The Travels of Scooterbob, a tiny wooden Vespa goes around the World

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Back in October 2014 the moto-blogger community had learned the sad news about the passing of Bob Leong, the host of this blog. Bob loved to meet and get to know new people, and through his blog Wet Coast Scooting, he made friends all over the place. So between friends and followers the idea was born to send off a little wooden Vespa scooter (once owned by Bob) into the world, to be hosted by fellow bloggers as a tribute to celebrate Bob's life.

Departure day (Photo by David from Life on two Wheels)

And so it came that a little wooden trinket began its travels from Canada's west to the east coast, from Florida it got shipped across the ocean to Europe with stopovers in Germany, England, and France. Scooterbob continued its journey in Australia and New Zealand, before heading back to the UK. On returning to North America its destination was once again Florida, then Virginia, from there taken on a vacation on the west coast, it went to Oregon, Washington, and BC, Canada. After Virginia it landed in New Hampshire, then it made its way up to Ontario, Canada, and after it went on a road trip down to Minnesota. Then it got shipped off to Colorado, and was taken on another road trip. After a stint in New Mexico it marched on, off into the great white North that is Alaska, travelled back to Oregon, and has meanwhile landed on Vancouver Island, not far away from home, where it started over three years ago. Scooterbob's travels, a truly amazing Journey.

Now famous, Scooterbob also made an appearance on Ep. 11 of the TV Show Farkle Garage (thanks to Dar, from  Scootermayhem).

Will Rogers and Wiley Post Memorial

A little more wandering around town to see the sights. The plane crash of Will Rogers and Wiley Post was, literally, one of the first things I learned about Alaska. The actual crash site is a short ways west of town but there is a memorial set up near the airport which is named after them. The stone monument at the actual crash site was brought back to town last summer before it was lost to the ocean. There was a lot of frost and snow covering the modest granite memorial but in the second picture, I think you may be able to read the inscription if you zoom in on the picture.

I had gone to town to see if I could get a view of the first sunrise since November but the southern sky was pretty overcast and you could tell that it was daylight but that was about all. I stopped at Arctic Grocery to take a look at their asian food selection since I was invited out to help a couple of folks make some California rolls and Mongolian beef. The selection was a lot smaller than it was during the summer but I found some items not carried at AC Company (the main grocery store). We made ten rolls with cucumber, carrots, eggs, shrimp and fake crab. No ripe avocados to be found (just like in Fairbanks). But still a nice, tasty treat.

This mammoth tusk is on display in the lobby of the Barrow Arctic Research Center (BARC) which is the facility that I have been working on/in for over ten years. The grand opening was on June 1, 2007, and I had been working on the IT infrastructure during the design and construction. The glass case for this display has been broken for as long as I can remember so SB got an up close and personal look at the display.

I didn't take this photo of sunrise yesterday but a friend here in the building did. The length of daylight today will already be two hours. Quite the change from zero last Friday. 

 

North Until You Run Out of Dirt

Yesterday, we travelled from Fairbanks north to Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow. When we left Fairbanks, it was -40°F/C and we must've brought the cold temperatures with us as it was -35°F (-37°C) this morning. Utqiaġvik is as far north as you can go in Alaska. It's not on the road system and the only normal way to get here is via plane. Alaska Airlines has regularly scheduled 737 service to Barrow from Anchorage and Deadhorse but no longer from Fairbanks. On Thursday afternoon, we left Fairbanks for Deadhorse and after a 4 hour layover we arrived in Utqiaġvik.

This is just the view out of window as we passed over the Brooks Range. The sun was just peeking over the horizon at this point. The last sunset in Utqiaġvik was November 20, 2016, and the first sunrise should be tomorrow January 21, 2017.

Here is a graphic from TimeandDate.com showing the info for tomorrow and it shows that even though today there is zero sunlight, tomorrow will be 47 minutes. Thing change pretty rapidly at this point. The lightest blue indicates daylight where the sun is actually above the horizon. The next darker shades are civil and nautical twilight. Both are better known as dawn or dusk. As you can see, even on the winter solstice there is not really 24 hours of darkness as some media outlets would lead you to believe.

Around 1:00 we went in search of lunch. Near Cruz, the Mexican take-out place, the whale bone arch was still standing. This is one of the classic places to have visitors take photos. On this day, for some reason we didn't have to chase any tourists away to get a clear shot. In fact there wasn't anyone wandering around. Maybe it was the gentle 10 mph breeze. This is -53°F (-47°C) if wind chill matters to you. Fortunately, inanimate objects are immune to wind chill.

Late Friday Update - Dom's photo editing skills far exceed mine. I knew that the snow was messing with the white balance but wasn't sure what was needed to fix it. Here is his edited photo.

Fairbanks Update

Those wooden wheels just aren't made for snow...

But donuts should be no problem

Too bad it still on the cold side

But we'll be going on a trip north later this week...

SB Arrives in the Last Frontier

The carefully packed box arrived around the middle of last week but things around here have been rather hectic. Today, we cracked open the box to see the treasures it contained. During this time I was explaining to Bridget and my mom the background and the adventures the little wooden scooter had been on. My mom had remembered hearing about Bob in the past as I had something delivered to her home that was partly Bobs. (Sena headsets. We had purchased a pair and split the order.)  

