Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This past week, we were watching the 1954 movie, “White Christmas” again. This stars Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney. All are big-name stars. Yet there were four major characters in the story, the fourth played by Vera Ellen. Since she had a large role in this movie with big stars, I was wondering why I didn’t know who she was. So I went looking. Turns out she was a dancer, and worked in a lot of movies with big-name stars in the 1950s, but she stopped making movies in 1958, and she died of cancer in 1981. And at the end of the trail, I read that she was buried in Glen Haven Memorial Park in Sylmar. I looked it up, and looked at the relatively short list of famous people buried there. And when I saw Jeffery Hunter on the list, I immediately knew we had a new bike ride in our future.

We headed out our usual route across Eagle Rock and Glendale, and then took Glenoaks all the way up to Hanson Dam. Along the way, we saw the van advertising the Hot Topless Maids, including a sign that they are hiring. Good to know. When we got to Osborne, we took that across the dam and then started up Kagel Canyon.

When I mapped out this ride, I knew we had to go up Kagel Canyon a bit, but I really didn’t pay attention to how far we had to go. It turned out to be about three and a half miles, all uphill. Yikes. And about two and half miles in, Carla got a flat. But we finally made it up there, and there was this little cemetery with a commanding view of the San Fernando Valley. We found Jeffery Hunter first. I had to explain to everyone his significance in the geek world. He played Captain Pike in the first “Star Trek” pilot episode, “The Cage“. So even though he was only ever in one episode, he still has a place in the “Star Trek” universe.

Then we went to find Vera Ellen. I’d made a map by hand showing her approximate location, but we had trouble finding her. In the end, John looked up the lat/lon coordinates, and then we walked around with my little Magellan GPS until we’d matched them up. And then she was right there.

Now it was time to head back down. That was a nice, long descent. The sort I would have loved in my racing days. Then we got on Foothill Blvd for the ride home.

Along the way, we met up with another bike rider who lives in the area. He told us that the coffee shop that I’d found in Yelp was closed. He recommended the Back Door Bakery, so we went there. And it was quite good. While we were there, I saw a flyer on the bulletin board for a holiday party that was going to feature the Randy Van Horne Singers. We all know them, even if we don’t know that we know them. Here’s a hint:

Van Horne, Randy Van Horne
He’s piece of music history
He sang ’bout the Flintstones
In the song that we know from TV

Then we continued on up the hill through Tujunga until we passed Stan’s Liquor near the top, and then headed downhill into La Crescenta. From there, it was going to be mostly downhill all the way home.

In the end, the route turned out to be somewhat longer than I’d expected. Mostly because I didn’t measure how far up Kagel Canyon we had to go.

50 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This past week, I saw a small item in the L.A. Times about an artist who has been making funny fake street signs, which are currently installed at various parks around Glendale. He has a Facebook page for the project, and I was able to contact him there, and to get a map showing where the different signs are installed. So that was our ride for today.

We rode out across Pasadena and Eagle Rock, and then into Glendale. The first one we saw was the “START” sign in Maple Park. Heading off to the next sign, we passed Mission Wine and Spirits. Funny thing is, back in 2006, that same store was called Hammered Liquor Store.

Continuing on, we came to the “BREATHE” sign at Glendale Central Park. Then we rode a little side trip to Pacific Park, and the heart-shaped “ONE WAY” sign. After that, we headed up almost to Burbank to see “RELAX” at Griffith Manor Park. We liked the placement of that one. Seeing the mountains behind it did give it a peaceful air. At least now that those mountains aren’t on fire any more…

We stopped for snacks at Paradise Bakery in Glendale. Then we started on the return leg of the trip. We took a short side trip to see the “Peace Signs” at Casa Adobe de San Rafael. Then we started up the long hill into La Crescenta. We stopped at the skate park to see the ‘SHRED” sign installed there.

Finally, we stopped off at Montrose Community Park to see “Infinte Clearance”. That one turned out to be the hardest to find, largely because that park was much larger than all the others we’d visited.

