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Segway Tour
Nov. 14th, 2010 05:07 pmIndigo Rose, Cartaufalous, and I learned to ride a Segway yesterday. It's sort of vaguely like roller skating or skiing, but easier to learn, easier to do, and less intense.
It still requires some physical something. After about one minute, the bottoms of my feet felt like I had been hiking for two hours. I was definitely using some balancing muscles. Who knew you had so many muscles on the bottoms of your feet? Anyway, if you ever try riding a Segway, make sure to bring your most well cushioned shoes. You won't need extra ankle support, though.
I quite liked zipping through town on these. Like our tour guide said, it feels way cooler than it looks. (Hey, I'm almost as cool as Weird Al Yankovic! Wait, is he not cool?) They go up to 12 miles per hour, and I definitely hit that max a few times. That's how cool I am. Also, look Mom, no hands!
So, they're good for the same kinds of transportation as bikes are so long as there are sidewalks. Except they cost $2,000 - 6,000 plus require electricity and don't give you much exercise. Maybe about half as much exercise as if you were roller skating straight downhill at the perfect slope to go the speed you want to go. On the other hand, we blew off dance that evening, thinking our feet might not hold up well. And I can kind of feel all kinds of leg muscles and back muscles, too. Weird.
If I ever need a wheelchair, I might want it to be a Segway wheelchair. Surely there could be such a thing.
Our actual tour wasn't that exciting. We heard several things which, as usual with these things, may or may not be true. For example, we heard the legend about the UT Tower supposedly designed by a Rice graduate to look like an owl, only this time the legend was about the Frost Tower and it was a Rice graduate who had been rejected by UT's School of Architecture. We were told that its "beak" is lit up orange at night.
We heard that Austin has the largest urban bat colony in the world. This used to scare people and there was apparently talk in the 1970's about adding concrete to the underside of the Congress Avenue bridge so the bats couldn't sleep there, but then Bat Conservation International (I think) was created to help educate people so that wouldn't happen. According to our tour guide, one person dies of bat rabies per year. Thirty people die of dog rabies per year (for comparison). Also, bats eat a lot of mosquitoes. (In real life, I know that bats eat all kinds of things, and mosquitoes make up a very small portion of their diets.)
We heard that Austin has the highest number of live music stages of any city in the world. Our tour guide explained that when you move to Austin, you join a band (like he did) until you get a job.
We heard that when Presidents come to Austin, they all stay in the Driskill Hotel. LBJ took Ladybird there on their first date and also proposed to her there on that same first date. She said no, but then 20 days later said yes. The hotel is also haunted, including by one ghost of a person who died just three years ago.
So there you have it. If you'd like to see lines of semi-cool Weird Als Segwaying between musicians, bats, and presidents dancing with ghosts, all under the watchful eye of architectural Rice Owls, then you might like Austin.
It still requires some physical something. After about one minute, the bottoms of my feet felt like I had been hiking for two hours. I was definitely using some balancing muscles. Who knew you had so many muscles on the bottoms of your feet? Anyway, if you ever try riding a Segway, make sure to bring your most well cushioned shoes. You won't need extra ankle support, though.
I quite liked zipping through town on these. Like our tour guide said, it feels way cooler than it looks. (Hey, I'm almost as cool as Weird Al Yankovic! Wait, is he not cool?) They go up to 12 miles per hour, and I definitely hit that max a few times. That's how cool I am. Also, look Mom, no hands!
So, they're good for the same kinds of transportation as bikes are so long as there are sidewalks. Except they cost $2,000 - 6,000 plus require electricity and don't give you much exercise. Maybe about half as much exercise as if you were roller skating straight downhill at the perfect slope to go the speed you want to go. On the other hand, we blew off dance that evening, thinking our feet might not hold up well. And I can kind of feel all kinds of leg muscles and back muscles, too. Weird.
If I ever need a wheelchair, I might want it to be a Segway wheelchair. Surely there could be such a thing.
Our actual tour wasn't that exciting. We heard several things which, as usual with these things, may or may not be true. For example, we heard the legend about the UT Tower supposedly designed by a Rice graduate to look like an owl, only this time the legend was about the Frost Tower and it was a Rice graduate who had been rejected by UT's School of Architecture. We were told that its "beak" is lit up orange at night.
We heard that Austin has the largest urban bat colony in the world. This used to scare people and there was apparently talk in the 1970's about adding concrete to the underside of the Congress Avenue bridge so the bats couldn't sleep there, but then Bat Conservation International (I think) was created to help educate people so that wouldn't happen. According to our tour guide, one person dies of bat rabies per year. Thirty people die of dog rabies per year (for comparison). Also, bats eat a lot of mosquitoes. (In real life, I know that bats eat all kinds of things, and mosquitoes make up a very small portion of their diets.)
We heard that Austin has the highest number of live music stages of any city in the world. Our tour guide explained that when you move to Austin, you join a band (like he did) until you get a job.
We heard that when Presidents come to Austin, they all stay in the Driskill Hotel. LBJ took Ladybird there on their first date and also proposed to her there on that same first date. She said no, but then 20 days later said yes. The hotel is also haunted, including by one ghost of a person who died just three years ago.
So there you have it. If you'd like to see lines of semi-cool Weird Als Segwaying between musicians, bats, and presidents dancing with ghosts, all under the watchful eye of architectural Rice Owls, then you might like Austin.