10,000 Mile Milestone

When I left the house this morning I thought it would be sometime later this week that I'd see myself crossing the 10,000 mile mark on the BV, not at all thinking that I'd turn it over from all 9's later this afternoon. I headed north toward Scranton along the back roads with no particular destination in mind. I remembered when I got to Pittston that just yesterday I posted here about being out on the bike with short pants and a tee shirt and commenting about how the weather doesn't at all abide by the seasons, and I stopped there to take a contrasting picture of myself today clad in long pants, a flannel shirt, and a jacket.

When I got into West Scranton I headed east on Lackawanna Avenue and headed down into Steamtown. It wasn't until I'd parked the scooter to blab a little on the phone that I noticed that the line of old locomotives that used to grace the parking lot was gone entirely. I sure hope they were moved inside to be worked on and not just to keep all of the good stuff in the fee required area of the park. Why do I so effortlessly suspect the Fed of having moved them inside the complex just to squeeze an extra dime out of us?

At least they had one steam engine up and running complete with the bells and whistles that allow me to close my eyes and remember when an occasional iron horse still ran through downtown Wilkes-Barre, sometimes on a Sunday morning when dad was driving grandpa to the church where he was the organist and I went along for the ride. The very best of those Sundays were the ones when I got to see a train and chomp a still warm slice of rye bread from the bakery on Market Street.

From Steamtown it was back to the house for a lunch of haddock and halušky, and then a cat nap before running over to the school for a short ceremony. It was after that when I glanced at the odometer and realized that the big rollover was well within reach and after I thought about the weather forecast for the next few days I knew that if I didn't do it today it might not be till Thursday or so that I'd be able to reach the milestone. And so I headed for the hills, quite literally running up a road that climbs a mountain and heads out to a section of the boonies not all that far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. I completed the circuit that brought me back to the foot of the mountain from where I'd made my ascent, glanced at the odometer, and promptly ran right back up the mountain to make the same run again and put me darn near close to the big turnover.

It was with a modicum of calculation and a good degree of luck that I managed to drop the kickstand exactly on the 10,000 mile mark in a place where stopping to get some pictures of the happy occasion would be easy. Not only did I land off the road as the dials turned over to the exact number, but I managed to do it in a pretty spot with some flowers in the background too!

And here it is! At 3:50 PM I completed my first 10,000 miles on the BV! The inset shows the first picture I ever took of the odometer when the scooter was just a kid.

At about 65 miles per gallon, it took around 154 gallons to get me here. In a few weeks I'll celebrate the third anniversary of the BV's homecoming. I don't know if 10,000 miles in three years is a little or a lot of riding compared to the average two wheeling bear's travels, but for me it was just perfect!