The little scooter was well protected during its travels from the mile-high city. Bob had mentioned several times that he had wanted to visit Alaska but felt, like many others, that a certain kind of bike is needed before venturing to Alaska. Many scooters have made the trip including traveling up the haul road to Prudhoe Bay. There are no plans to travel up the Dalton but a trip well north of the Arctic Circle is in the works. I'm not sure how much travel will be by motorcycle but we will definitely get in a few trips.

It was great fun to see all of the memorabilia following along. Fortunately, I was able to find and print the draft post that Sonia had started that had a nice map showing all the stops along the journey. That will make a great introduction to the coffeehouse group. It's unfortunate that SB will not be able to meet George but I think that he will be a hit at the February Airhead.org meeting.

I should be feeling well enough to get some miles in on the Ural in a week to see a few of the local sights. SB should be acclimated to colder temperatures after recently spending time in Colorado. Alaska should be a walk in the park.

ScooterBob at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park, New Mexico

ScooterBob came along on a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park near Angel Fire, New Mexico:

From redlegsrides:

A somewhat late start for us today, what with work tasks and all.

Today we were headed to visit the nearby Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park and a subsequent lunch in Taos after which we visited the nearby Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.

We rode the northern half of the Enchanted Circle, and while less twisty, it was in our opinion more scenic.

ScooterBob accompanied us as we toured the Vietnam Veterans Memorial museum.  A very nicely done museum by the way, and its chapel was small but rather artistic in it's structure as you can see above and below.

I thought perhaps it would evoke a shape or message from an overhead view perhaps, but nothing comes to mind.

source: GoogleMaps

Saddling back up on Fiona, we headed to the village of Eagles Nest, spotting an American Bald Eagle in flight along the way, quite magnificent it was.

Martha and Fiona along the way to Taos

The road to Taos took us through Eagles Nest, Red River and Questa before finally depositing us on the outskirts of Taos.  Lunch was at "La Cueva", a very small Mexican restaurant whose food was quite delicious.  After lunch we wandered a bit among the shops in the Taos Plaza which I think functioned as the town square back in its founding days under Spanish rule.

Next stop, the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge about seven miles to the west of Taos along State Highway 64.

Pictures at the bridge done with, we headed on back to Angel Fire, retracing our route along Highway 522 to Highway 30.

We did stop at the Lazy L Ranch's gate to photograph what we dubbed as "Nessie".  

Moreno Valley Dragon

We got back to the RV park with no incidents, Fiona having done great once again and this time not having issue starting up in the morning.  (We did have to wait till temperatures were warmer than yesterday morning which probably helped).

Update: found a youtube video with photos of the Moreno Valley Dragon:

ScooterBob has left the building

Yes, he has finally packed his bags (or shoe-box) and is on his way to meet up with Geoff.

It's has been nice being able to take part in his around the world adventure and he also gave me an excuse to take in a few more sights when down South for the TT2000.  He gave me an excuse to revisit Jackson Bay and also to go for a lap around the Catlins on the TT.  And closer to home a trip on some great gravel was an opportunity to show him some pretty North Island country.

The below map is my GPS log of the travels I had with ScooterBob - just under 5,000km in all.

So, goodbye Bob and safe travels!

Nelson

All my ScooterBob blogs here.

ScooterBob's Gravel Adventure

With my two weeks off rapidly coming to an end I had to make sure that ScooterBob got to see a bit more of the country.  This time around a short circuit involving some delicious gravel was called for and ScooterBob was carefully packed in the Vee's topbox for this new adventure.

We left Palmy at around 9 and after being held up by the world's longest train in Bunnythorpe (4 engines and probably at least a kilometre long) we made our way out across Vinegar Hill to Hunterville where we gave the Vee a wee drinky before hitting the gravel.  After taking in the sealed section of Ongo Road we hit the gravel when we turned onto Turakina Valley Road.

The GoPro even played ball for a while...

It'd been a while since I'd had a decent squirt on gravel so I took things fairly quietly and made sure that we had time for a few photo stops.

Turakina Valley Road has to rate as one of my favourite gravel roads - it's pretty easy riding and offers some great views.  Up at the Northern end the gravel was in superb condition and speeds were high.  The only delay I had was when I came across a farmer moving some cattle along the road.

A bit of cloud hiding Ruapehu

Eventually Turakina Valley Road petered out at Tangiwai and we carried on towards Ohakune where we stopped so ScooterBob could check out the big carrot.

From Ohakune we rode up to National Park where we caught up with Neil for lunch and discussed the route we were going to take home.  I decided we'd have to checkout another nice valley...

Leaving National Park we cruised down to Raetihi where the Vee was refueled (just in case) for the trip back.  South of Raetihi we turned East onto Oruakukuru Road which was to take us over to our next valley.

Oruakukuru Road eventually led us onto Whangaehu Valley Road and after riding the sealed section (and some road works) to Kakatahi, we turned left to continue down the Whangaehu Valley.

Nice shady spot

The ride down the valley was pretty special but somehow I forced myself to stop for more pictures for ScooterBob's scrapbook.

Hanging on for dear life...

Eventually the gravel ran out and we settled in for a quiet cruise home via Fordell and then boring old SH3 all the way back to Palmy.  The Vee was parked up just after four and 400 odd fun kms showing ScooterBob some of our local gravel.  I hope he enjoyed the adventure.

More pics here.