Interesting Segway ride Saturday the 25th of March....

Took my Segway to the Phoenix Park-n-Swap and into Downtown Phoenix for the Home and Garden show. About a 20 mile roundtrip - more on that later.

At the Park-n-Swap, I rode into the gate and stopped at the first food court to get a breakfast burrito. After parking the Segway and ordering, I heard an announcement over the loudspeaker system: "As a courtesy to our guests, no rollerblades, skateboards, scooters, or other motorized vehicles with the exception of motorized wheelchairs are allowed inside the Park-n-Swap." That was obviously intended for me. Someone had seen me and ratted me out. So I used the power assist mode and walked the Segway around until I was on my way out, and I rode it out the last 100 feet. Nice to be noticed, eh?

Later, downtown, I had just turned off the sidewalk into the shopping area where the AMC 24 movie theater was located, where I was going to see "Inside Man" (very good movie, long but lots of high drama and comedy.) I heard someone shouting "hey, you, stop come here, stop!" and looked behind me and a security guard was trying to flag me back to the street area. I turned around and headed over when another, older and wiser guard told the other guard, "No, he's OK, he's fine" and they let me proceed.

At the movies, I bought my ticket and was walking the Segway up to the ticket taking girl and a manager came over to open the door for me. After I got my ticket torn and was walking away toward Theater #2, I heard the manager say to the ticket girl, "Police Vehicle." They thought I was a cop !!! I should have asked for some free coffee and doughnuts !! LOL. Anyway, inside the theater near the exit door to the outside was a wall outlet, so I charged my Segway for the two hours I was in the movie. Worked out great !!

As far as the cruising range on a charge, I think something is wrong with one of my batteries - it's either not holding a charge or is depleting too fast. I ran out of juice about 5 blocks from home and had to pull the Segway the rest of the way. Not an easy task !! The Segway dealer is going to swap both my batteries for two from his shop to see if things get better. I'm sure they will. I'll likely be getting a new battery out of this issue, maybe two. I want my 19-24 mile range !!!