Sarasota

My wife is finally able to ride her Vespa after wrist surgery in mid-December and even though I've taken the ET4 for the occasional spin it has essentially been sitting for the past several months. Thus it was I decided the Vespa needed a proper tune up, and I chose Vespa Sarasota because Vespa Miami screwed up the repair of my GTS's fuel injection so badly that my wife no longer trusted them. Luckily I don't mind driving but getting out of bed at midnight cost me a bit. The ET4 was already loaded in the trailer, the Sirius receiver was in the car with a pillow, a blanket and directions to the store:The drive out the Keys was pleasant enough but I wasn't making great progress because I was babying my trailer and sticking to about 60 miles per hour on the cruise control. Then I heard a loud thump and shortly thereafter a rear tire started flapping ominously. I am not fond of those ridiculous doughnuts they offer as a spare tires but they actually make good sense and take up less room in the trunk. I change a car wheel like I was born to it. I kept on pressing on but it was no good, by 4:15 I was knackered and I pulled over into a rest stop.I was out like a light, stretched out in the passenger seat snoring like a grampus. It was cool outside about 67 degrees and I was snug under my blanket but the alarm went off all too soon. By six I was back behind the wheel hammering out more darkened miles. It was no good, even though the sun started to come up I was still tired out and my imagination was playing tricks on me. Fog was wreathing the highway and I felt like i was floating a ball of cotton wool. I pulled off again and took another nap.When I woke up it was daylight and gray and the freeway was still there looking endless:I was wishing I was there but the last miles of this 350 mile jaunt were proving to be the longest of all. I got there at dead on ten o'clock when Darren opened up his store:I parked the car and took another nap while he started disemboweling the Vespa. Then I woke up and found a tire shop which happened to be across the street from IHOP and that solved two issues at once. Then I found a motorcycle shop and bought a new inner tube for my Bonneville. It's quite amazing how much you can accomplish on the mainland. It's like everything is on the shelf. Then I went back to the Vespa shop and...took a nap. By 1pm the ET4 was ready, cables lubricated, changed belt, rollers, air filter, spark plug, oils and a new maintenance free battery. Darren also changed the fuel hose and vacuum hose and changed the front brake fluid and adjusted both brakes. Phew! All for $600. "Take her for a test ride" he said. So I did.The ET4 was buzzing along merrily, the brakes were perfect and I was remembering the joy of a nicely tuned Vespa. I stopped on the causeway to St Armand's Key and took a picture of Sarasota Bay, all cloudy and summery:I have vivid memories of sailing the bay on my way somewhere and getting caught by the mother of all thunderstorms. I threw out the anchor and dived into the cabin to wait it out. Southwest Florida has the worst summer storms, but I was riding in glorious sunshine. I zipped through downtown St Armand's Key with all its Romanesque statuary and neat flower beds:And got to the beach finally: A mish mash of notice boards signs and prohibitions:

And pedestrians striding along determined to enjoy their beach:

And so they should because the beaches here are magnificent, these are the strands deluded visitors expect to see in key West, poor things. If you want endless stretches of beach the West Coast of Florida is hard to beat.

If you need waves crashing on the sand for visual effect or body surfing you'd be better off on Florida's East Coast, but you might be surprised how many miles of deserted beaches you can find between Anclote Key and Naples. Sarasota does have a few waterfront condos but its not that crowded really:And the condos themselves had a largely old fashioned air to them, smaller than the canyons of the East Coast, perhaps less impersonal:Spot the Vespa in the crush of beachfront parking? No parking hassles for me.The hot spots downtown were quite surprising, beautifully landscaped of course but full of pedestrians. people were out and about on their own two feet all over the place. Sarasota may be today what critics fear Key West may become tomorrow:I think Hemingway would have run a mile had anyone suggested this piece of faux Key West architecture could have constituted a retreat for him. On the other hand he was pretty fed up with tourists in Key West in 1938 so the Southernmost City in the 21st century wouldn't have done much for him either. Looking carefully at these street scenes two thing stick out one is , how clean and tidy it is and......how few residentially challenged citizens there are. More accurately there are none. I wonder what they did with them? They do have public transportation and these signs put me in my mind of Seattle's SLUT system as another acronym with attitude:It was I admit a short tour of a pretty mainland seaside town. I had hours of freeway to get under my belt if I wanted any hope of dinner with my wife. Back across the causeway, with downtown Sarasota laid out before me:There was some public Art I couldn't figure out downtown. There was a pile of rusty car hulks planted nose down in the ground in a circle, looking a bit like an average parking afternoon in Key West and across the street I saw this giant tooth in a park: And no one setting up house underneath it, always a surprise. I paid my bill, said goodbye to the smart little Vespa shop with a promise to return,and back out into the nightmare of mainland traffic:Ease of shopping yes; but this stuff I don't miss at all. Every time I go North I wonder how it is that people aren't screaming wrecks after being squished up like this. Oh wait a minute they are, aren't they?
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As of the Modern Vespa Forum Darren (speedyscoot) closed the store in 2009 but still does scooter work in Sarasota. He published this as his contact number (813) 205-0469 for anyone in the area needing scooter work.