Hectic Week -- The Vespa Prescription

A long week, the kind thick with action and thought, wrapped in speed and seasoned with perplexing ideas and behavior.  The kind of week that can make a person scream just to release a bit of the tension built up in gut, spine and eyes.  At least that's where it gets me.  A nice evening ride into town is the perfect restorative prescription to herd life back toward a gentle landscape, one where the world feels full of wonder and opportunity.  Seeing this mural painted on the front of Uncle Eli's art supply store in State College, Pennsylvania seemed the perfect icon then and now.

Have I said it's been a hectic week?

 

Evening rides are luscious.  An encompassing warmth that makes it difficult to determine where your skins stops and the universe begins.  Air dripping with summer fragrances, honeysuckle and warm asphalt topped with streams of cut grass and automobile exhaust.  Standing in the grocery store parking lot I'm content to close my eyes and breath in the world.  I've beaten this theme to death -- I would never have these experiences in a car.  Engineers surely have programmed the contraption to appeal to a genetic predilecton to be methodical and business like when in a cage.  Get from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Perhaps it might be different if I was driving a 1968 Sunbeam Alpine.  

Right now I am alive and in the world with a Vespa.  Another 60 miles today.  Perhaps more over the weekend.

Oh, what fun.  A colleague referred to cranky old white men today.  I asked for the parameters of that assessment.  Whatever it is, the Vespa is an effective medicine for that and other maladies.  

As Nina Simone might say, "Feeling good!"

Memorial Day Weekend

 

Hope everyone had a fine weekend and Memorial Day (for those of you in the USA).  This picture pretty much says it all in terms of riding.  Clear, bright and teasing of summer.  And now, late in the evening, my thoughts turn towards another week at work...

Two Evenings at Piston and Pints

View from the inside of Ken Hull's Moto Shack and Lounge in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania.  Took this a couple weeks ago at the first Piston and Pints event of the 2013 season.  The pictures below will give you an idea of the event.  Pictures were made on May 2nd and May 16th.

If you haven't ventured into Boalsburg on the first and third Thursday of the month to join the Piston and Pints crowd you should at least think about it.

Without further ado I'll share some of the pictures I made.

Just one of many vintage machines that appear at Piston and Pints.  I could covet one of these if it had disc brakes.

Dave Dix and his BMW GS.  Great bike.  He had to leave early.  I think he was heading to Antarctica or something like that.  Those BMW riders...

Mike Mohney, faculty member in Penn State Ag Science's landscape contracting program, surprised me by showing up on a cool, two-stroke, Yamaha cafe racer.  Those tires are fantastic.

Camera optics are funny.  I think.  Either that or Ken is really tiny or that fellow is really big.

I think it's the lens...

Robert eats salad and rides a Harley.  I should have told him it doesn't fit the image HD works so hard to develop.  Salad seems more of a Vespa thing.

Paul Ruby on May 2, 2013.  He bought the Ducati jacket from another rider attending the event.  Ken's Moto Shack and Lounge building makes a good backdrop for a portrait.  Thinking I need to start making portraits of everyone who attends.  A new photo project perhaps...

Well look, that's me...

The Piston and Pints Library.

A Honda CB cafe racer conversion.

Ken Hull took time from his busy day to demonstrate the correct way to apply condiments to a hot dog.

Paul D. Ruby, Ducati, BMW and Vespa rider, Ferrari owner, and recent acquirer of a Nikon D800.  That's why he's smiling.

More than one Vespa at Piston and Pints on May 16.  Still rare though.

Postcard From the Sticks

Last week, a foggy morning on the way to work, a nice little ride across the far east end of the Penn State campus at University Park.  On days like this a Vespa makes life a little sweeter...

Relentless Obsession

Author Thomas Wolfe wrote in his novel You Can't Go Home Again, “I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.” I understand the idea.

Over the years I've made thousands of pictures of my wife, dog, Vespa and the landscapes I frequent -- a relentless, obsessive pursuit that many don't understand while others dismiss as some irrational action of one of those "creative people".

For years I've been venturing out on Sunday mornings, often riding the same routes looking at the same scenes. And I still see something new every trip, feel something a bit different, experience reality in a slightly altered manner.  So I keep riding and making pictures.

And Junior feels left out, wondering what attraction that silver contraption holds.  I remind him that I make a lot of pictures of him as well, thousands in fact, and still I haven't seen him well.

A ride up Calder Alley in State College, Pennsylvania last Sunday morning.  New stories playing out, everything a bit different -- special in its own way.

Riding across a valley I've traversed for forty years and I still find places I've not seen.  A short walk to the top of a weed covered promontory where I can survey this new place, take in the the sight, this time for the first time, another 999 visits to go before I see it.

Riding the Vespa, a means to an end, a part of a thousand journeys.  I keep trying to see these places and I'm not done yet.

So I'll keep the camera handy and keep riding.

A Fine Day to Ride a Vespa

Rain over Mount Nittany this morning, an iconic landscape associated with Penn State, as seen on my way to work this evening.  I could see the fog and rain passing over the mountain as I walked the dog this morning and planned to make a picture.  Gray skies and mist are good for riding and photography.

By the time I returned home this evening the rain had passed but the sky still held on to that fairyland feeling that often sweeps overhead with a change in weather.  The red light in the distance was the tail lights of a car or truck at the edge of the woods.  Not sure what they were doing back there but didn't feel like finding out.

A quick picture and I was on my way, minutes from home, with three Mexi-Hots from Meyer Dairy Store.  When I was a student (in 1972) there was a place called Pop's Mexi-Hots in State College, Pennsylvania selling the luscious little hot dogs with mustard, chili and onions.  Joe Meyer acquired the recipe when Pop went out of business and a faithful few still show up to have one now and again.

I could myself as one of the faithful.