Rant!

Todays' blog entry is a bit short - I'm actually going through my photos of Saturna Island for a bit of a travel blog but something happened to me today which really made me, well, pissed off.

I was riding on a fairly quiet road - it's an arterial route but not tons of traffic- a two lane road with a solid yellow line down the middle. I was going up a hilly part at around 35 km in a 50 km zone and I noticed a black pick-up truck right behind me.

Now, at this point, I guess I could have avoided any problems and pulled over. But my feeling is, my 50 cc scoot is licensed and insured as a regular vehicle and maybe the guy behind me needed to be a bit patient and stop tailgating me. Besides, I knew that as soon as I reached the top of the hill, I would pick up speed and be back to 50 kms again.

As I approached the crest of the hill I looked in my mirror again and the black truck seemed pretty darned close. I went over the crest and went down the other side.

When I was about half the way dow the hill (and going at the speed limit) the truck pulled into the left lane around me - but there was a car coming the other way! He roared by me, just clearing my Vespa, and swerved back into the lane in front of me in the nick of time.

If that wasn't enough, after about 30 metres, the truck turns left off the road! He saved about 8 seconds in his day by passing me! Plus, he managed to both anger and terrify me and lord knows how the other driver was feeling. And for what?!

And it gets better...

We have a roundabout in or neighbourhood - it's by a park and it's there to slow down traffic at the intersection. Roundabouts are not all that common here so there are signs telling people how to enter them, how to turn, and that vehicles entering the round about have to yield to people who are already going around it. Pretty clear, right?

Well, I am already in the round about and signalling left. A white van enters the intersection just as I am about to turn in front of him. I blast my horn (although my horn really only makes a pathetic 'meep' sound) and slam on the brakes so he doesn't hit me. He merrily goes though and doesn't even slow down.

The thing that really got me about the two incidents is that they both happened close to my house! People in my own neighbourhood driving like jerks!

OK, rant over - stay tuned for pics of Saturna Island.

Tour of Vancouver

We’ve had the good fortune of having visitors from Scotland over the past couple of weeks. I went on a teacher exchange about six years ago and my family got to know a good number of different people in the village where we lived (Ardaneaskan) as well as the town that was up the road (Lochcarron). Our visitors were good friends with my whole family and it was wonderful to show them around town.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have done some touring around Vancouver. I thought I’d share some places that I have particularly enjoyed visiting lately.

First up is the Vancouver Aquarium. It is in Stanley Park, a huge park area attached to the downtown area of Vancouver. It’s a 1000 acres and is actually a bit bigger than Central Park in New York.



There was once a zoo but there was public pressure to get out of the zoo business and just concentrate on aquatic creatures. There are some seals, otters, whales, etc, but they tend to be rescue animals rather than animals captured explicitly for the aquarium. There are shows but these tend to focus on the animals’ natural abilities rather than tricks.

There are also a huge variety of different tanks, an amazon area complete with a zillion butterflies, and lots of interactive displays for the kiddies.



Next is the Vancouver Art Gallery. We saw an exhibit called Monet to Dali. This is a great cross section of artists on loan from the Cleveland Museum of Art. I never realized that Cleveland had such an awesome collection of paintings.




Outside the gallery, which is located in the old courthouse, there was a film crew filming a large group on the steps leading to the front. The gallery often is used in movies and TV shows for - you guessed it - a courthouse.




The last interesting thing was a countdown clock beside the gallery. The Winter Olympics will be held in 2010 in Vancouver. Reaction to this upcoming event ranges from ecstatic excitement about what is going to happen in three short years to upset grumblings as the costs rise and construction takes over the city.



The third place that the females in my family especially like is Robson Street. It is a shopper’s paradise - several blocks of different stores, ranging from touristy and tacky to music to high fashion to great restaurants.



Of course, I like to spend my time wandering around and people watching. I really don’t like the shopping part but I do like looking at the different kinds of people - different nationalities, rich and poor, young and old.



