It's a bit hard to see in this picture, in hindsight I should have lowered the camera angle to get a better shot, but hey, it's a cameraphone. Expecting good things from a cameraphone (even when it's rated at 1.3 megapixels, the same as my first digital camera) is like, well.. whatever.

If you CAN'T make it out, the "good stuff", the Esso 8000 is KYD$4.38/gallon. That's USD$5.34 per gallon according to XE.com today. Fortunately it's Imperial Gallons, so that makes it a little better, but not by much. Today I filled up my Vespa scooter and it cost me $5.87. That $5.87 will last me at least a week, unless I make a trek out to East End again with the Cayman Scooter Brigade (website coming soon ;) ) Compared to my 4 cyl 2.5l Jeep, which cost me on average $25/week just to run back and forth to work (sitting in traffic) and around on my own time (always within 5 miles of home) and it's a huge savings.

Today it rained. Yay for gardens, Yikes for scooter riders. It wasn't so bad. It wasn't raining that hard, not like that day in January that I wrote about being Le Suck. The worst of today was wondering how much dirt that was sitting on the road was flying around in the spray from everyone's tires. Even if it were raining harder, the only thing I would have done different would have been to put on my rain pants, as well. As it was, my pants got wet, but they needed to be washed anyway.

One of the RSS feeds that I check on a fairly regular basis is Autoblog. Every now and then they post articles about scooters, and today they posted two. One was about a 3-wheeled scooter that Piaggio is releasing. The weird thing about the "MP3" trike as they call it, is that the two wheels are IN FRONT as opposed to behind like a traditional tricycle/big wheel. It looks weird, but cool at the same time. The other one was aggregating a post from autobloggreen.com (note to self, check that site out, too) and wrote "According to the Motorcycle Industry Council, sales went from 12,000 in 1997 to 113,000 in 2005 as people discovered the scooter's fuel-sipping100  mpg and its ability to zip through traffic snarls."

I tend to disagree a little but about the 100mpg thing, realistically I've tracked it to be about 60mpg in real-life driving. It's still better than the 25 that my Jeep is rated for and probably closer to 20 that I get with it. It ends the article with "And just like their motorcycle brethren, scooter riders are joining clubs, Internet forums, and organizing weekend rides." Unfortunately, the island is only 22 miles long, but fortunately it's sunny and warm (except today) and you have a gorgeous ocean view for most of the ride.