Scooters and Scooterists... the beginning

Thursday, June 9th will have been Gary and my 10th wedding anniversary.  Clearly, being nostalgic I have also been thinking about the fact that it will be 5 years since we bought our first scooters.  I am amazed at how that one little purchase dramatically changed both our lives, but especially mine.  I remember perfectly researching what scooters we should get and the day we stumbled upon a wonderful forum called urbanscootin.com.  Urbanscootin was originally created specifically for Honda Metropolitan owners but grew to include people who owned all kinds of scooters.  We met a lot of wonderful people who I still consider friends to this day.  Our decision to buy Honda Mets was influenced by that forum but we also liked the styling and the reassurance of Honda quality.  When we decided on which model scooter we wanted Gary proclaimed "I only want the red and white one." I responded "I only want the orange and white."  It was as though the scooter gods were listening because we hopped in the car and drove to a small, locally owned Honda shop and peeked in the window (it was Sunday and they were closed).  There, on the floor, were the only 2 scooters in the whole shop and they were a pair of Mets in red and orange.  It was, we decided, meant to be.

Gary went and bought them the next day and when the drivers delivered them to the house we barely yelled a thank you over our shoulder as we hopped on and zipped off on our brand new scooters.  For a month you could barely keep us off them.  We made up errands to run, took them to the drive-in to see the movie Cars - we were ironic that way ; ), and spent evenings figuring out new ways to bling them up! One afternoon we took them to a motorcycle show in downtown Wichita and parked our little Mets between 2 Harleys.  We got a lot of looks but also a lot of compliments.  Wichita is not the most scooter friendly town and we rarely saw other scooterists but when we did we always waved and smiled to them when we passed. 

In September, 2006 we moved to Columbus where I was raised and attended our first scooter rally - Scoot-A-Que organized by the Columbus Cutters.  We didn't know anyone but ran into a couple in the parking lot of the Meet and Greet looking at our Mets.  We introduced ourselves, got to talking and became fast friends.  We just clicked that weekend and decided we should meet in Hocking Hills for a camping weekend the following month.  We had a blast in Hocking Hills with Matt and Ali and another wonderful couple.  We rode through the beautiful hills, enjoyed cocktails on the porch and good company.  The Hocking Hills weekend was also when the Easy Peasey Scooter Posse was born.  To this day, Matt and Ali are two of my closest friends.

The ride during Scoot-A-Que also made Gary and I realize that we needed bigger scooters.  Gary decided on the Vespa LX 150 and I decided I wanted a Stella.  I found a beautiful arctic white Stella on e-bay with awesome pinstriping and after a couple of rum and cokes I decided to bid on it.  The next morning I found out I had won the auction and I turned to Gary and said "what have I done?! I've never even sat on a Stella!"  He laughed and said "Looks like a road trip to Indianapolis to pick up your new scooter!"