I also like the unusual things that happen to make their way to Robson. In one block there were two unusual cars - one advertising a restaurant and the other - well, it looked interesting!



Inside one of the stores, there was this old Harley - looks like a heavy duty bicycle with a motor - obviously a precursor to the modern motorcycle.



The final stop for this tour of Vancouver is Little Italy on Commercial Drive. This is the kind of place where you’ll find scooterists getting together before a ride. I also like the sense of humour for some of the signs in the area.



We had a great lunch at an Italian restaurant. I was particularly struck by the pizza oven - not only how it looked, but also how well it worked. I love true italian style pizza.



After a great meal, we headed back home - well, actually, it took a couple of days to see these attractions but what the heck. I guess there are a lot of things to see in Vancouver....

Exploring Glen Valley (instead of Amerivespa)

I spent some of this weekend regretting missing the Amerivespa in Seattle.

I’ve never gone to Amerivespa before but since I’ve been riding and blogging, I feel that I have a potential connection to the scooting world and thought that being in Seattle this weekend would have been incredible. There are lots of people that I would like to meet in person - Dave from SCTRCST, Little Billy, Orin from Scootin’ Old Skool, and many more.

I also was toying with the idea of figuring out a route from Vancouver by Seattle on a 50 cc scooter. I had even gone to Google Maps and checked out a route avoiding highways.

But. alas, we had good friends arrive from Scotland and, as well, I had previously volunteered for a bike patrol shift on Sunday.

So, instead of feeling grumpy about things, I decided to go for a ride.



I went across the Albion ferry once again and rode to an area between Langley and Abbotsford called Glen Valley.

Usually, I take fairly busy routes with traffic, people, etc. Today’s ride, however, was very peaceful. There were few cars on the road and no people, just trees, fields, and sunshine.



While riding, I saw a sign for the Fort Wine Company. I took a slight detour and headed towards this winery which is situated in an area of farms. As I approached the parking lot, I was pleasantly surprised to see a fair in progress complete with tents, people in costume, samples of food and... wine.



There were a few wine tasting booths, each with several types of wine to sample. I was careful to have only a couple as I didn’t want the wine to affect my driving.

The Fort’s wines are all fruit based wines (blueberry, cranberry, etc,) and I tried one or two but really don’t like fruit wines (other than grapes, of course!).

The next wine, made my a company called Township 7, was quite good - the rosé was crisp and clear and the merlot was actually very nice.

After leaving the winery (which was a bit of a chore as their parking lot was thick with gravel), I continued on to Glen Valley Regional Park. This is actually a couple of parks on the shore of the Fraser River. There were picnic tables and benches and I found it to be a nice place to sit down in the shade and have a brief rest.



I spent another hour or so exploring the area. I really enjoyed the peaceful roads and picturesque scenery as the wind breezed over me.

Later, I was back on the Albion ferry, headed for home. On this ferry, motorcycles get to go to the front of the line, avoiding the long car line ups. I was chatting to a guy with a big Harley about a seal we saw in the river. I haven’t quite figured out how motorcyclists and scooterists generally feel about each other but I’ve found that my experiences with motorcyclists - whether they are weekend riders or Hell’s Angels - to be a pretty friendly group of people.



After returning home, I felt refreshed and looking forward to my next exploration. But I was still a little bit sad about that Amerivespa thing....

Day Tripping

Now that school’s over for the summer, I thought that I would be blogging way more frequently than I am now. Unfortunately, life got in the way. Stuff happens, things got busy, and I kept forgetting the camera. Luckily, I remembered Friday when I went on a ride combined with some errands.



The first photo is in Maple Ridge. When I have the time to take the backroads, there are so many picturesque sights and pastoral scenes, that I think I could just feature shots of horse country in Maple Ridge and I’d have a year’s worth of photos.

After a latté with a good friend at Starbucks, I headed off to Port Coquitlam for a massage therapy appointment. I hadn’t been for over a year and my back was getting quite sore.

