Tour Denver... via scooter!

Here's a little ditty about Jane and David.

Jane and David have started a new scooter rental and tour business in downtown Denver called ScooTours Denver. With a tagline like, "You're cuter on a scooter!" how could one go wrong with these guys? It's true! So, I contacted David a couple weeks ago about the possibly of becoming one of their tour guides, and I did so just at the right time: they've been building the rental side of the business since about March/April and are now getting the tour side in gear this month. David suggested that if I was feeling ambitious, I could devise a mini-tour on which to take him as a little "audition." I was feeling ambitious!

Do you like my antlers? ;-)

Little Chaos and I decided to go with Riverside Cemetery, which is about the most awesome gem of Denver history ever tucked away in between a coal plant, an oil refinery, and a waste management company located in the industrial northern downtown area on Brighton Blvd. Not exactly prime real estate -- which makes it perfect for a cemetery. Aside from some pretty noxious smells wafting over the place at times, you'll  bask in the thrill of finding several notable Denver pioneers who found their final resting place here. If you visit the office when you first enter the cemetery, you can purchase a couple of tour books to find where these folks rest.


For my tour purposes, I chose three: Silas Soule (a Colorado Civil War hero), John Bass (shortstop in the first major league baseball league), and Lester Drake (not much on this former Colorado miner, but his cabin gravestone is quite the talk of the town!). I'm not going to give you the whole spiel here -- I like to keep my readers' attention, after all! -- but you can find out a lot more information at the Friends of Historic Riverside Cemetery website. Some other notables include former Colorado governors (and you'll see just where we get a lot of our fourteeners' names!), big business pioneers (how about street names?), first African American pioneers in our state, and an amazingly large Civil War section. It's a pretty fascinating place.

A sort of fun moment was when David and I were scooting along, and he asked me if I knew a lady on the Internet who goes by Scooter Lass. "That's me!" I exclaimed. "I can't believe I'm talking to Scooter Lass!" he said. Apparently, he had been searching me out for awhile. Gotta love the Internet!

"Scooter Lass, I want to rent a scooter and/or go on a scooter tour! Where do I start?"

Coors Field! You, too, can be cuter on a
scooter and see the city this way!

Gentle reader, I have your answers! Go to the ScooTours Denver website for a bevy of information. You just need a valid driver's license, need to be 18 and over, and need NOT be inebriated. (Yes, I know you felt really clever and awesome when you came up with the idea to have a pub crawl on scooters, but trust me when I tell you that ending up in the hospital or sitting in jail -- or Riverside Cemetery, for that matter -- is not so clever nor is it awesome). They will also run you through some training and help you out before you go on your trip. The prices are really, really good compared to other cities (I paid $125 for an all-day scooter rental in Vegas, for example). And they provide the helmet, eye protection, sunscreen, self-tour ideas, and maps of the area -- and unlimited gas!

I've agreed to help David and Jane with some marketing for ScooTours, and perhaps I'll have a chance to run a tour before I head to Japan in September. But the main thing I'm trying to say here is: GO RENT A SCOOTER FROM THESE PEOPLE! There's nothing like seeing a city from the back of a scooter, where you can smell the smells and really immerse yourself in the action. The favorite self-tour so far among ScooTours' renters is the Red Rocks tour. Are you kidding me?! What are you waiting for?

Resurrection

Like the phoenix, rising from the ashes... oh, wait. Actually, with all the forest fires around me lately, that's going to turn into a really cruel metaphor. So, let's just say: I'm back!

Scooter Lass had a very, very ... well, I wouldn't say an especially BUSY year, per se (I'm just always busy). It was a transitional year, trying to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life. At least for the foreseeable future, that evidently entails teaching English as a second language in Fukushima, Japan. I'm heading there in September. This also means selling my beloved Little Chaos to have more money for my journey, but I hope to have a Little Chaos II in Japan. Talk about traveling the distance on two-wheeled vehicles! Japan! Woo! I bet a Honda Met in Japan would be pretty cheap. I'll keep you posted.

Now, stay tuned for a blog post coming shortly about my little peek into the scooter tour business...  it's about time someone brought this to Denver!

Scooter says, "Happy Friday!"

A morning quickie: "Urban Blight Porn"

A few months ago, I wrote about the slow demolition of the Gates Rubber Factory.

New controversy: a college student, Eugene Elliot, is trying to get a historical designation for the land and building. I believe this to be a naive and selfish endeavor, despite my great affection for the site. Oh, and by the way? He's an urban explorer. There might just be an (illegal) ulterior motive there!

Today, Westword chronicles the building in a slide show of pictures taken by urban explorers and other enthusiasts. Love these!

The road less traveled

I can't believe it's been two months since my last confession blog post. I'm most assuredly going to Blogger Hell, where they simultaneously light your toes on fire and show you slides of grammatically incorrect sentences you're not allowed to change. (I don't even want to think about it.)



Sure, I'd do this -- if I had a death wish.



This will be a quickie (woooo, quickie!). I wanted to brag a bit that my Little Chaos now has close to 7,500 miles on him, and he's still going strong. I've changed jobs and am now working downtown, a goal I've had since about 1998 when I last worked downtown, which means far fewer miles on the scooter (I live about a mile away). This is bittersweet: I both miss my commute and am relieved I don't have to go so far anymore. But this means I'm going to have to make up my own long rides, so I can keep entertaining you, my blog-reading pals. It's all about YOU.