This was a very entertaining street art project. We liked seeing it, and it kind of reminded me of the time when Richard Ankrom made and installed a freeway sign as an art project in downtown Los Angeles. In the end, it was a fun ride, but as sometimes happens when I make up a completely new route to see something, this one came up a little short. But that’s all right once in a while.

35 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

I generally scan the obituary pages of the L.A. Times every day. And some years ago, I ran across an item about Don LaFontaine, the voice actor who was known as “The Voice of God”. We’ve all heard him a thousand times in movie trailers… “In a world…”

This past week, I found out that he’d been buried at Hollywood Forever. We haven’t been there to visit in a while, so that was our destination for today. The last time we went there was last January, when we went to see the monument to Toto from “The Wizard of Oz”.

We went through downtown L.A., stopping briefly to look in the hole where they are building the Regional Connector. We just heard yesterday that the project is going to be delayed by a year, due to some old sewer lines that need replacing around where the tunnel runs. Then we headed out on 7th St, through Koreatown and Hancock Park to end up by Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Then we turned into the cemetery and went looking for Don LaFontaine. He was in a section that I’m not too familiar with, and in the end, I had to look up the GPS coordinates on findagrave.com, and then I walked around with my little Magellan GPS to find the exact location.

Leaving the cemetery, we headed east across Hollywood to the Franklin Hills area. We crossed the Shakespeare Bridge and rode down to the L.A. River. Our snack stop was at Spoke in Frogtown. I had a ‘breakfast bun’, which was sort of like an artisanal version of an Egg McMuffin. It was good.

41 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

There was a chance of rain in the forecast today, so we did the Metro Rail Tour East. This is the ride to Glendora and back where the route is never more than two miles from the nearest Metro Rail station. That way, we have a bailout option if it starts to rain.

On the way out, I saw something I’d wondered about for some time. A couple years ago, we’d gone to see the dedication and open house at the Metro Gold Line Operations Campus in Monrovia. That day, they had one of the new train cars on display there. It was number 1003, and since then, Carla and I have been looking for it on the Gold Line. We never did see it, but one time when we were riding in West L.A., we saw it on the Expo Line. Since those two rail lines do not currently connect with each other, we were wondering how they got it there. And today, we got the answer. There was a train car sitting up on top of a long truck trailer, ready to be moved. Another mystery of the universe, solved.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. We had snacks at Classic Coffee in Glendora. And it never did rain on us. But it’s always good to have a plan to escape when that might happen.

37 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

It’s the Sunday before Halloween, and time for our annual Halloween-theme ride to Culver City to visit Bela Lugosi’s grave. We’ve been doing this since 2007. It’s a slightly longer ride than we usually do, but it’s a relatively flat route.

We too our regular route, which involved going downtown, where the Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon was going on. We saw Wonder Woman there, along with hundreds of other runners in costumes. Then we headed south to USC, and then out on the Metro Expo Line bike lanes to Culver City. There, we got on the Ballona Creek bike path and rode that to Overland Ave, where we turned off to go to the back entrance to Holy Cross cemetery.

People generally show up to decorate Bela Lugosi’s grave for Halloween, but this year we apparently special. The tinsel garland, spiders, and a little lawn light were more than we’ve ever seen there before.

We stopped for snacks at La Dijonaise in the old Helms Bakery complex. Then we headed back by way of Venice Blvd, and then 7th St back into downtown. In the end, I cut the route short slightly by taking Metro back from South Pasadena. This was largely to save some time at the end, since the full round-trip is about 56 miles.

50 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This morning, when we were riding through Griffith Park, I saw a sign for the P-22 Day Festival. This was in honor of P-22, the famous Griffith Park puma. So after I got home, Kathleen and I went back to the park to go see it.

There were booths with exhibits about wildlife conservation, and mountain lions in particular. About plans to build a wildlife overpass over the 101 freeway, since crossing freeways is one of the most dangerous things that wild animals have to do. The had a stuffed puma that had been killed by poachers so we could see what it looked like up close.

It was an odd little event, but fun in its own way.