My massage therapist is a smallish woman by the name of Anna. She’s a bit shy but also good natured. Although she is sometimes tentative in conversation, it never fails that she finds the most painful knot in my back in about 4 seconds and then works it for a good five minutes until I can’t stand it any more - then she repeats with a different spot - on and on - for 45 minutes. The thing is, I don’t particularly enjoy the massage therapy while it happens, but, man, does it feel good after!



Between appointments, I had some time to scoot so I headed north up a part of Poco called Burke Mountain. The most difficult part of the ride was trying to take a photo that showed how steep the hill was! I tried a few different techniques and ended with the photo that you see. It was a nice place to ride as there was little traffic and some nice shady parts. It was a hot day - around 32° C. - and shade was a very good thing.

Speaking of traffic., my last appointment was in New Westminster and I usually take the Mary Hill Bypass because it’s the most direct route. Unfortunately, cars zoom along at a pretty fast clip and there are a ton of big trucks rolling by. It’s also quite hilly and there are long stretches where I am stuck doing under 50 km/h.

I had a little extra time, however, and I decided to take the Lougheed Highway all the way. This stretch of road used to freak me out when I was a kid because there was a couple of mental institutions on the road - big, institutional, grey, faceless buildings with high fences and barred windows.



There is still one left - that’s noted by the red arrow in the photo - but there are not many patients left. Most have long been returned to the community, for better or worse, living in group homes or cared for by family.

The traffic still goes by pretty quickly but there were very few trucks, less traffic, and pretty flat roads. It added some time to my travels but reduced my stress level significantly.

The last little incident - I was stopped at a light and some guy on a motorcycle pulled up beside me. His bike had a huge engine - the word Valkrie was on it - and it looked like a big American car engine turned on its side. Anyway, the guy was very friendly and we had quite the chat while waiting for the light to turn. I’m beginning to realize that all of us people on two wheels are sort of in the same club, whether you’re riding 50ccs or 500. It’s a nice feeling.

Reaction Time

Time to start blogging again.

Report cards are done, school’s almost over, and summer holidays are just around the corner.

When I first bought my Vespa, there was a big range of reactions.

One was along the lines of “You look like more of a Harley rider,” which may allude to my size. My response is that I have always loved the look of the Vespa - and it takes me back to those backpacking days in Europe over 25 years ago. Harleys, I am sure, are well built machines but, having a retired cop for a father, I always associated Harleys with Hells Angels and organized crime. Mind you, there’s a link between Vespas and Mods and rioting on beach towns in Britain but that all seems rather cool in a way and very distant.

Another reaction is, “Why would you bother? You’ve got a car where you don’t have to worry about weather.” I guess I’m turning greener as I get older. Cars are great, don’t get me wrong, and I do drive my Mazda a few times a week, but the Vespa is great on gas - much better than a car - and because it has a four stroke engine, I feel pretty good about the amount of pollution it creates. Also, with my eldest daughter driving now, I find myself without an option for a car most days as she drives her sister and a friend to high school every day.



Friends that know me say, “But what about riding your bike?” They have a point. I love riding my bike but I have to get up about 20 minutes earlier to do so. Those 20 minutes are nearly impossible to manage lately. I only ride my bike about once a week where last year it was closer to three times a week. The other factor is the Vespa is just so much fun to ride! I hope to work on this area next year.

Then there was the, “What are you doing on a scooter with such a small motor?” reaction. As I’ve previously mentioned, I don’t need a motorcycle license with this scooter. The hassle of getting a learner’s license, taking a couple of tests, etc., etc. are just too much of a bother right now. Also, I like the challenges that go along with riding a small motored scooter in an urban and suburban area.

Finally, there’s the, “Those things aren’t safe,” reaction. My father-in-law, another retired cop, is quite vocal about all the horrible things that happen to motorcyclists when they crash. I know that falling off my scoot at 50 km/h is very scary and could seriously injure me but I still feel that I’m a lot safer than being on a 650 motorcycle and not a lot worse off than being on my bicycle.

So, what are the pictures of the two scooters for? Well, one colleagues reaction was to buy her own scooter! The two are parked just outside the staffroom of my school. It’s an electric scooter and she just loves it.

