moto!

Have I told you about my scooter? Well, let me say first that I’m using the “my” in that previous sentence rather loosely and what I really mean is: Have I told you about the scooter I rented for a week in June and the wild adventures I had on it?

I’ve never really thought of myself as someone who is “into” transportation. I mean, there are things that I’m into, like now for example, I’m into baking with blackberries and I’m into the rope swing at the lake. I’m even into drinking beer on the patio. But this will make my fourth blog post about transportation. So I guess it turns out I’ve got something to say about it.

Mainly, what I want to say is this: A girl could get used to life via scooter. Motor scooter that is. I mean, have you tried it?

At this point I should probably acknowledge that I didn’t really try any advanced moves (like, for example, the one seen above) on the scooter. In fact, my most advanced move was riding on the back with enthusiasm. Of course, I did try to drive the scooter–who wouldn’t–but after veering into a pothole and nearly slamming into an orchard wall on a narrow Greek street, I realized I might ought to stick to what I do best, co-piloting with the camera:

After a long trudge (okay, longish) through wild sage bushes and eleven (minimum) varieties of prickly vegetation (most of which I notice, decide to avoid, lose my balance while avoiding and then step directly on) under the glaring mid-afternoon sun, no treat is as sweet, not even ice cream, as hopping on our scooter. Justin up front, me behind him with the pack full of our climbing gear, we cruise along the island’s winding seaside roads, gazing up at the endless rocky cliff faces, thinking, maybe that one tomorrow then, ooh, maybe that one. We zip along past bushes of pink and white flowers planted along both sides of the road, their bright flowers in full bloom, and gaze at tiny white chapels with bell towers and Agean-blue roofs.  It’s the picturesque world I envisioned when I heard the phrase “Greek Islands”, only it’s zipping by in full-color with the roar of a small, fuel-efficient motor crooning in my ear.  I won’t even mention the built-in excuse to throw my arms around a hunky rock climber and nuzzle my cheek right up to his neck, our ill-fitting helmets knocking romantically against one other in the crepuscular light.

Maybe I make it sound silly, but really, really, I couldn’t have been happier.

The people’s limousine: Roll on!

When I was two years old my favorite song was “Roll On” by the popular ’80s country band Alabama.  A ballad about a mom, her children, and their 18-wheeler-drivin’ father who calls them every night to tell them he loves them, “Roll On” explored the classic country music themes of family, prayer, and truck driving.  Mostly, I think, I liked the truck driving part.  The chorus goes like this:

Roll oh highway, roll on along/ roll on Daddy ’til you get back home/ roll on family, roll on crew/ roll on Mama like I asked you to do/ and roll on eighteen wheeler, roll on. Roll On!

The end of the chorus is punctuated with a cheerful, guttural yell–Roll Awn!–which, apparently, I was fond of doing from the back of the car, strapped into my car seat, whenever this album was playing on the eight track stereo.

There’s a mythic appeal to the eighteen-wheeler, something to do with its many axles and giant stature and its ability to lug itself back and forth across our great nation with perseverance.  Who didn’t mime a whistle pull while riding down the highway as a kid, squeeling with glee when a truck driver honked his horn in reply?

But I’m actually not here to talk about trucks, rather I’d like to take a few minutes to champion my now-favorite mode of rolling on: the people’s limousine, the proletariat chariot, the grounded gondola, the city bus.  I like my car and I love my bike, but the bus is the under-sung hero of the daily commute.

I love tuning my iPod to the most recent episode of This American Life, stashing my camera in my pocket, raising the hood to my rain jacket, and striding down the street toward the bus stop.

The bus gets a bad rap, though I’ll admit there are reasons for this: you stand hip to cheek (the lower one) among people with varying levels of personal hygiene; grandma, a dad with a stroller, and a girl on crutches all pile on, shuffling you into the back aisle, where you grasp the dangling plastic loops, riding the waves of the route; or sometimes a bus will be so full it passes you by, a near inevitability when you’re running late to work.

But busses are so integral to urban life they’ve become a part of popular culture.  The bus has spawned movies like Speed, a whole host of songs, including “The Wheels on the Bus (go round and round)” and “Ain’t no Fuss, Just Take the Bus,” and an excellent essay by Adam Gopnik.  And that’s just for starters.

I’ll admit, I don’t love tour busses or school busses–the city bus is the one for me. City busses wheeze down our streets with a hum, crackle and whirr, like platelets charging through the veins of the city.  Though they may not operate quite like clockwork, busses get me where I need to go.  And while I’m getting there I can read an article in the new Believer, or giggle at David Sedaris on TAL, or stare curiously at the crowd around me, checking out the tattoo on one guy’s neck and the hickey on another’s, noting who overslept and who hasn’t slept, and who probably shouldn’t have worn her bright pink boots with her bright read coat (well that one is me). No indulgence is quite as pleasant as bus voyeurism.

