First Ride On The New Scoot

The New Scoot!

As most of you already know, we traded the two wheel Harley for a three wheel version.

There were lots of pros and cons, but finally common sense prevailed.

We decided to get away from the potential danger of dropping the bike and move to the more stable three wheel platform. Riding it is something of a learning curve but it gets better each time.

Here's the Leopardlady ready to go.

We rode up the 405 freeway out past LAX to the junction with the 101 and then took the 101 out to the coast in Ventura.

The roughness of the 405 freeway is something of a challenge, fortunately the scoot has handles built in for the passenger to grab.

Once in Solvang, we checked into the hotel Corque, a very nice place and almost new.

As one might expect, it was decorated for Christmas.

This was the view from the balcony of our room.

In the evening we decided to take a walk "downtown" to check it out. As we walked along we passed the city crew who roll up the side walks and take in the street lights at 7:30 pm.

So I started looking for signs of life, my favorite is an illuminated two word sign:

We went into this place which was pretty well empty apart from a couple who were doing dance step practice, odd I thought. BUT as this place had Bud I can deal with odd.

As the time progressed, it transpired that this was dance class night, there were people from Lompoc and Santa Barbara who had driven in for the class. The guy who was the "instructor" was about as annoying as possible as he used the same to phrases repetitively. Victor Sylvester he ain't!

OK, I know Victor Sylvester now I'm showing my age. Look him up on GOOGLE.

We decided to travel a little further down the main drag and as we were passing the parking lot of a restaurant / bar there was a guy unloading instruments from a VW bus.

"Do you want to hear some music" he said with a strong Danish accent. (Turns out he really is Danish)

We were lured into the place, the music was to be performed in the bar so we sat down and ordered food and drinks, no Bud just "Craft Beers" here the bar tender informed me. I think that he could tell that I was not impressed.

There were only a couple of people in the place when we got there. More started drifting in until it was jumping. The duo were very accomplished musicians who traded a variety of instruments back and forth between them.

An announcement was made that this was an open mike night. 

"Oh! shit I thought, Karaoke"

But I was wrong, yes I know it surprised me too.

To quote Jimmy Buffet

" A lady dressed in purple 

who was dancing all alone

wandered oh so gently

 to the vacant microphone"

Well she was actually dressed in blue.

It would appear that she was well known to the local crowd, and boy could that lady sing.

Her timing and delivery were impressive to say they least.

In fact she was so good that no one else stood up to sing.

Then the dance music started!

This guy named Ollie from London did not know what hit him. Never having met the Leopardlady until that evening.

But he still could manage a smile.

He and his buddy Rob were really good sports, they were on a short sightseeing tour. Rob works in Santa Monica and Ollie was over on vacation to visit him.

Next day, my birthday we walked around town and visited one of the famous bakeries.

My birthday treat, a humongous pastry filled with jam.

Then on to the main event of the day a visit to the Solvang Motorcycle Museum.

I won't bore you with the details here as I intend to have a separate post for the gearheads covering that part of the trip.

In the afternoon we took a ride over to the casino which is being extended and rebuilt extensively inside.

I had my usual luck in Indian casinos, so it was a short visit.

At dinner that night with my birthday cake.

Attached to the hotel was a very swish restaurant and lounge. Again they were overboard on the Christmas theme.

I thought that this Christmas tree was both elegant and innovative. 

This was the construction!

All too soon it was time to saddle up and head for home.

As we were preparing to leave, there was a group of Asian tourists outside the hotel.

My guess is that they had never encountered a Harley let alone a Harley trike complete with a Leopard adorned passenger, she is now being shared with half of the world on FACEBOOK or some equivalent.

It was a cold start to the ride home, but we made back in one piece.

More on the museum soon.

Ciao Bella

Norm