Now, that’s the kind of reaction I like!

Safety on 50ccs

What with planning year-end field trips. marking final projects, avoiding writing report cards, and attending to my parental duties (year end shows/concerts and water polo/lacrosse games of my daughters), I haven’t had a lot of time to blog - nor do I see that I’ll have a much time for the next three or so weeks - but I’ll do my best to write something.

I thought I’d tackle something that is probably a bit contentious - safety.

First of all, understand that I come from a bicycling background. I’m a pretty safe cyclist - I wear bright colours, I always wear a helmet and gloves, I have lights and reflectors on my bike which I use, and I obey the rules of the road.

I have taken a lot of what I have learned as a cyclist and transferred that to my scooter riding. I think riding a 50cc scooter is not a huge jump from riding a bike and the skills I have developed as a cyclist over many years work really well on a scooter.

What skills? Looking everywhere to make sure nobody is going to kill you is a good one to start with. Anticipating that cars at intersections might not see me. Making sure I have lots of room in front of me so I can stop safely. Not doing stupid things because two wheels aren’t as stable as four.

The reader might think, where is this going? Well, we have had a spot of hot weather - 25 to 30 degrees C. ( I think that’s somewhere in the 80s F. - it’s been a long time since I’ve used that scale) - and I’ve been scooting around in (gulp) shorts and a t-shirt!

So, what do I usually wear when out on my scooter? A helmet - a half shell model that was the only one I could find to fit my head in the Vespa store. It has ear flaps to protect my ears and a visor. I bought a clear shield from Helmets R Us that snaps onto the front and is great in rainy and cold weather. I actually have it down most of the time unless it’s really hot. Full face helmets scare me - the only time I put one on I had a heckuva time getting it off my head without removing my nose. I do plan on getting a 3/4 helmet - I think that would be a good compromise.

For a jacket, I usually wear my red, reflective gortex cycling jacket from Mountain Equipment Coop. I realize that it’s not that much protection if I fall down but my rationalization is that I’m not going a whole lot faster than on my bike. It’s most important, in my opinion, for people to see me. If it’s really hot, and I’m going on a local trip, I do sometimes just wear a t-shirt. My bad.

I always wear gloves - sometimes two pairs together if it’s cold and wet. I have some leather gloves but prefer full fingered cycling gloves in warm weather and lobster mitts or kayaking gloves in cold or rainy weather.

As for pants, I try to wear jeans but I do sometimes wear slacks (on the way to work) or even shorts (which I feel a little guilty about). Mind you, riding with my shades on, in shorts, and wearing a t-shirt on a sunny day is a wonderful feeling. Guilty pleasure, perhaps?

Footwear? Running shoes. Sometimes I wear suede shoes that fit higher up the foot than running shoes.

I am always open to change so I may wear ‘safer’ clothes in the future but I’m OK with what I’m wearing now. I do go faster than my bicycle and if I did fall off my scoot at a fast speed, I have no illusions about the potential for serious injury. However, I try to ride as safely as possible, without taking stupid risks, so I hope to avoid serious injury. After all, the only time I’ve crashed on my bicycle was when I couldn’t get out of my clipped pedals and fell down - at a stop sign!

Ok, so that's what I currently think on safety on a 50cc scooter. Go ahead, let me have it....

A Giant Win

Alas, another blog entry which has nothing to do with scootering.

I’ve been a hockey fan ever since I was in Grade 4 or 5. Maybe part of being Canadian is a love for hockey, especially around the playoffs.

I remember when the Vancouver Canucks joined the NHL in 1970. I was in Grade 5 and it seemed that we had arrived! Teams like the Montreal Canadians, the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers actually came to Vancouver to play hockey! Those were heady times!

As the years have passed, my “fan quotient” has risen and fallen with the Canucks fortunes. Twice in my lifetime, the Canucks have actually made it to the Stanley Cup Finals. Twice, they have returned home empty-handed.

Still, I have hopes that one day they will win the cup. Maybe.

