X-Mas Lights Tour

Saturday night, Lady Luck and I went out riding with a couple of scooterists. I'm not sure if I can call them "members" of the Scarabs Scooter Club or not, but since they're associated with the Scarabs, I'm just going to call them the Scarabs.

I had intended to ride the Triumph. Luckily for me, the chain was far too loose, and I wasn't able to get it adjusted, so I borrowed Baldy-Beard's scooter instead. It turned out to be a very good thing.

We all met up at a nearby coffee shop. Three of us rode, and one followed in a "support truck." We started out by riding past the local Mormon temple, which always has a disturbingly large christmas lights display.

I say it's disturbing because, seriously, that display can't be cheap and if they have that kind of money to throw around, why aren't they giving it to some poor folks?

Whatever, it's a great display either way, and I'm a sucker for twinkly lights. There were some entertaining protesters out, too. We had some people yelling things like "woo! Scooters!" as we rode by.

From there we went to an investment company that always has a huge display. There was even a Santa outside making balloon animals. We got a lot of waves from kids and yelled seasonal greetings.

Then it was on to a neighborhood known for their awesome light display. Here's where I started to be really happy I was on a scooter. There was so much traffic that we spent more time stopped than going. Had I been on the Triumph, I expect my clutch wrist would have been very upset indeed.

The neighborhoods light show was pretty neat, though. Santa's air control tower was especially neat. The air traffic controllers even had little radar screens that glowed. I think the kids who were walking through thought we were a parade. If I'd been working the clutch, it would have been a lot harder to wave back.

Traffic in that area was insane, and we managed to lose the support truck (my bad). We pulled in and got on a cell phone to guide the errant truck to where we had stopped.

From there we went to the nearby rich neighborhood with another awesome light display. Traffic was stupid again, but the waving kids were pretty cute. As we rode by one house that had a bunch of seizure-inducing flashy lights, some guy in a passing car told us to tune our radios to a specific station because the lights were synchronized to a song.

Because, you know, we all had radios on our scooters. We had a pretty good laugh about that.

Anyway, the lights were all pretty neat, but the most fun was just goofing around on scooters. We agreed that next year we'd have to decorate the scooters before we went out riding.

I understand that one of the Scarabs asked Lady Luck if I'm going to be getting rid of the Triumph in order to get a scooter. Although I would definitely like to get a scooter of my own at some point, the Triumph isn't going anywhere.