Saturday evening, Michael and I rode the scooters out near the river to have dinner. It was the longest scooter ride I'd been on in weeks. The last time I parked the scooter, I was sick and I did a terrible job of parking. For the last two weeks, every time Michael rode his scooter he'd have to maneuver his way around my scooter. He teased me about it daily only because I usually do such a good job of parking my scooter. The one time I don't is the time it ends up sitting for weeks. But then Michael's scooter started leaking and he had to put it into the shop for a week, so getting in and out of the garage wasn't an issue. But Saturday, Michael got his scooter back, I wasn't blowing my nose every five minutes, and the weather was nice. Basically, stars aligned. 

We are creeping into that season where scooter rides are less and less frequent. This week we've had rain or enough of a threat for rain that the scooter has been a no go. This is the hardest part of the end of summer, saying farewell to the daily scooter rides. It's what makes the simplest scooter ride so important. Our ride that evening was not really an extended ride. It was not an all day affair. It was just a simple ride to dinner. It took us into the heart of downtown, past the Power and Light District. We traveled through the City Market area and onto a bridge that took us over train tracks and into the River Park. Our ride put us close to Bond Bridge right around sunset. It was the magic hour of the day. The streets were quiet. The weather was cool with that slightly crisp hint of the coming Fall. Yet the sun was still just barely up. It was at that spot on the horizon where you can see the physical rotation of the Earth happening in real time. 

It was dark as we made our way home, but just barely and the street lights along Troost are bright enough. We watched a girl walking along the sidewalk with eight or nine puppies following her. No leash. In fact the girl didn't even seem all that concerned about the puppies, barely glancing back as one of them started wander off. As we stopped at a stop light Michael turned to me and said "DID YOU SEE ALL THOSE PUPPIES FOLLOWING THAT GIRL!". I suggested we steal one of them and then I remembered the "no pets" sign on the inside of my scooter seat. We passed the car lot that always reminds me of Christmas tree lot with the way the lights are strung up all around (I call it the Christmas tree car lot) and made our way home. 

It was the kind of ride that was peaceful and relaxing and just what I needed. It was the kind of ride that I'll think about when snow falls and I'm shoveling the driveway. A scooter ride to pull up from memory on those mornings I'm running out to start the cars when the temperatures are below freezing. I'm like a squirrel except instead of nuts, I'm gathering memories to sustain me through the winter months.

Happy memory catching. And Happy Love Thursday.