Dirty Little Scooters!

 

How did my scooter end up here?  Well, it is a Honda ADV 150 designed for adventure scootering so that's what we did with them!  It started about 11:00 am when we geared up and left the house with Houston, MS the initial goal.  Yes, I said Houston!  This is our third Houston in a month.  First with the little Houston, MS, then Houston, AL and now the big Houston, MS!  We figured we'd be in Houston just in time for lunch and had selected an old fashioned drive-in, Saxon's, for our mid day meal.

Ready to roll!  Our route started on the Natchez Trace (of course!) heading south.  A soon as we entered the Trace we spied a spotted fawn on the side of the road.  Fortunately the fawn decided the forest would be a safer place to loiter than the road and skittered into the woods.  Not long into our ride I found it was a bit cool as fall is certainly in the air and I needed to stop for some wardrobe and bike adjustment.  We took a pull out here.

I zipped up all my open vents on the pants and jacket, zipped the collar all the way up and shut the top vent on my helmet.  While stopped I also adjusted my mirror and changed the display on my dash.  There, now I was ready to scooter on!  Much more comfortable.  Although the forecast had called for temps in the low to mid seventies it was only in the high sixties and overcast.

Not to much further down the Trace it started to sprinkle.  Just little, light drops but definitely wet stuff.  We made yet another stop so Eric could don his rain jacket.  Turns out it only spit on us off and on and never really let loose!  I call that a win 😁

After 30 miles on the Natchez Trace we took the exit for MS Highway 8 that would take us into Houston.  Houston, MS is a cute typical Southern Town with the Courthouse being the main square in town.  You can explore Houston here Houston, MS.  By now it was noon and we were both ready for some lunch.  We had googled places to eat in Houston and decided on Saxon's Drive In.  If you click here Saxon's Drive In and click on photos you can easily see why we wanted to chow down here, lol.

However, best laid plans and all.... Saxon's was closed 😞  We punched the GPS for food locations and took off to find yet another local eatery only to find out it was also closed!!!  Our third choice was - yes you guessed it - closed.  We ended up at the local Sonic which was okay.  But now, I'm going to have to make a return trip to Houston!

Tummies full we embarked on the more adventurous portion of our journey.  I followed Eric through Houston and onto small two lane country roads until he found County Road 164, a nice stretch of gravel and whatever we might find.  One of our goals is to get more comfortable riding off pavement with the scooters so this trip was intended to give us some practice at that.

Oh, this was nice and easy!  Occasionally I'd hit a loosey, goosey spot and feel the rear end moving about but for the most part it was pretty nice and smooth. 

When we entered the gravel section we did not air down our tires and decided at this point where we took a break to go ahead an air down and see if it made any significant difference.  This was about half way through the gravel section.

While stopped here for a break look what we found!

Wowza, out here in the middle of NOWHERE is a little family cemetery!  The road leading to the cemetery was pretty overgrown but heck, we're on Adventure Scooters!  So up the tangled road we went.

This link will give you an idea of how remote the Neal Cemetery is.  Neal Cemetery

At first, I was a bit hesitant.  I mean we didn't know how far or how difficult the road might become.  It looked pretty sketchy and very overgrown.  Being the brave fellow he is, Eric tootled down the path first leaving me at the somewhat safer, known gravel road, lol.

He returned unscathed so I decided I could venture out of my shell and scooter on through the thicket to the cemetery.

This was the reward at the end of the road!

And THAT is how my little ADV Scooter ended up on a goat trail through the woods!-

Doesn't it look just at home nestled in the wilderness?  Riding that little trail made me giggle out loud.  These little scooters are just such a hoot to ride 😎

Back to business.  With the air pressure reduced in our tires we took off for the remaining four or five miles of our gravel adventure.  This time I took the lead.  Everything was just fine with the occasional swoosh and lots of bumps along with plenty of washboard.  The reduced air pressure made the going a bit easier.  And then ... the chunky monkeys!  We had hit chunky monkeys a few times but they were short sections and the end was easily in sight.

The chunky monkeys are NOT FUN.  Rather than the pleasant, fairly hard packed red gravel we were now riding on light grey, sharp edged, chunks that made for a very rough ride. Some chunks were as large as my fist and it was not hard packed at all.  Here is just the beginning of the chunky monkeys.

It got worse!  Considerably worse!  Eventually you couldn't even see any of the red gravel it was all chunky monkey.  And then .... a steep downhill with monster washboard.  GACK!  Of course I didn't stop to take a picture.  It was all I could do to hold on and not get a mouthful of chunky monkey!  I admit I had a total pucker moment on this particular section!

Whew!  So happy when we ran out of that and back on the beloved red gravel, hahahahaha!  During our ride along County Road 164 we encountered two rather large deer at different points casually crossing the road.  I wasn't too worried about a deer strike at 25 mph 😁 which was about my top speed.  Okay, maybe I got up to 29 or 30 once, lol.  

Near the end of our gravel section we came upon a lovely stream so took a moment to enjoy the view.  (Didn't notice the graffiti on the road until after the photo was taken!)

Shortly after the bridge we ran out of gravel and decided that was a good place to air up the tires for the trek back home.  We pulled over across from a beautiful Southern Style home complete with two drop kickers barking as loud as they could the entire time we were there.

Eric has strategically mounted a waterproof box behind his license plate that holds all the tire repair kit including an air compressor.  He also kitted both our scooters with the proper SAE connector.  He made quick work of airing up our tires.

While stopped here listening to the dogs yap a fellow in a nondescript white truck with heavily tinted windows pulled up to us.  He slid the window down and asked if we were okay.  I pointed to my ears and said "Ear Plugs" and then told him we were just fine, that Eric was airing up our tires after our romp on the gravel.  He gave me the thumbs up and moseyed up the road they way we had just come.  He was wearing some kind of uniform and the license plate clearly said Mississippi Government but I have no idea what kind of official he might be.  Perhaps Wildlife Management?  Dunno.

Anyway, once both scooters got new air we headed back toward the Natchez Trace.  All of a sudden there it was - Van Vleet, MS post office!   Hahahahaha.  Had to stop for this photo op.

Within minutes we were heading north on the Natchez Trace toward home.  We had a great little adventure and got some practice on gravel and goat paths!  We are slowly getting the scooters kitted out for long distance touring.  I discovered in the morning that I definitely want to use my heated gear so Eric promised me he would take care of that before our next ride.  I also need to figure out a hydration system for my scooter.  You can see in the above photo that Eric has already sorted that for his scoot.

We arrived home about 4:30 pm with Dirty Little Scooters!  Actually, it could have been much dirtier but we had rain a few days ago so the road wasn't excessively dusty.  And, because most of the water had dried up it wasn't a slickery snotball mess either!  The roads were perfect and even the chunky monkeys gave me some good practice 😉

Our little Dirty Scooter adventure was about 80 miles of which 10 or so were off pavement.  I now have over 1,000 miles on the Honda ADV 150.  Eric has more than twice that many but I'll tell you about that in another blog 😜.

As always, thanks for following along!  Hopefully we'll be on another Scooter Adventure soon!

Cheers,

Cletha