Monday, June 28, 2010

To go cross country.

I always wanted to go cross country. In fact, I set out to do just that when I was a wee 18 year old with a Jeep Wrangler and some cash to burn. My goal: Drive across the US via Interstate 10, hitting the south to end up in the Florida Keys. Alas, my adventure was ill planned, and I ran out of funds in Sedona Arizona. Not that I didn't have a blast enjoying the feeling of my first long journey alone, I still felt stifled that I didn't set out what I meant to do.....make it across the US.

Cut to several years later and my new found passion, scooting. I got my first scoot in 2007, a modern 250cc, and couldn't get enough of it. The feeling of being surrounded by the elements while scooting down a remote twisty country road was my new favorite thing to do. My brother was into motorcycles, so often times we would take off together for long rides out to to coast or up into the foothills. My scooter was powerful enough to get on the freeway and keep up with him (as long as he kept it under 80mph: )


On one of our excursions to San Francisco, we stopped by the SF Scooter Girls "Streets of San Francisco" 2008 Rally. This is where I found out that such a thing as Scooter Cannonball existed (and my dis-jointed story comes together)http://www.scootercannonball.com/ The competitors were attending the rally and leaving shortly after for a 10 day race across the country on scooters!!! I was so excited for them! What a flipping cool thing to do! Immediately I wanted to join them, but an adventure like that takes some planning. Come to find out the Cannonball is every other year, the next one being 2010....plenty of time to plan for that one.


So, I made up my mind to do Cannonball. Easy enough, right? All I need is fundidng for 10 days across the continate. Hotel, gas, food, GPS, passport ( Cannonball is going north this year with part of the route going through Canada) Oh, and I guess I need to get back to the west coast...can my scooter that already has 25,000+ miles make it?

Just when I was starting to get overwhelmed thinking this was finacialy out of reach, relief came in the form of my friends down at The Scoot Shop, http://www.thescootshop.com/ . Who knew of my goal, and whole heartedly supported it. They, along with SYM Scooters, offered to sponsor me for Cannonball. They have graciously let me have a RV250 for the summer so that I can get to know it. I'll be racing it in the 250 class with 15 (at last count) other riders.

I'm counting down the days till September, waiting to get my cross country fix! In the meantime, I'll be attending every scooter event possible and will be blogging about all the good times to be had along the way.....

Till next time,

Cynthia
AKA Bodacious Bastard