Which leads me to what happened this week.

Players that are around 16 to 20 years of age are eligible for junior hockey. Those players that are really good end up being drafted into the NHL.



Vancouver has its own junior hockey team, the Giants. The Giants really came to light when the NHL was on strike - hockey starved fans flocked to see these youngsters play with so much heart and not so much attitude. And with tickets selling for between $16 and $18,. there wasn’t a big hit on the pocketbook. What was really interesting is after the NHL strike was over, the interest in the Giants didn't wane.



I’ve been to a few games this year and the hockey is great. There’s the typical hockey essentials: excited fans, goals, cheerleaders, fights, and more fights. But there are a couple very nice extras - this is like a regular hockey game with draws, music, instant replays, great food, t-shirts, and other gimmicks - and the players play their hearts out.

There are certainly a lot of players in the NHL that play hard - but sometimes a person might wonder if they are playing - even with those huge salaries - as hard as they can.



I have no doubt that the young men (and occasionally, women) playing in the minors are playing their very best all of the time. And this past couple of weeks, the best of the junior league hockey players in Canada played in a tournament called the Memorial Cup in Vancouver.

And finally, for the first time in my life, Vancouver won the cup.

No, it wasn’t the Canucks - but who cares...

Go Giants, Go!

Shameless Plugs

It was a busy weekend, and a long weekend in Canada - Victoria Day - in honour of the queen - who isn’t really our queen anymore, but no one’s going to complain about a day off....

I spent a very busy weekend - one daughter had a water polo tournament and the other had a dance competition in Whistler. I also had to remove some large shrubs, do some marking, avoid writing report cards, and take my kids to see Spiderman Three.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of time to scoot - just short trips around town and my wife was using the camera this week. For this week’s blog, late as it is, I thought I’d take a look at some of my favourite links and why I like them. In other words, why do I have those links on the right side of the page?! I hope the bloggers don’t mind, but I’ve put a photo from each blog before the description.



Scooter in the Sticks was the first blog that I really got into - and it’s still one of my favourites. Steve Williams has been around for almost forever in blogosphere time and is a real photographer (not just a hack like me). He takes wonderful photos and is also a very good writer to boot. I read his columns and the texture and feel of his writing makes me think that he puts a lot of thought into his blog entries. As I said in my very first entry, reading Steve’s blog gave me the motivation to start my own. And the photos of him hauling a Christmas tree on the back of his LX150 are wonderful!



Blog LX is written by a Belgian guy, He really keeps up with the goings on in the Vespa world so, as a Vespa owner, I am interested in what he finds. There are updates on new models, lots of pictures of customized Vespas, and a lot of other information. He seems to update the site on a fairly regular basis although there have been a couple of weeks where I’ve pined for new information. His blog actually has a photo of my daughter Colleen and me in the left column.!



Combat Commuter has lots of information on riding including interesting stories. There are some great articles on maintenance as well as motivating articles on how he and his family strive to be ecologically green. I certainly find his article motivating as that’s a goal for my own family.



Scootin Old Skool Orin O’Neill lives just south of me and is one of the most prolific bloggers that I have read! Unlike my blog, where I have each article listed fully, Orin has just the first few lines of each entry. Good way to get you to look at a few entries and then find more information if you’re interested. One of the regular commenters on my blog, as well, I enjoy his many trips around the Pacific Northwest.



Little Billy’s Scooter Tales, written by Boll Sommers, is close to me - and really close to Orin! Hailing from Port Angeles, Washington, Bill is another blogger who is enjoyable to read and writes about as often as I do. He recently christened me “Vancouver Dave” on his blog - cool - my first scootering nickname! Enjoyable to read - and some good photos, too!



Dave at SCTRCST (Scootercast) does a very nice podcast on scootering. He’s got an easy to listen to voice, features all sorts of good podsafe music, and has some interesting stories and updates relating to scootering. He’s also done a couple of interviews with some bloggers including Steve Williams and the blogger for 2strokebuzz and they are definitely worth listening to.



