Brrrrr. If you haven’t noticed it’s COLD out there! Several brave souls decided to forge ahead and make the journey to Walnut Creek today. JD and OS met me at Café Strada in Berkeley. We hung out, had a cup of joe and waited for PC and PO to arrive from San Francisco. At around 10:15 am we headed off.

Unfortunately on the Arlington in Berkeley before we even reached the East side of the bay hills misfortune struck. There was some water going across the road and before anything could be done we all realized that it was ice. JD went down. He’s OK but both him and his GTS are scraped up.

OS PC, PO and I continued on ever mindful that the roads were going to be treacherous. Luckily we didn’t encounter any more ice ontheroad but all the puddles along the side were frozen and by the time we reached Walnut Creek, 45 minutes later, all our fingers were frozen as well.

DH at Vespa Walnut Creek had coffee and sweets for us. R and LL met us there and we had time to thaw. PO even took a spin on the new MP3. You’ll have to ask him for his review. Since R hurt her back she couldn’t lead to Orinda so she gave me a map and off we headed.

Somewhere in Moraga I took a wrong turn and we ended up on a “Not A Through Street” looking at my map trying to figure where we were. LL spied a Postal Carrier in his truck and we asked him for directions. “Follow me” he said. “I’ll get you to St. Mary’s Road”. I think he got a kick out of leading 5 lost scooterists out of a maze of residential streets.

We arrived in Orinda with only a short stop because PC's scooter was acting up. We parked downtown (don’t you love being able to fit 5 scooters in 1 car space) and ambled around looking for a place to eat lunch. So we were sightseeing and stopped by the fountain, which was frozen over. Yes that’s right frozen in mid-day, with icicles and everything! Thelovely staff at the Orinda movie theatre let us enter and oo and ah at the beautiful deco murals and décor. If you haven’t been there and you love old movie palaces, this is a place to visit. We opted for burgers at Nations for lunch before heading back West. LL split off and ventured back to Livermore (Thanks for coming!) and the rest of us went up and over the tunnel before splintering in several directions.

Thanks everyone for coming on the Walnut Creek Ice Run! I wasn’t planning on leading but what the heck, I hope you had a good time. And JD – heal quickly, OK?

It's done! Finally! I have been slaving away for the benefit of my scooter club (The San Francisco Scootergirls) for months now on the 2007 calendar. This has been a monumental project and I am very pleased with the finished product. We're selling them to raise money to throw our first rally next September.

sfscootergirls.com/cal07/

Now maybe I can back to chatting online.

Laura : )

For the past year you have transported me 2,000 miles with grace and style! We have attended rallies, gone on group rides, driven in rain and sun and even killed that darn deer together. You hardly ever complain and barely need any fuel to sustain you. Never would I have guessed how much you would change my life for the better.