Punk Gardener

There are perils to being on the bleeding edge of technology. If the cause is just then I will often take that risk because I like supporting useful tech at a time it needs the most support , at start up. Also because I am a straight up neophile & nerd.
The thing is tho– electric vehicles are not bleeding edge. At least not in Asia or Europe.
Here tho?
We really wanted to just stop feeding oil addiction. My spouse & I have tried more e -vehicles in the last two years than you can shake a stick at.
& after much experimentation, we found ourselves thrilled with our e-bikes. Other than a few fit & finish issues, they met our needs perfectly. We got a little exercise and a lot of travel along the wonderfully kept up bike trails of Pflugerville. We even got a trailer to haul gardening supplies. They were cheap to operate, quiet, fun & best of all : *electric*.

Cheap to operate, until the warranty ran out & we had to replace a battery on my spouse’s bike (my battery ran out & we put a new one in while my bike was still under warranty).
Now the battery on our previous escoots ran us about $70.
& we did figure it might be a bit more for the ebikes’ batteries.
Still– when one thinks of the cost of operating a car, ebikes are a deal , right?
Not so much of a deal, it turns out.
One battery= $500.00
That’s $500.00 per bike per year.

So, this is what my spouse & I did for my birthday: we sat down & looked at credit card bills, we talked about our transportation needs, we talked about everything we’d learned about e- vehicles in the last few years, we groaned & I put a pillow over my face & then we decided to go back to scoots.

Both my spouse & I have ridden motorcycles or scooters since our teens and we both love them. It was only a desire to not give oil companies our support and a fear of the growing legion of cell phone chatting while SUV driving people that made us abandon our two wheel ways.

I’ve always admired vespas, & pricey tho they are, they have a deserved reputation for lasting forever.
So after browsing scooter sites– we headed off to Vespa Austin & came back with a little black 2007 close out deal of a 250cc beauty we’ve named Spooky.
A little bit of a stressful birthday, but also a kind of fun one.
A stop at Le Kerb for pumpkin pancakes helped me thru it.
It ended with putting up our little tree, listening to schmaltzy holiday music and drinking spiked egg nog (yep, I love holiday music- & not even in a hipster-being-ironic way, just straight up sentimentality. ‘Cause I am the least cool person you know, but my husband has to be tolerant of that, especially on my birthday )
& speaking of spiked: the Persimmon Rum Cake from dishalicious is soooooo good that I am completely sugar buzzed now waiting for greenling to deliver the goods I need to whip up our vegetarian Thanksgiving feast