And let’s not forget the guy at the wheel.  He is my chauffeur, my designated driver, my Captain Ahab, my Charon.  Okay, so maybe not the last two–but a good bus driver is like a good friend. He picks me up and gives me a smile. He doesn’t judge my mismatched outerwear.

So, let’s go for a ride, me and you.  Greater Vancouver may not be your most exciting destination, but it’ll be fun.  I promise.  I’ve saved us a seat.

ps-  If you’re looking for the lyrics to “Ain’t no Fuss, Just Take the Bus,” don’t bother.  I was dismayed by the absence of great bus songs, so I made one up.  I hope you’ll forgive me because if I were to write a song about the bus (that is, if I had any musical capacity what so ever), that’s what my song would be called.  And it’d be (obviously) a great song.

The friendly skies

Air travel is not what it used to be.  I mean, wasn’t there a time when flying was an adventure? When one strolled across the tarmac in stockings and heels, with coordinated  and monogrammed luggage in tow?  When the cocktail placed before you on the tray table was not a coping mechanism but a kind token of life’s small luxuries?

Okay, I admit, I may be romanticizing a bit here.  I never took that fantasy flight, and I, like most people, occasionally suffer from non-fact-based nostalgia.  But I’m certain, certain that there was a time when flying felt more like an adventure, when the skies were substantially more friendly.

I remember my first flight to Orlando at age five: sitting wordlessly beside my mom during the rush of speed at take-off, deplaning on a staircase that was rolled right up to the plane door.

I remember my high school trip to Europe, my mom actually walking me up to the gate before telling me goodbye and reminding me how lucky I was, how much she would’ve loved to board a plane to anywhere at all as a teenager. (At that time, she’d still never flown over the ocean)

And my flight to London for a semester abroad: the excitement of ordering a complementary alcoholic beverage once we got into international airspace–no one even asked if I was twenty-one yet.  When the attendant finally reached my row, I stuffed my copy of Continental Magazine in the seat-back pocket, as if I hadn’t been memorizing my booze order since we reached cruising altitude. “Oh, yes.  I’ll take, um, the California Chardonnay, please,” I said casually, as if it was an off-the-cuff decision.

Flying meant going somewhere new and exotic; it meant gawking out the window to see the familiar landscape transform into something strange, a grassy quilt with patches of green and brown; it meant browsing the Sky Mall and thinking all those gadgets were pretty cool (“No way! Here’s a machine that cooks hot dogs and buns at the same time with the push of a button, just like a toaster!”).  Flying meant an exhilarating independence from the constraints of time and space and gravity, one step closer to being beamed up by Scotty.  And in rural Virginia, flying was a status symbol, a way of showing that you’d been somewhere, seen something, maybe even eaten strange food, like crepes or prosciutto.

My most recent adventure in flying was only adventuresome in that it required extra-but-not-unforeseen logistical planning to arrive at my destination, and again to arrive back at my home.  I know, I don’t have to tell you about the long lines, the mess that comes with flying from Vancouver to Virginia via Montreal, where you have to uncheck your bags, go through customs, recheck your bags, remember you accidentally left your laptop sitting on the customs form podium, ask security to go back and search for your laptop, wait patiently while trying not to think of all of the writing you may’ve lost since you last backed up your hard drive, smiling graciously and thanking your tear ducts for keeping their cool when the very nice (?!) TSA agent returns with your computer safe and sound, then going back through security and hoofing it to your gate all the way over in concourse B, only to have the final leg of your flight cancelled due to fog, and finding yourself stuck in the DC Metro area with no clear sense of when you will in fact arrive home, but thanking God that your friend is in town and happy to make you a midnight sandwich and let you crash on her couch.  I know, I know, you’ve been there too, in one iteration or another, because that’s what flying is, a series of possible failures, a day of holding your breath, a mad-dash to the one counter in the O’Hare airport that serves Intelligentsia Coffee and sheer, glowing gratitude at the sight of a giant urn of “house blend.”

What I can say about my return flight is that even though it was cancelled, and after some negotiation, only delayed by a day, I did get to enjoy a few things that I might not have otherwise: afternoon Cardioke in Kerry’s living room (yes, if you’re wondering, Cardioke is exactly what it sounds like), one more night of falling asleep on the couch while watching TV movies with Casey (The Sound of Music, on this occasion), and the pleasure of returning via Portland, where a girl can spend her four-hour layover drinking a pint of Rogue Ale and browsing the shelves at Powell’s Books.  Now, tell me that’s not cool.

So when they finally said it– “Boarding all rows to Vancouver, all rows to Vancouver”– I marched out into the rain, camera in hand, relieved–maybe even a little bit thrilled–to finally, finally feel my feet on the tarmac.