Monday, November 30, 2009

New Adventure to Report From the Streets of New York




From Kay:

Wednesday I had the longest scoot adventure I have had so far. I work in Manhattan and we had a half day on Wednesday. My son was coming home from Washington D.C. and I arranged to meet him at the K-Mart on 34th Street and 7th Avenue.

I started out about 1:30 from lower Manhattan where I boarded a No. 15 city bus for 34th Street and 1st Avenue-a distance of about 6 miles. The wheelchair lift was amazing and I sat on a regular seat with the scoot brakes locked, of course. When I exited the bus the lift was again in fine form and we were off. I had already decided that I would try to ride the scoot to my destination.

The avenues in New York are quite far apart - each is probably equal to 5 or 6 city blocks. What I did not realize was that 34th Street is an uphill climb all the way to 5th Avenue. My motor did overheat once (with the large L'ion battery), but I sat through several walk signals and was quickly on my way again. I really enjoed getting a close up look at the architecture.

Did I tell you that there was a light mist in the air? After checking out our intended meeting place I headed to Sixth Avenue do a little bead shopping. It started raining harder so I headed to Macy's to do a little retail therapy. As it turned out the trip from Washington DC took a lot longer because of the holiday traffic, so I had a lot of time on my hands.

I spent this time scooting around Macy's, which has to be the largest store in the world. I can tell you that people do not look where they are going - at least 8 people ran into me in the store.

Three hours later, with no bus in sight, I headed to our meeting point and the dreaded amber light came on. I channeled our mother and drove right up to the service desk at K-Mart and told them my battery was dying and asked if there was there a place that I could charge it. Just as if they got this request every day they pointed me in the direction of the nearest electrical outlet where I sat for about an hour charging my battery. I then had enough of a charge to scoot the rest of the way to the Ferry while my son walked alongside me. We actually had a really good time catching up on his life for the last several months.

This was definitely an adventure to be repeated.

TravelScoot

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