So, soon... I hope to have a story to tell. I want to see how far I can go. (Preferably when our record-breaking high temperatures aren't melting our eyeballs out anymore.) Colorado Springs to visit my parents? I can have a private road paved for me if I ask nicely, right?

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

This scooter makes my a$$ look good, Part Deux!

"Hey, baby -- if I stare at the side of your head
long and hard enough, will you give me a ride?"

I wrote a blog a few months ago about being hit on at a stop light. Seriously, it's weird. I get hit on more on my scooter than I do in bars, which leads me to believe men really like women who drive vehicles they have to straddle.

So, I'm recording two more incidents here for your amusement. I work hard for you.

A couple months ago, I followed some friends' cab to our second locale for the evening on my scooter. Apparently, their cab driver took a fancy to me and told them he thought I was really cute, and my friends decided to be in a good mood and actually said nice things about me. Now, I always feel fairly certain that I look like a complete and total dork in my helmet, as I have said before, so I'm never in the mindset that a man will find me irresistible as such. But he ended up asking me for my phone number after I fake drag-raced him to the bar. (<-- Ladies, feel free to use that one. It's cute and silly, and it gives the driver a chance to be manipulative charming and let you win.) My brief time with the cabbie did not turn into eternal, dying love, as one might imagine, but I did get a fun ride-along date out of it -- meaning, I rode with him in his cab on a couple of client pick-ups, you pervs. And now every time I see a Yellow Cab drive by, I can fondly (bemusedly?) think back on a relatively crazy, pot-smoking, ex-military, mostly-bad-boy-with-tattoos cab driver who at least was nice to me and didn't throw me in his trunk and take me to a deserted warehouse and handcuff me to a pipe where hot steam would soon blast in and and melt off my face (please tell me you get the 1999 "The Bone Collector" movie reference there, lest you think I'm really, really, REALLY creepy).

The other story was a few weeks ago. I was sitting at a light around 10 pm downtown when I became vaguely conscious of a man on a motorcycle to my left, softly revving his motor (yes, because as you know, the sound of revving motors really makes our lady bits tremble, fellas!). Again, because of the helmet-dork-factor coupled with the fact that most motorcyclists' reactions to me on my scooter range from condescending smiles to outright disdain, I wasn't really thinking he was trying to get my attention. When the revving failed to make me squeal with delight like I'm sure he was used to, however, he called over to me, "Hey, you look good on that bike!" He had this really ridiculous "seductive" look on his face, as he continued, "Wanna take a RIDE with me?" Oh, good Lord. Props for effort, laughs for delivery, my friend. I laughed, shook my head, and said, "No thank you!" He took off ahead of me when the green light turned, and I'm glad I wasn't actually interested, because his stupid Harley almost made my ears bleed. (Pointed look of outright disdain.)

In conclusion: I'm just sayin', if you're single, a scooter could seriously improve your odds (with some odd men, but as we get older we become far less picky, am I right, ladies?).

Dog days of summer

"We put our sunscreen on this morning!
Too bad it won't prevent the 3-inch deep
road rash and head wounds we'll suffer
when we wreck this scooter because there
are too many of us on it -- oh, fiddlesticks,
sunscreen hasn't been invented yet.
WE'RE SCREWED!"

Being a fair-skinned, natural redhead, admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of the summer months. Despite my careful attention to the matter most of the time, on more than one occasion our ever-present, glowing ember in the sky has bitch-slapped me with unflattering and unhealthy burns. Also, the heat in the summer. I'm a Colorado Native and grew up in the coldest room in my parent's house. These days, I'm totally fine sleeping with the windows open in 30-degree weather.

OK, what's your point, Scooter Lass? I'm getting there, patient and gentle reader. Aside from the whole giving and sustaining life thing that I can totally gel with, there is one reason I welcome the sun in the summer months: scooting. As bad-ass as I feel being able to boast scooting a couple miles in 20-degree, snowy weather, the truth is: IT SUCKS. As you can only imagine (and then triple it, freeze it, break it into a million pieces, and cry a lot).

So, yes...the summer is coming, and I've already enjoyed my 35-mile round-trip scooter commute to work several times. Without thoughts of, "the cold may just murder me in the heart with ice shards any second now," I'm free to look around, watch the trees bloom, smell the smells of the city (pot... mostly pot...), and generally enjoy myself on the scooter again.

Now, summer is kinda cool and all for the outdoors aspect, but heed one warning...

Scooter Lass's important public service announcement for summer: For the love of God and universe and Buddha and whatever the hell you believe in, WEAR YOUR DAMN SUNSCREEN. Here's why:

1. It's not that expensive. 
2. It takes about five minutes to put on in the morning.
3. Vanity appeal: It keeps the wrinkles at bay.
4. Super vanity appeal: People who wear sunscreen are SEXY (it's written on the label).
5. And, kinda most importantly, it SAVES YOUR LIFE. I mean it. One of our close family friends who used to tan all the time died from complications of melanoma in the spinal region -- it took her fast and furious. And very painfully. This is a completely preventable death! Don't be stupid.
6. Don't be stupid (that one bears repeating).

And, by the way, thank you Mama Scooter Lass for making me wear sunscreen, hat, and a turtleneck (yes -- a turtleneck) over my bathing suit at the beach when I was wee. I was embarrassed, impatient, and ticked at the time, but now having people think I'm at least five years younger these days is really kind of nice. Yeah, I said it.

In conclusion: Scoot safe! Sunscreen up! Don't be stupid! Wear a turtleneck at the beach and LIKE IT! Now, you tell me: what excites you most about summer?