I had a
four-day holiday and I spent it on Los Angeles. Pathetic, just pathetic! No, really, I had a pretty good time. I left Friday mid-morning, took I-10 all the
way to Banning and then SR 60/91 the rest of the way to Long Beach
(Carson). I got into LA rush hour almost
from Riverside on, but made it OK – no wrecks to turn it into a nightmare. No, THAT came upon arrival at the motel…
Motel 6 in
Carson didn’t mention at all that their hotel is torn up for remodeling from
one end to the other. That was pretty
disturbing when I first saw it, plus the apparent attitude of the staff when I checked in was "we don't give a s*#t what you think about it. I don’t
usually stay at Motel 6 anymore, although they used to be my habit. But I’ve had more than one bad experience
with them and figure the slight savings these days isn’t worth the aggravation. Plus, I’ve come across a couple of them in
recent years that were suffering from some serious FILTH.
But prices are high in Los Angeles this time
of year, almost double what I paid. If I
had found something decent-looking in the $80-$100 range, I’d have taken
it. But no luck. So. On
the web and at the last minute (part of the problem, obviously), this hotel’s photos made it look a LOT better than it really was. What saved it for me, was the room I was in
had already been remodeled and it was clean.
The bed was OK and I searched for bugs and found none. So it was OK – the place was a bit noisy but
while that lasted late into the evening, it did not continue overnight, either
night. It was also a convenient neighborhood for me, with some needed
shopping nearby (Target!) and some good restaurants. So in the end, no complaint. I won't do it again though - the remodeling isn't being done with much quality from what I could see -- and I doubt the upgrades will last. It's going to be junk again, and fairly soon.
I had dinner
on Friday night at Chili’s, and bought a movie to watch – The Great Outdoors
with John Candy and Dan Ackroyd (it's got Bart the Bear in it!).
Saturday morning, I got out on the road at about 10 am after breakfast
at Denny’s. I jumped on the 405 and
slogged my way through LA Saturday traffic (heavy, unfortunately) all the way
up to downtown. First stop, the LA
Farmer’s Market at Fairfax and 3rd St. I parked across the street at a shopping
center and walked the last half a block – cruised through quickly and bought peanut
brittle in a funny round-manufactured shape, a banana, a box of organic strawberries,
some “fancy mixed nuts” and a croissant (which I never finished). I
already had plans for lunch, but I figured I’d want snacks, or Sunday
breakfast, right?
I really
should have planned the stops more carefully… my next planned excursion was to
visit the site of the original 1781 Los Angeles – and that was maybe 15 miles
away. Then, as it turns out, lunch was
back where I was near the Market – not too far from it. When I got to the Old Pueblo, parking was $10! I got a little discouraged about
that and decided I would eat lunch first.
At this point I discovered that Pink’s Hot Dog Stand was back in the
direction from whence I’d come. I never
did make it back to Old Town. But I
think at this point I didn’t miss it, or much.
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| Note the queue... |
I arrived at
Pink’s to discover the ever-present line.
I had to wait probably 30 to 45 minutes to place and receive my
order. Others in line told me it was “worth
it.” They didn’t know I’ve wanted to eat
at Pink’s for about five years – ever since I first heard about it. And I’d have waited if it had been two hours. I already knew it wasn’t that good. But I should have gotten two of them after
waiting that long for something. Pink’s
is a Los Angeles landmark – and counts many movie stars among its clientele. The dog was good – an old fashioned one in a
natural case and a good size. You can get anything you
want on them – I had mustard, ketchup, relish, onions and chopped
tomatoes. Had I sprung for a second one
(the only reason I didn’t was I also had plans for supper and a 2nd dog
would have dampened them…), it would have been a famous Pink’s chili dog.
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| Dockweiler State Beach |
After lunch,
it was back south to the airport to watch the planes. Yes, really.
I had looked at maps and there is a state park right where the runways
meet the Pacific – Dockweiler State Beach.
I figured that would be a great place to watch the takeoffs as they
always go out in that direction at LAX.
Alas, the beach was backed by a large system of levies – and you can’t see
the field at all from the beach. You can
see the jets as they roar over directly overhead, but nothing else.
