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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Late Show Blogging


Just wrapping up my workday. I took yesterday afternoon off (well mostly) and spent today playing catch up on my work but it was worth it. Sometimes a mini-vacation has more quality to it than a longer one (or at least I tell myself that since a longer one isn't happening right now.)

I went to the beach and in one of those "Can you believe this" moments actually lived out one of my childhood fantasies. If you grew up near a place with a wooden boardwalk, you'll understand. Most of them aren't built with the pieces of wood just sitting side by side - although that's part of the design. They criss-cross the boards in various patterns so some are slanted left or right or even where they meet in the center. As a kid, I always wanted to steal one of those carts I saw riding up and down the boardwalk and try out speeding up and down the wooden boards.

Well now that I have a scooter, guess what? I sat there realizing that my dreams had come true! So I gunned my scooter down the boardwalk for a teeth chattering ride over some parts of the boardwalk and I discovered, after a very scientfic study that:

a. Placing the front wheel of a 3 wheel scooter on the straight plank with the back wheels each on different slants provides a really bumpy ride and
b. It's no fun just riding where the wood planks go straight- fast but boring and
c. Riding on the slanted boards is just right - not too smooth, not too bumpy.

While I was figuring this out, I ran into a policeman in his own cart. Well, luckily I just missed him because his cart was bigger than my scooter. He looked rather amused and waved to me. I'm thinking that he, too, has tried out different ways to ride the wooden boardwalk since he goes up and down it all day.

I was happy to note that I didn't run into one place that wasn't accessible. Each store or restaurant had a ramp or a portable ramp they put up - and offered it before I even had to ask. This definitely is an improvement since the last time I went there a few years ago.

The next time I go down there I'd like to try an early morning handcycle down the boardwalk (you can do that before 10 a.m.) Now that would be bliss!
[visual description: A photo of a wooden boardwalk in Atlantic City is shown with pedestrians.]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL! I can see you now almost hitting a policeman. Sounds like fun . I'd do something like that myself if I had powered wheels. Glad you finally got out.

Ruth said...

Jeff- An AB friend was going down and asked me along so I decided to take her up on it! Hope all is going well on your side of the world.