From Down Under is Gotta Scoot, written by Michael Stevens, a fellow teacher! He’s done what I wished I did - started his blog when he first started riding his scooter. I waited about 6 months before I started and would have liked to record how I felt at the time. Michael includes lots of good photos and I find that I really relate to his stories as he’s rather new at this - like me.




A Japanese blog which I think is called VECHS is a great read. What I do is copy the Japanese characters and paste them into Google language tools. The translation is not perfect by any means, but you usually get the main idea. That’s only half the fun - I love the photos that the blogger (kmshio) takes - makes me think back to the year that I taught in Tokyo many years ago. It’s also really cool to see a link to my blog on a page that is in mostly Japanese writing!

There are also other links that I have listed - and they all have good blogs, too. It’s just that the ones I’ve listed are particularly interesting to me and I’ve been reading them for a fairly long time - at least what I think is a long time in this day and age of technology.

The great thing about the blogosphere is that I know I’ll discover more scooter blogs - and other blogs - that interest me. And I know I’ll continue to have new and different people discover and read my blog. It’s a brave new world!

A Recovered Stolen Car and a Ride in Pitt Polder

Saturday morning started out with a wonderful sunny day on Bike Patrol. It was a successful one, too, as we recovered a stolen car. It was a Subaru, later model, with no obvious signs of entry - we were just blitzing side streets in the downtown area of Maple Ridge. It was a good feeling to get someone’s car back to them and a good way to start off the day. The photo above, by the way, was taken about fifteen minutes before actually finding the stolen car as a shot for the Bike Patrol website. Unfortunately, the battery died after this photo!



After returning home, I took the Vespa into Port Coquitlam, near Maple Ridge, to buy a part to fix my electric guitar. On the way home, I took a different route and ended up going into Pitt Polder, an area of dyked land in both Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge. It’s a very nice area with lots of farmland, framed by the mountains in the distance. The photos, unfortunately, were a bit hazy due to weather conditions. This area is in the local news lately because of the potential for floods. There is a lot of snow on the mountains - way above average - and as the weather warms, the risk increases.



As I was riding down the road and looking at the scenery - looking with a different eye, as I am trying to be a better photographer - I was struck by how the mountains and the snow on the peaks reminded me of riding my bicycle in the Rockies. Maybe I should go on a really long road trip this summer!




I went north until I reached Grant Narrows Regional Park. This is on a body of water called Pitt Lake. On a sunny day, there are many boaters who launch from the dock. There is also a bird sanctuary, picnic tables, and a concession stand that opens in the summer.

I usually take my class on a bike ride there in June. It is a fairly long ride for Grade Sixes (35 km round trip) but it’s flat and often a nice day for a ride. It’s a very busy field trip - it takes a couple hours to get there, we walk into the bird sanctuary, return to the riverbank and have lunch, and then hop back on the bikes and head back. There’s a real sense of accomplishment for the students that finish the trip. I’ve saved the map in Google Maps.

After a short rest to take in the scenery, it was back home for dinner, some marking, and a celebratory glass of wine.

Fort Langley - a ferry good time

I spent most of this week recovering from a cold, but felt good enough today to go for a short ride. Maple RIdge is north of the Fraser River which flows past Vancouver on its way to the Pacific Ocean. Directly south of the Fraser is Fort Langley, a historic town in BC., and a favourite place for a nice sunny afternoon bike ride. Unfortunately today was not particularly nice as there was a light rain most of the afternoon.



The way to cross the Fraser is a free ferry called the Albion Ferry. The ride is only about five minutes but the line-ups are often over an hour. Luckily, on a bicycle, scooter, or motorcycle, you get to jump to the beginning of the line so I rode my Vespa besides two guys on Harleys and we quickly crossed.

After reaching the other side, it was a fairly short ride into Fort Langley. There are two parts to the town - the historic fort, a tourist attraction, and the town itself, full of restaurants, artisan shops, and funky coffee houses.



