My favorite girls
Lucinda wanted to play dress-up with Mommy today. She picked out the clothes for both of them to wear, and then she insisted that I take a picture. They’re awfully cute, no?
1/3/2005
1/2/2005
La Tuna Canyon
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Today was another chilly day, threatening to rain. The general plan for today’s ride was to get as far away from the remnants of the Rose Parade as possible. So we went west to La Tuna Canyon. Gene said that today is the one-year anniversary of the Sunday Moderate Ride. We had the one obligatory flat tire on the ride up through La Crescenta, but aside from that, the climb up the canyon was pretty uneventful. At the top, I put on my jacket so as not to freeze on the way down. At the bottom of the big hill, we turned left on Glenoaks and headed back down through Sunland and Burbank. The snack stop was in Glendale at Paradise Bakery, where I had two chocolate eclairs. They make the best eclairs there. After that, we headed back on Kenneth to Mountain Ave, where I saw the nativity scene with signs pleading for the return of the baby Jesus. Then we turned left on Verdugo and headed back up Hospital Hill. From there, we took the standard route back through La Cañada.
42 miles.
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Barbie Trail-Rider
Lucinda got a $100 bill from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas. Such is the joy of being the only grandchild in the whole family. So she decided she wanted to buy one of the Barbie Power Wheels cars. We told her that $100 probably wasn’t enough, but she wanted to look. She Mommy took her to Toys-R-Us. They had the Trail Rider there and it was a floor model and the last one. So they haggled a bit with the manager and got the price down to where Lucinda could afford it. She had to throw in the money from her piggy bank at home, but she had enough. So now she’s a happy little rider.
1/1/2005
It’s still more madness!
| So today was the Rose Parade. We live right at the end of the parade route, so this affords us a somewhat odd view of the event. It began like a Soviet May Day, with an overflight by our most fearsome military aircraft. So I went outside and snapped a picture of them flying over the hedge. Then I took a short bike ride down to the park. The In-N-Out Burger mobile units were all set up and ready to feed the marching bands when they got there. |  |
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One thing I thought was a bit odd was that with all the Department of |
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| After a while, the horses started to arrive. I thought that the cowgirls with the stars-and-stripes outfits were cute. |  |
| One guy seemed a bit concerned that the crowds might walk on his lawn. He put up a little temporary fence, just like the stores on Colorado Blvd. |  |
| The true nightmare scenario of an event like this is to need an ambulance. That happened this time. It wasn’t clear exactly what happened to the man, but they were doing CPR on him, so it couldn’t be good. |  |
| The mule group had a trailer that said, “Hauling World Champion Ass”. |  |
| Usually, all the horse people are just eating In-N-Out burgers when they get here, but this year, one guy brought a barbecue grill and set it up right out in the street. |  |
| Back down on the parade route, there was lots of trash left by all the people. A lot of it is Chick tracts and other religious pamphlets. The other thing we see is people bringing a mattress to sleep on and then leave it after the parade. But the city is on top of it. By tomorrow, all the trash will be gone, and it will be as if it never happened. |  |
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| Of course, little girls love horses, and Lucinda is no exception. She went out with a bag of carrots. |  |
| This afternoon, we went to see the floats close-up. Who knew that the surface of Saturn was covered with dried apricots? Another odd thing was the Home Depot float, “Saturday in the Park”. It was not clear why it had a fire extinguisher mounted right on the front. And the Roto-Rooter float was kind of funny. What else would it be but a big tree with massive roots? |  |
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