A lady was walking past with her kids, headed
for the sand (I was standing by my car, parked along the roadway), and we
talked for a moment or two, she said hi, I said hi, etc, and she told
me about a better place – right off the highway that runs along the west-side
of the field there is a neighborhood and it is on the side of a hill. You can park there along the road and they
have benches and little tables and you can see the WHOLE FIELD. Of course, LAX is so huge I had to use my
field glasses. But I stayed for about an
hour, probably, and among the usual run of the mill domestic airliners and
regional jets (and props), I saw a new 787 take off and also a Lufthansa 747-8 –
also brand-spankin’ new. That one taxied
all the way to the west end, crossed the runway, then down the west fence-line
all the way to the EAST end, right in front of me, then took off on LAX’s far western runway right past me again. It was a great view throughout all of this, and the paint on that jet was so new it glistened!
After the
plane-watching I drove
back to Carson to the motel and relaxed for a few moments before going out to
supper. It was at this point I had to
open up the new GPS – my present one has pretty much bitten the dust. I updated the firmware and the maps before
leaving and what had been a perfectly well-functioning GPS is now a useless
piece of plastic. It seizes and freezes,
requiring multiple resets to get it to work at all – for about ten minutes
until it freezes again. And the lane-assist feature is now just a white blank screen. Thanks, Garmin! The new cheaper one I
bought as “insurance” isn’t near as capable as the old one was – the difference
being about $200. But I’ll never spend
that much for one again – they just don’t last long enough.
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| Roscoe's |
For supper,
it was Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. I
had a two-piece with two waffles – didn’t eat it all. I took half the waffles and one piece of
chicken with me. Ate the chicken for breakfast, threw the waffles away. It was good enough – it’s
a famous place the Prez ate at when he was in LA – but we have a couple
of places here in Phoenix that are just as good – Mrs. White’s and also Lolo’s
Chicken and Waffles. When it comes to
Soul Food, the City of Angels got nuthin’ on La Ciudad de Phoenix!
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| At Point Fermin Park near Long Beach |
After
eating, I drove out through Long Beach, past the RMS Queen Mary, past the USS Iowa
(didn’t even know that was there, until this trip), to Point Fermin Park –
which sits on the edge of the Pacific atop some coastal cliffs. Got a couple nice shots of the lighthouse,
tried to hike up the hill to a viewpoint on top – but a security person waited
until I got within about 50 feet of the top after a 10 minute climb – and then told
me it was closed. Couldn’t they just as easily have
told me that at the bottom?
Before the brutal climb? Anyway, it is a very pretty place and the sun was
about to set. I walked around,
threatened to take some pictures of some young ladies who were dancing in the
parking lot beside their car to some hip-hop music (I think that’s what it was
anyway); then I drove back to the motel (20 miles away). Anyway, can you believe that the beautiful view in the photo, that rugged coastline, is in the middle of Los Angeles? It is!
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| Point Fermin Light |
Started to
watch “Bridge on the River Kwai” but ran out of steam. I had planned to visit the Nixon Library in
Yorba Linda, but it was closed Saturday and Sunday both. So instead of stopping there on the way past
this morning, I got on the road toward home and zoomed on by Yorba Linda and Tricky Dick.
I stopped for a hamburger at
Chiriaco Summit – on this trip I learned a little of its history – and its late
owner, Joe Chiriaco. The first time I
stopped there, it was just a “filling station” and a little truck stop (I think
you could get diesel there, but I am not sure; I probably only stopped to use the phone - no cell phones back then of course).
But anyway, off in the dirt beyond the gas station there was a pay phone
and booth. I had been told to check it
out by other drivers… it was an old-fashioned telephone with a crank. You spun the crank, waited, an operator came on and
she completed your call for you. Just like Petticoat Junction!
This was in 1978 – and that phone was still there years later and I showed it to my kids. I had never seen a crank phone before (in
operation in the real world anyway). It
is gone now, of course. It occurs to me that
I could have met Joe Chiriaco back then, had I known about him. He lived until 1996 and his wife too. He bought that land and started that business almost before the highway was paved. There was no electricity if you didn't make it yourself, and no reliable water. There was no air conditioning. This is out in the middle of the Mohave Desert (think like Death Valley). Joe must have been some kind of rugged hard-working character (not to mention, his wife and kids shared all of that luxury with him). His family still runs the place – now much
increased and modernized. I always enjoy
stopping there – and the family has a memorial to General Patton, along with a
museum that the government and the Patton estate helped put together. It’s worth a look - and the food was good.
Well, all good things
must end… I was watching a physics and astronomy
program this morning that explained how over eons of time our entire universe
will cool and the stars will all blink out.
But they said that we are living at the most perfect possible relative moment in that entire cosmic cycle,
from Big Bang to Lights Out. So with
that in mind and in spirit with the harmony of all universal things, my little 2013 summer
road trip is over and I am pleased. Tomorrow it is back
to the salt mine.
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