Fort Langley is famous because it was originally a trading post run by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The company, called the The Bay now, is still in existence but is more of department store that is currently hanging on. The original fort was set up to trade with the First Nations people on the west coast of Canada. It was instrumental in the formation of British Columbia as a province.

I didn’t go into the fort as I have been there several times before but was able to take a photo of the monument outside the visitor centre. It’s a monument for the SS Beaver, a paddle wheeler that had a long and varied history during the 52 years it served on the west coast. It’s also a very Canadian name as the beaver is Canada’s national animal.

I kind of like the beaver as a symbol for Canada - industrious, skilled, very social. and a bit funny as well. It’s certainly not a very pretentious symbol and that’s not a bad thing.

After visiting the fort, I rode into the town. It’s not very big (population 2700 - I told you it was small) so the part to visit is fairly compact.



The biggest surprise was that the town is now called Placerville. A large banner on the main street proclaims, Placerville, Christmas Tree Capital of the World and the town hall has a big Christmas tree in front of it. Seeing Christmas lights hung from the lampposts of the main street in May is also a bit unnerving!



There is a Placerville in California and I found out that Fort Langley is being used as a film set for a movie (obviously for Christmas) set there circa 1977. It’s not unusual for places around the Greater Vancouver area to stand in for cities and towns in the US. There is quite the thriving film industry up here, initially thanks to our low dollar, and now is sustained because the industry people here are apparently really good. Combined with that is the fact that there are a lot of natural settings (mountains, coastline, lots of trees) that are close to a large urban centre. Incidentally, Peter O’Toole is in the movie but I didn’t happen to bump into him. Oh well.



After recovering from a very early Christmas surprise, I stopped in at one of my favourite little coffee shops, Spill the Beans, for a latté. Then I zipped back, on the ferry, over the river, and back home with a bit of a runny nose but an excellent and refreshed outlook.

Granville Island - and a chat with Bob

On Thursday, I rode my Vespa into the Vespa store in Vancouver for an oil change. It was pouring but not terribly cold so I enjoyed the ride, especially when my wife and one daughter met me and we went out for dinner at a French bistro, the Salade de Fruits (not too expensive but really good country bistro cuisine).

Yesterday morning, I caught a ride into the city with my wife, and after a latté, went back to Vespa Vancouver to pick up my serviced scoot.




Bob was working there, a real bonus, as he is a very friendly guy who loves to talk about scooters but doesn’t try to sell you a new one every time you walk in the door. He had some interesting things to say, as usual, one being that there was a reversal of sales trends from just a month ago when the 50cc scoots were flying out the door. Now the bigger bikes, including the GTS and the MP3, are the big sellers. He also gave me some frank information on conversion kits - that they can reduce the life of your engine - when I asked about bumping up the cc’s.



He did talk about some of the bigger bikes, reminding me that I could take my parking lot test (for my motorcycle learner’s license) on my 50cc and then I could test drive anything else he had. Can’t blame him for trying!



After I left, and since it was such a spectacularly sunny day, I stopped by Granville Island on the way home. Granville Island is actually a peninsula located in False Creek, which is really an inlet, under one of the bridges, which is actually a bridge, that connect downtown Vancouver with the rest of the city.



It used to be a big industrial area but was redone several years ago and now is a big tourist attraction - for both tourists and locals - as it has, among other things, lots of restaurants, a theatre, a marina, and a public market. An art institute named after Emily Carr is also located there. The one industrial holdout is Ocean Cement, a cement plant.



Usually, it is difficult to find a parking spot - but not on the Vespa! Less than two metres - about five feet - and I was in! I wandered over to the public market and bought some French saucisson sec - you know, those French sausages that hang from a stand and have a white powdery covering. On the way back to my scoot, I stopped by the Ocean Cement Open House. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I were nine years old - lots of big trucks and machinery and big chunks of concrete everywhere - but it didn’t really capture my interest - besides, the free balloons wouldn’t have made the trip back to Maple Ridge.

I then had a nice, leisurely ride back home in the sunshine. Oh, and Guinness, the new dog, was happy to see me return!