Provophenia VIII

Okay, while I would love to post about my first awesome weekend which happened on Sept. 17-19 and consisted of Cloud Cult, Wendy, Jackie, and Derek, until I have pictures I feel it would be very boring. So let me start with my second awesome weekend that just happend, with the amazingness that is a scooter rally.

Here we all gathered at the Lounge, preparing for the first big ride. I was surprised at the variety of ages and types of scooterists, as well as the largely male crowd.

 Here we are at Squaw Peak, a beautiful overlook after a lovely ride up Provo Canyon. Why have I never done this myself? It was so pretty and so fun to wind up the road on the scooter. We stopped at the top for quite some time and I got to know a lot of really cool people.

 Everywhere we go we park our scooters in a line and take pictures. It just seems to be the thing to do.

Buddy was so proud to have friends. that is another orange buddy next to me, slightly cooler colors and carrying two! The guy behind Laura got hit on his scooter recently and its out of commission for a while. Scary!

These guys are slow racing. Slow racing is basically going as slow as possible to keep from going far. Whoever touches their feet down first or reaches the end first loses.

 We went on a midnight (more like midnight thirty) ride out to Utah Lake later that night. I had to do it-once in a lifetime right? at one point I even envisioned myself jumping in the lake, as I do in all bodies of water, especially when its cold or absurd to get in. But by this point, I was so incredibly tired and freezing cold I decided that plan was silly. This guy...Blake? Jake...had the right idea with the face mask. .

We got shakes at Sammy's after that; fun, but the excitement was wearing away into utter exhaustion for me, and I was literally shaking from cold at this point. Still good times.

What I really felt was that I belonged. That I had found friends, people that shared something with me, in Provo. Not just the scooting, although obviously that is what brought us together. But these people were real, they were sort of rough, they were funny, and they made me feel so happy and a part of something. It was awesome.

Next day we met on top of the parking garage for the gymkhana. obstacle course thing.

 This little boy was too adorable. See the big jump? He didn't go off it. But wouldn't that have been amazing? Only one guy did go off it, the rest of us took the little jump.

This wasn't exactly the action shot I would have hoped for, but you can see that I really went off, right? I was super timid doing everything at first, but got a little more gutsy towards the end.

 The course involved a couple small balance things, going full circle around all four pillars, going under the limbo stick and trying to get a cherry, then turning around to go over another balance thing and then the jump.

 Michelle and her cool scooter. If you can see her shoe color, I think it is awesome with her scooter color. She's the one that gave me the courage to do the course.

 The Hurtado family, raffling off the scooter and other prizes, including the trophy Dave both made and won, after winning the gymkhana.

Some of my favorite people, Sean and Nick, in an amazing feat of balance and skill.



 Oh yeah, here I am doing the pillar. Don't let my look of terror fool you; I was amazing...or not. It was harder than it looked!

 All of us at the gas station before heading up the canyon. Well no, about a third of us.

We also went around the Alpine loop-this is us coming down. That guy behind me is crazy. He would lay on his scoot with his legs flailing out behind him. Not on the loop though; that's just crazy. By the by, who knew this drive was so pretty?! Absolutely amazing.

Seriously, every time I looked around and saw myself surrounded by twenty other scooters, I just had to laugh out loud. It's so ridiculous, but so cool too. Thoroughly enjoyed it.