Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Lucinda is now learning to read. Last night she read Green Eggs and Ham. She’s getting pretty good at sounding out words. She also read Go Dog, Go over the weekend. Pretty soon she will be able to read her own bedtime stories.

Lucinda had a sleepover at Aunt Maggi’s house this weekend. We took her down there on Saturday afternoon. On the way back, we stopped off in Long Beach to have dinner at El Torito and look at some desks for Cathy.

On Saturday night, Cathy and I had one of those rare nights out as a couple. It was fun, and we didn’t get home and in bed until close to 1:00. Then on Sunday morning, we both got up early. I went for my regular Sunday morning bike ride, and Cathy went to the gym.

Lucinda and Aunt Maggi went out for a while on Saturday night. On Sunday they went to the pool near her house in Irvine with another family. Lucinda had a couple of other kids to play with, which worked out well.

Sunday afternoon, it was time to pick up Lucinda. On the way down there we saw a car lose its wheel on the 405 freeway. The left front wheel came off, and the hub fell down onto the pavement in a shower of sparks. It would have been spectacular at night. At the same time, the wheel rolled away across all five lanes of traffic. When it hit the center divider, it bounced up in the air and landed on the other side of the freeway in the oncoming lanes. We watched it bounce three times on its way across the lanes before it went off the other side of the freeway. It was probably the single most spectacular incident that either of us had actually witnessed on the freeway.

Today’s ride was a new route out to Glendora and back, with a stop for a bagel in Arcadia. I took a few pictures on the ride, but for some odd reason, they didn’t come out. The camera did something weird, and the pictures all looked like pointillist paintings. When I discovered this, I took a few test shots around the house, and they all came out fine. I don’t know what happened.

Anway, the ride was very pleasant. We went east through Arcadia by a new route, which was nice. Then we went south a bit and then back up to the Santa Fe Dam bike path and on to Sierra Madre Ave in Glendora.

When we turned south in Glendora, we stopped for a minute to regroup. I noticed a real estate sign, so I picked up a flyer. It was a nice house, but nothing spectacular, but they were asking $1.1 million for it. I’m so glad we bought our house back in ’95. If we were trying to buy a house now… Yikes.

From Glendora, we went south to Covina and then back through West Covina and Baldwin Park. It was a basically flat route, and we went pretty fast. When we got to the snack stop at Goldstein’s Bagels in Arcadia, we were all marveling that our average speed was somthing like 17.3 mph, which is fast for our group. Normal is about 16, which includes stopping for red lights and such. When we were moving, we were going pretty fast. And it was fun.

The last part of the ride was back up Orange Grove and Sierra Madre Blvd back to the park. The ride came in at 40 miles even, and I decided that that was enough for today.

40 miles.
cycling

Today was the Back-to-School picnic at Lucinda’s school. They took a lesson from last year’s picnic and had this one catered by In-N-Out Burger, which worked out pretty well. I also took a few minutes to marvel some more at the setting of the school. It’s right at the base of the San Gabriel mountains, and the view from the playground is really quite pretty.

The official class lists were posted at the picnic, so we found out that Lucinda is in Mrs. May’s class. We had met Mrs. May once at the Caltech ponds, and she seemed nice. We went to see the room and find out the pick-up and drop-off information, since they’ve redone the bus routes, and there is no longer a stop right by our house.

Big excitement coming on Thursday.

Today I went down to the park to meet Gene for a ride. When we got there, Newton, Matt, and Philippe were getting ready for a ride. We had originally thought we would ride out to Upland to Dr. Bob’s Ice Cream, but I’d called and found out that they don’t open until 11:00, so they would still be closed when we got there. So we decided to just tag along on Newton’s ride.

We rode out through Arcadia and Monrovia to the Santa Fe Dam bike path. Then we went up to the ranger station at the mouth of San Gabriel Canyon. Having read The Control of Nature, I want to know whose bright idea it was to build houses right at the mouth of the canyon.

Continuing on through Glendora and San Dimas, we passed Daily Donuts. That’s part of the Lord’s Prayer, isn’t it?

When we got to Bonelli Park, we passed a church group out riding. I snapped a picture of the guy on the recumbent.

Later on, Matt got a flat when we were passing by Brackett Field in La Verne. This is Matt’s second appearance in the Flat Tire Gallery. He patched the tube, but when we started riding it went flat again almost immediately. We all decided that this didn’t constitute a ‘second flat’, so I didn’t take another picture. Gene had two spare tubes, so he gave one to Matt, and we were soon back on the road.

Continuing on, we passed the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds, and then headed up the hill through the trailer park there. Then we took Via Verde across Picnic Valley and over the 57 freeway. After that, the road had a nice downhill where I hit 40 mph, which is easily the fastest I’ve ridden in 25 years. When I was younger, I regarded those “Watch Downhill Speed” signs as a challenge, but now I’m a bit more cautious.

Coming down out of the hills, we rode home through Covina and Baldwin Park

52 miles.
cycling

Today’s ride was the ‘Toluca Lake Inverse’ route. It was actually kind of chilly this morning, and I actually had to put a Hoover blanket under my jersey to keep warm.

We started out going south to San Marino, and then west through South Pasadena and Eagle Rock to get to the L.A. River. Then we got on the bike path going north along the river. For some unknown reason, we always end up going really fast on this stretch of the ride, and today was no exception.

We rode the bike path north all the way to Riverside Drive. Then, after regrouping, we took Zoo Drive and Forest Lawn Drive west into Burbank. We turned on Barham Blvd there, passing by Warner Bros, and then we stopped for a snack at Priscilla’s in Toluca Lake.

I had my usual bagel and orange juice there, and then we were treated to the sight of Brian struggling to stuff ice cubes into his water pack. For some reason, they didn’t seem to want to go in, and they kept slipping away.

On the way back, we went through the equestrian neighborhood and then past the Bette Davis Picnic Area.

From there, we took Sonora into Glendale and then onto Glenoaks Blvd. We took Glenoaks all the way up to where it turns into Ethel St, and then up to Mountain. Then we crossed the Verdugo Wash and got on Verdugo Blvd for the trip up the hill.

After the long gradual climb up Verdugo, we took the right turn and went up Hospital Hill. At the top, we stopped for a few minutes to regroup, and then headed down the hill into La Cañada. That was where Tommy got a flat, making his second appearance in the Flat Tire Gallery.

The last part of the ride was across Pasadena back to the park. When we got there, I had 45 miles, so Tommy and I rode out to Sierra Madre and back just to pad it out a bit.

50 miles
cycling