Riding the Wet Coast: Travels with ScooterBob

Travels with ScooterBob

ScooterBob is a wooden motor scooter that is traveling the world in the company of moto bloggers.

You'll find links to the posts documenting ScooterBob's travels and ScooterBob's back story below.

Here are the guidelines if you want to travel with ScooterBob. Please note that we're making this stuff up as we go along. The 'we' in these guidelines is three bloggers and self-appointed moderators who, with the blessing of Bob's family, are now moderating Bob's blog. Everyone who indicates an interest will eventually receive a more detailed e-mail either requesting follow up information (if we're missing some addresses or other information) or providing a little more information (like where you are on the itinerary, and where the next stop might be). ScooterBob will be traveling between assignments care of the postal service. We'll try our best to keep those costs down, but there will be a number of inter-continental hops. Right now we're working on a list of guides, and some internal organization ideas for ourselves so that ScooterBob's travel agency can keep things simple and efficient.

ScooterBob Travel Guidelines

Click here and complete the ScooterBob e-mail request by providing your name, address, blog URL, any timing or other constraints you may have, and the estimated length of time you think ScooterBob will be traveling with you.
If the links don't work for you (for reasons we can't fathom, they don't work for everyone), then just e-mail david@masse.org and we'll get back to you.
You'll get a confirmation once you're on ScooterBob's destination list.
You'll also get a confirmation once ScooterBob is on his way to you, with a tracking number.
When ScooterBob arrives, click here to let us know he arrived safely.
ScooterBob's next destination depends on you, and on us. We have a list of bloggers who want to travel with ScooterBob. Suggest to us where you think ScooterBob should go next. If we think the next destination should be somewhere else because of timing constraints or other factors, we'll suggest that other destination to you, and add your requested destination to the list. The list with names and addresses is kept by us, ScooterBob's keepers, and is not made public, though all the current participants have agreed to share it among themselves. New participants are prompted to tell us if they don't mind sharing. If someone does, that will be taken into account.
When you send ScooterBob on his way to the next destination, click here to let us know it is headed to its next guide. Ideally, throw a patch in for ScooterBob so that a treasure trove of his travels builds as the wooden scooter goes from place to place. If you've hosted ScooterBob and the 'add a patch' idea wasn't part of the deal, no worries, let us know and we'll tell you where to mail your patch so that it gets to ScooterBob's next destination.
Document your travels with ScooterBob by posting on your blog. Be as creative as good taste and personal safety allow.
Once your blog post is done, let us know by clicking here.
We will add you as a guest author on Bob's blog and invite you to add a copy of your post there as well.
Periodically we'll send an e-mail to everyone on the list providing an update on the little pilgrim's progress.

Links to ScooterBob's Travels

Places it's been

Places it is or was planning to go
(Not necessarily in this order)

The Black Forest, Germany
London, England
Tampa, Florida, USA
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Corvallis, Oregon, USA
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Centennial, Colorado, USA
Fairbanks, Alaska, USA
Cloverlea, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Manchester, United Kingdom
Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Cincinati, Ohio, USA
Coromandel, New Zealand
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Red Wing, Minnesota, USA
Penarth, Wales, United Kingdom
Prospect, New South Wales, Australia
Traralgon, Australia
Warrenton, Virginia, US
West Midlands, UK
Menifee, California, USA
Somewhere-soon-to-be-determined, UK

The Tentative Itinerary
(a note of caution, the map is only a very rough guide, as you can tell from the list. We've given up on numbering the legs, it's beginning to be like a Picasso line drawing. The ability to update this map has escaped the artist, or rather the software that did it is no longer available. ScooterBob is currently in the US midwest, well along the yellow portion of the itinirary)

Next Stop

Denver Colorado

ScooterBob's story

It once belonged to Bob Leong. Bob was a very well-known and very well-liked moto blogger. ScooterBob, the wooden motor scooter, earned that name the moment it was assigned a globe-trotting mission to meet moto bloggers and see the world.

That nomadic far-ranging mission was one Bob had set for himself. He had already ridden his BMW R1200R from coast, to coast, to coast; from his home in Vancouver to Charlottetown, and back. Along the way Bob met moto bloggers, lots of moto bloggers. Some he had already met, others he met for the first time.

Bob was, like the rest of us, an imperfect human being, with some wonderful qualities. Anyone who met him knew him as gentle, humble, kind, thoughtful, generous, and adventurous. Those are the qualities that endeared him to the moto blogging community.

Bob parted with the wooden motor scooter when he gave it to an east coast blogger. That's how it came to Montreal, where it stayed for a time. On a whim, and as a prank, the scooter traveled with another moto blogger to Key West. The goal was to surprise Bob when he showed up there on another leg of his mission, only to find that the lowly wooden motor scooter had beaten him to the destination. That prank was destined never to bear fruit.

Can it be that Bob's indomitable spirit rubbed off on the wooden scooter? How else can you explain its journey to Key West?

One thing is certain, ScooterBob has now joined the growing category of traveling things. Most traveling things are in the category of geocaching travel bugs. The idea behind ScooterBob came from a similar experiment on ModernVespa involving a spaceman Snoopy doll. If you take the time to read all of ScooterBob's adventures, you will see that ScooterBob and the spaceman Snoopy doll traveled together on the last leg of Snoopy's worldwide adventure when it returned to the Kennedy Space Center where it began its adventure.

On a higher tech plane there is the Hitchbot experiment. Hitchbot made it from Halifax Nova Scotia to Vancouver British Columbia. ScooterBob may not be high tech, but it's powered by intrepid moto bloggers, a force to be reckoned with. ScooterBob had already beaten Hitchbot's puny feat when it was only barely on its way.

ScooterBob with Sonja, Gary France, and some new friends.
Copyright - Gary France

6 comments:

Sash JohnsonDecember 6, 2014 at 8:25 AM
Hi Folks,
I'm clicking on the link, but it's not taking me to a place where I can email you. Can someone please contact me? Sash@TooMuchTina.com. I would really appreciate it! I would like to get my husband Steve from www.MotorcyclePhilosophy.org and myself on the list.
Smooches,

Sash ~ The Rude Biker Chick
See Sash Videos!
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousFebruary 1, 2015 at 6:38 AM
Hi, this is Highwaylass _ I'm having the same problem as Sash. Link not working, but I'd love to take ScooterBob on a trip after he's finished in London. I'm also UK based.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Bill LeutholdDecember 17, 2015 at 5:43 AM
It looks like ScooterBob is heading to the Sunshine State. I have been awaiting my chance to visit with the little fellow, and will show it a good time on my own rides and those with the 7 Bridges Scooter Club. Then work out a hand off to the next lucky rider.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Pages

Travels with ScooterBob

6 comments:

StatCounter