it's a long (Seg)way from Oklahoma

I spotted five (5!) Segway® Human Transporters in Richardson this morning, as I made my way south from a rendezvous with Todd-Bob at Starbucks (the one at Coit/Spring Creek in Plano). Seems the City of Richardson closed northbound Coit Road to hold a Christmas Parade, and I'm guessing those Segways were one of the "floats".

The city's website included this one-line explanation:

The Christmas parade starts at 9 am on Saturday Dec. 4th traveling the streets of Promenade then north on Coit RD to Melrose.

No clue why those five Segways broke from the parade and were heading south (toward Dallas) but I was surprised to see them here at all (in the land of pickups and SUVs).

What I could see of the parade (as I moseyed south on Coit) was typical small-town: lots of pickup trucks and a few haywagons converted into floats, and a marching band or two. The sidewalk crowd was very light (probably related to the bone-chilling 50F weather); I'm not sure how many years they've held this parade. Today is the first one I've ever heard of!

anyhoo .. back to those odd-for-Texas contraptions: Segway's website says there's a dealer in Houston (about 250 miles south), but the nearest one is in Oklahoma City (about 200 miles north). Wonder how long it took those Segways to "drive" those 200 miles, and how they found enough sidewalks for that distance? Hmmm.

9 December update: the Segway FAQ says that top speed is 12.5 miles/hour. The range for most models is 8-12 miles (only 6-10 on the p Series), and the recharge takes 4-6 hours. Given that, my NapkinMath™ says it would take about 4.5 days (110 hours) to "drive" a Segway from Oklahoma City to Dallas, assuming I could recharge it in 5 hours, every 10 miles. Or maybe I could make it in 20 hours, assuming I could (a) carry 19 spare/charged battery packs or (b) use solar power (not offered)