Back in the ’80s, I found a book called California Crazy about the odd architecture found around L.A. The few remaining weird buildings have formed the basis for many of my bike club routes. And today was yet another. Back in the 1930s, there was a chain of restaurants called Chili Bowl. These were in bowl-shaped buildings, and there are only a few remaining. None of them are still Chili Bowl restaurants, but the buildings remain. And today’s ride was to go see one of them still standing in Glendale.

Glendale isn’t very far away, so I made up a route based on the route we used to go see the Derby Dolls bubble soccer back in July. We made a big loop from almost downtown L.A., up through Griffith Park, NoHo, and Burbank. We stopped in the shade at the Groundworks Coffee in the old Pacific Electric depot in NoHo before heading back into Glendale and seeing the former Chili Bowl. In the end, the route turned out to be a bit longer than I’d thought, but it was a nice day, so that was all right.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was a trip to Glendora to visit Donut Man. The group went there another time, but that was a weekend when I was out of town, so I wanted to go back so I could try it.

We fought a headwind all the way out there. But that made us feel like the donuts were more easily justified. And they were pretty good.

On the way back, we saw some nuns crossing the road, right near the Nun Crossing sign. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen actual nuns outside there.

37 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today was yet another edition of the Atlas Obscura San Andreas Fault Scavenger Hunt. This is the third time I’ve been doing this tour with Atlas Obscura, and it seems to be as popular as ever. This time, my partner for leading the tour was my friend Morgan from the office.

We all met at the Seismo Lab, and we started off with a quick tour of the lab. We saw the lobby exhibits about the history of earthquake study, the media center upstairs, and a small exhibit about Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg, who started the Seismo Lab and systematic study of earthquakes back in the 1930s.

The first stop of the tour was the small fault scarp next to the McDonald’s drive-through in San Fernando. This is a small remnant from the 1971 Sylmar earthquake.

The next stop was the scenic overlook and the famous road cut along the fault in Palmdale. When we were walking up the hill to look at the road cut, we ran across a tour group of students from Long Beach State. They were apparently doing about the same tour as we were, but traveling in the opposite direction.

We stopped for lunch at Charlie Brown Farms, which is still a deeply weird place. This time, I noticed that they had camel meat in the freezer. I suppose it tastes like chicken…

After lunch, we had a pair of stops close together. One at the signs marking the fault, and then at the Pallet Creek trench site, which was where the science of paleoseismology was born. The signs are kind of a silly stop, but it’s a chance for a photo-op. The trench site is interesting from the standpoint of it being important to the history of science.

Now it was time to go into the mountains. We stopped at the road cut that has the fault gouge on one side, and we showed everyone how the rocks in the sand could be crushed by hand. That’s always popular. Then we continued on to Wrightwood.

The last stop was at Lost Lake in Cajon Pass. Last year, it was suffering from three years of drought, and the lake had no water in it. But this time, it had some water, and was actually a lake.

And that was our tour.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Whittier Narrows Earthquake. This was felt all over Los Angeles, and it caused some significant damage in nearby towns. So today’s bike club ride was to visit a few locations associated with the earthquake.

The first stop was at the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium. This building was damaged and later repaired. You can see a photo of the damage here:

http://scedc.caltech.edu/significant/whittier1987.html

We could see that the upper portion had been patched up, and there were still some cracks in the lower part of the building.

The next stop was the epicenter, which was just a few blocks southeast of the big intersection of Walnut Grove and Garvey in Rosemead. Not really much to see there, but that’s the place.

Next we rode to the Whittier Greenway Trail, where we saw a display of bricks and columns that were salvaged from a few historic buildings that were damaged enough that they had to be torn down. Then from there, we rode into downtown Whittier, and our snack stop at Mimo’s Cafe.

The last stop of the tour was at the Whittier Museum, which is hosting an exhibit about the earthquake. The building pictured on the banner outside was just a few blocks away.

Here are some more pictures from that day:

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Whittier-Narrows-Earthquake-Puente-Hills-Fault-California-Seismology-Photos-Images-448452433.html

45 miles.

Route map and elevation profile