Feeling a bit nostalgic....
Back in 2012, we were doing pretty well financially. My career was seemingly at its peak, and we felt like the good times could never end. No spooky foreshadowing there, of course - but I digress.
I remember feeling like I wanted some kind of a cheap scooter or something fun to ride around the southern California coast. I really just wanted to spend a couple of grand and get something basic to zip around on. So we decided to go to a local bike shop and look at a few things.
I started walking around the shop looking at some scooters and sat on a few. I actually liked one in particular. It had a kind of raw Mad Max vibe to it that I was digging. I said to @afturner, "Hey, what do you think of this one?"
She gave me a weird look and said something to the affect of "You are way too big for that." Apparently, I looked like an ogre on a kids toy from her perspective. She pointed across the room to the Can-Am Spyder that you see in the above image. I was a bit intimidated by it because I had never really ridden on such a thing. But about 45 minutes later, we had bought it and there we were sitting outside of the shop ready to drive it home. (Don't worry, I went and grabbed some shoes from the truck)
What a Blast!
I had no idea how much fun I was about to have on this thing. And even less of an idea of how far I'd be taking it. I was riding this thing everywhere and every chance that I could find. My favorite route was taking it from San Pedro all the way to Redondo beach through Palos Verdes around the coast. It is a gorgeous drive all the way with rocky cliff to one side and ocean on the other.
During this ride I'd always pull over and look out over the ocean for a bit before continuing my ride. I really enjoyed this time to myself. I do love my little one, but I certainly could not do this these days! It was definitely a different time for me.
This went on for about a year or so before we got the wild idea to buy a house in Florida, all the way across the country. As always, we had way too much crap so it was quite a rigmarole getting everything from Los Angeles to Florida. We managed to get the bike shipped in the back of the truck along with our stuff which honestly made me quite nervous.
A Not so smooth move
It took our stuff a little while to arrive to us in Florida but finally everything showed up in one piece for the most part. For the most part I say, but that is another story indeed. The bike showed up, but with 25 extra miles on it.
I was about to blow my top, but kept my cool. The delivery guy was literally breaking a sweat when he saw that I had a before photo of the mileage and showed it to him. He didn't know what to say, so he got his boss on the line. The boss, stumbling over his words, went on to claim that they had to drive the bike from one truck to another trailer which was across the parking lot.
Of course, this did not account for the 25 miles at all. Obviously they had a good old time riding my bike around for quite some time. I had washed it before shipping it, and it had mud on the tires and splatter marks all over it. I was starting to get pretty angry that he was lying to me, but just decided to let it go. I really had no idea what I would have done about it anyway.
I had some great rides around Florida, but it wasn't quite as fun as in California. The humidity and the random rain really kind of takes the fun out of it for me. I suppose I am spoiled from the great weather here in California. If only I could have this weather without the smog and ridiculous cost of living!
After a while in Florida, disaster struck over in the UK and my mother-in-law got really sick so @afturner had to go over and be with her. Ultimately, she did not survive so we ended up moving to the UK for a while. This was an incredibly difficult time for everyone involved!
Moving to England
We had to pack up our entire business and move over to England to help our my father-in-law during his time of need. We got a massive shipping container mostly to hold our computers, desks and office equipment as well as the Spyder. I had never driven in England before so this was going to be a new adventure.
I have ridden around England many times over the year with others driving and had gotten a bit used to the signage. However, it is not the same thing as driving for yourself. So I kind of just jumped into the deep end and took the bike around the small town of Newmarket in Suffolk to get the hang of things.
I practiced getting off and on the round-abouts which might seem funny to hear for the locals, but we really don't have them here in the US. The ones that we do have are not really like the ones over in England but a bit more dumbed down versions. I used to think they were weird, but now after having driven on them quite a lot I find them to be quite logical, as they keep the traffic moving quite nicely.
Not long after we got settled in, a guy who lived across the street from my father-in-law invited my to go on a ride across England with a group of local bikers for a Christmas charity event. I jumped on the opportunity and we had an absolutely amazing time! I went from riding in hot and humid to damp and freezing but it was loads of fun.
This was especially fun because I felt like I fit in and was treated like one of the locals with this great group of guys. Also my bike was kind of a weird novelty because at the time not many people had ever seen one over there.
Sadly I had to come back to the states which kind of sucked because I really liked being over there. My visa only lasts 6 months at a time, then I have to come home. I ended up going back for another 6 months about a year later and got to ride some more, but it wasn't really cost effective to ship it back to the states again.
So that pretty much brings us to today and the sad fact that I'm finally having to sell my old Spyder. It's hard to believe that I've had it for more than 10 years at this point. It has sat in a garage for more than half of that time, being that I'm mostly in America.
I really did have a lot of fun on my Can-Am Spyder, and I hope that it will bring joy to the new owner. Hopefully one day I will be in a position to get something just as fun. Well, maybe when @little-ricky is a bit older!
I would really appreciate your support!
