery, meaning more yellowery, more orangery, more redery…and more air and light spread wider on account of this lovely dearth of high-rises we’re “suffering” from here.
On the subject of Other Bikes: as mentioned before, the go-to ride for my returning to the motorized world was supposed to be a late-model Suzuki SV650 (naked, black 2005 version preferred). Somewhere between the initial search and our moving from NYC to Asbury, beloved Significant Other gently beseeched me to choose something she regarded as “more mild-mannered”…like a scooter. This didn’t sit well with me at first, even with her sweetening the deal by offering to kick in some bucks to get it sooner. But then I remembered how fond I’ve always been of Vespas (in fact, nothing, and I mean nothing else in the scooter world has ever really done it for me), and I started catching up on recent models, quickly settling on the GTS – searching first for a used 250, then, having failed at that, ending up with a new 300. And, here’s the interesting thing: after just over a year of piloting this bike hither-and-thither, any anticipated pangs of lust for something bigger-louder-faster have yet to materialize. In fact, certain larger bikes seem to have become cumbersome in my eyes, especially as I watch certain of their owners struggle with them under certain circumstances. (Part of the ride I described taking yesterday included waiting behing a car at a stoplight on a very steep incline. I think I’d have been a bit more nervous on something larger and heavier, involving both a foot brake and a clutch; on Melody, now worries, other than that being my first experience in such a situation.) My machine’s overall agility, utility and, dare I say it peppiness have yet to leave me wanting. And, in regard to uniqueness, living in an area where Harleys are the proverbial dime a dozen, a Vespa certainly stands out in a crowd.
Finally: taking up painting, you say? My mother was a seriously-good painter, but despite her minor encouragement when I was a child, I ultimately took up the camera instead. I do have a fairly serious desire to learn guitar, which Mom did not care to encourage at the time…something about not wanting me to end up like some quartet of long-haired Brits everybody seemed into around then…
I’m in the same place as you regarding how I came to have a Vespa, and how I’ve reacted to it. I certainly recognize the cumbersome nature of some of the bigger motorcycles as compared to the GTS. Just a different experience. I’ve not stopped looking at motorcycles but nothing has rung the bell. Yet.
I have two guitars sitting in the closet. I’ve had one sitting around for over 40 years waiting for me to pick it up….
Painting will probably yield similar results…
“You experience the nicest thoughts when you’re a rider.”
Or many years ago when Honda was just coming on the market
with C50 and C90 step through macines:
“You meet the nicest people on a Honda”
Your Vespa is the conveyance to greater things, it is the trigger for your writings,
the Vespa also tends to aggravate your vertical support structure when riding.
May your physical structure not be a great bother as you approach retirement.
I remember a young John Travolta in one of those Honda commercials. They were great.
My back is still bothersome but riding the Vespa is much better than sitting in the car. I can stretch and move better on the scooter to keep my back limber.
I hope I’m not looking for a URAL when I retire.
The first shot, a road leading into infinite possibilities comes to mind.
As to painting, you’ve got an eye for it for sure.
I may have the eye but not sure I have the patience. Maybe it’s best left a dream.
Rather than paint, a rather messy but never the less peaceful pastime, why not indulge in some graphic artwork with your camera; your love.
You have the tool so go to it in the post-processing with Photoshop, Lightroom or one of the others. Create that beyond natural look to further enhance your already excellent pictures.
You sound like Kim with your clear, insightful and make-sense comments. Maybe the paints should be off limits. I do have a big easel sitting behind me right now and a big canvas in the breezeway. All I need it to learn how to paint!