Red Dog and Me

This is an on-going dialog between me and a certain motor scooter, namely a 2009 Piaggio MP3 500 that came to live with me in October of 2009. I've named the scooter Red Dog and as yet have not determined its gender. In the past when I've named boats, bikes, and other like characters I've thought of them as feminine due to their behavior characteristics. Red Dog I'm not so sure about...we'll see. Update: OK, Red Dog's a girl...with an attitude

Monday, October 26, 2009

Oct 25 2009 Riding the southern Oregon coast

The weather people called for showers today but after the morning drizzle things had cleared up and I decided it might be a good time to visit some friends who had not met Red Dog. Kenn & Betty were hosting the Humbug Mountain State Park south of Port Orford and a ride down the coast highway beckoned. I made good time, Red was running smooth as could be and except for the seating position not being quite what I like it was a nice ride. I didn’t stay long as the sky was beginning to look ominous and I didn’t want to get caught out in the rain so after a brief visit I headed north on 101.


Reaching Port Orford I couldn’t resist a short side trip to the port docks to look at the water and admire the fishing boats. As there is no launching ramp the port operates a huge crane that lowers boats down to the water. I’ve never done that as Bandon is closer to home and has two ramps; one in the main harbor and the other in Bullard’s Beach State Park a couple of miles away. A friend once told me a scary tale about being dropped by the crane when his boat slipped out of the sling and he ended up in the water under his boat, not my idea of a good time. Fortunately he escaped and swam to the surface without further mishap but his boat didn’t fare as well and ended up being totaled.




Once I’d done the tour of the dock and shot a few pictures I chatted with a couple who were intrigued with Red Dog. They'd never seen a scooter quite like it and were really curious about the 2-wheel front end. After answering their questions as well as I could I headed for home, barely beating the afternoon sprinkles.

I think I'm going to like this scooter!

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