A Tale of True Love - The Scooter Story

So I don't keep a journal. I did in college and now when I read it I just get embarrassed. Was I really that immature (and boy crazy (Sorry Klay)) at 19 years old? Well I have a lot of stories about when Klay and I were dating that I never want to forget. I figured this is a great place to record them and maybe you can get a good laugh out of some of them. Although I'm sure many of you have heard the scooter story but I'm going to start with it because of this...

The other day I was walking through Target when this picture caught my eye. I had to have it. It will soon have a prominent place in our kitchen. A constant reminder of the following love story.

Klay and I met right before our senior year (a story for another day) but our first semester of college Klay headed to Dixie in St George and I went to Utah State. Neither of us had a car but Klay had a moped he would cruise around on. Well, one Friday Klay decided he would drive his moped up to see me. That's 383 miles. On a scooter. That maxes out at 35 mph. On a flat road. He made a little map of which gas stations he was going to stop at because the scooter had a very small tank and he didn't want to run out in the middle of nowhere. So with map in hand, he started on his journey wearing only basketball shorts and a t-shirt, a backpack with a change of clothes, and a diskman with a cd I had made him when we moved apart.

Now, if you've ever been to St George you know there is a huge hill heading north on the interstate. Klay claims he was actually pushing the scooter up the hill. Since the scooter was so slow he drove the across Utah on the rumble strip off the side of the interstate. So every few seconds of the whole drive it was thud thud thud... smooth... thud thud thud... smooth...

There was a point at about Beaver that he thought to himself, What am I doing? Just about the same time his buddy passed him in his Jetta and pulled over to ask him what the heck he was doing. They actually tried to load the scooter in the trunk of the Jetta but it wouldn't fit. There wasn't anywhere to leave the scooter so his friend sped away in his car and Klay carried on. Going 35. On the rumble strip.

Now to my side of the story. I guess Klay had told my roommates he was coming but he wanted to surprise me. Well he left on Friday morning and by Saturday evening we had not heard anything and he was not there. My roommates decided they should tell me and I was so sad he hadn't made it. I thought for sure he had turned around or stopped somewhere along the way. He didn't have a cell phone and I had no way of getting a hold of him so I decided to go hang out with some friends, one of whom just happened to be named Paul. Klay gives me a hard time about being on a date that night but I stand firm that it was not a date. I don't think you can consider it a date when I had told Paul that if my boyfriend showed up my roommates were going to call me on his phone to come home. (I didn't have a cell phone either.)  Thankfully, while I was out I got the call to come home and I was ecstatic!

When Klay reached Provo it was late and freezing. Apparently he failed to consider that even though it is still hot in St George in the fall, it is freezing at night in Northern Utah. So he stayed with his friend in Provo and continued on his journey Saturday morning. He made it to Salt Lake a few hours later and stopped for a break at his sister and brother in law's house. When they heard what he was doing they promptly let him borrow their car for the rest of the trip. So by Saturday night I was reunited with my crazy boyfriend and SO happy to see him!

Klay stayed for one night and Sunday his parents heard what he had done. They bought him a bus ticket from Salt Lake to St George and made other arrangements to take the scooter back down later. So Klay drove on a scooter for over 14 hours to stay for one night in Logan. I would say that's true love! I always joke that it's only a good story because I'm his wife now. It wouldn't be nearly as good if I was some random ex-girlfriend!

(Pictures are not from that weekend, but from the same time frame. I'm pretty sure we both look almost the same and it's been 8 years. Sorry about poor quality. They were taken with a disposable camera and then scanned in! Thank goodness for digital photography now!)