Community Service...

 

"You got out of doing hard time, Jim?"  Funny.  Never convicted.

Today was "yard day" around the homestead.  Joan and Dan trimmed bushes and trees; Steph and I sprayed weed killer on the gravel.  Steph raked the gravel.  "You have to rake gravel?"  Yes, but it beats pushing a lawn mower around.  We've been in the house almost 3 months, and this is the first the yard needed any touch-up.  Well, the front yard - our yards behind the wall are immaculate; I am still impressed with the landscaping and how liveable it has made our yards and patios.

 This was a good division of labor.  All in, it took us about an hour this morning.

By afternoon, I was looking for a reason to go for a ride on the new scoot.  I offered to go to the east Valley to pick up a pair of boots that Joan had taken to her favorite shoe repair place - new grippier rubber heels.

I geared up and headed out.  If you could go direct, this place is about 9 miles away.  Direct isn't an option with South Mountain between us and everything to the southeast.  Riding the B200, I took Baseline east; it's a "surface road" with a 45 mph speed limit and stoplights every mile or so.  Back in the days of our PCX scoots, these surface roads are how we got around the Valley of the Sun - those scoots weren't good on the freeway.

I picked up her boots, put them in the large storage area under the seat (bigger than the top case on the CTX, but not quite as cavernous as the storage on Joan's Xmax.  I decided to take I-10 and the Loop 202 back - the opportunity to run 70+ mph almost all the way.

I am impressed with the highway manners of this baby Burgman; highway speeds without breaking a sweat and it doesn't get blown around (a concern with many smaller scooters).  According to the fuel read-out, I was averaging 80.2 mpg on the way over on the surface road and 78.5 mpg on the way back at highway speeds.  It is further to take the 202, but faster time-wise.

One premise for getting this scoot is its "errand running" capability.  Yeah, it's a premise.  Although, it was more fun for me taking the scoot than it would have been in the car.

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A short video clip (no frills again)...

An even shorter Shorts...