Segway Adventure

For Tom's birthday, instead of buying him things, I like to buy him experiences. That sounds weird, but last year I got us a kayak adventure.  It was six miles of kayaking on the Chicago river at night time, to Navy Pier to watch the Saturday night fireworks.  It was an adventure for sure, we were in a tandem kayak, and it takes a lot of teamwork to maneuver one of those things.  It was heaps of fun, and we're always talking about how we want to do it again.

This year, Tom opted for the segway tour.  Make no mistake, the things are utterly useless in real life, but are incredibly fun.  You seriously just have to stand there.  There is little to no effort on your part to move, and you can go up to 12 mph.  Ours didn't go that fast because the tour guide put a "speed limiter" on ours to keep the newbies from killing themselves.  *I shake my fist at the speed limiter*

Tom and I were lucky, we got a small group.  It was the two of us and then a family that included a few teenage girls.  They were nice enough and very enthusiastic once they realized Tom and I were engaged.  They were also a bit reckless with their segways and each of the girls managed to fall off or crash 2 or 3 times.  

One key thing about the segway that everyone should know is that it will drive away without you standing on it, if you don't turn it off or lean it against something.  The guide told us that in a group three weeks before ours, a tourist got off to take a picture and didn't hold on to his segway, it drove into the lake.  That is an expensive $5,000 oopsie.  So of course on our way home, Tom was making sure to ride as close to the water as possible, because he "wanted to see more of the lake".  Sure, so long as they have my credit card for the damage deposit.

The highlights of the tour included: the girls crashing a few times, and getting to ride to the top of the sledding hill, but not down the actual sledding hill, riding to the pretty park the mayor put on that old air field to the south of the planetarium, the beautiful weather, and doing sweet tricks on my segway.  (pictures to come)