Stan’s Obligatory Blog

After my nice 50-mile bike ride this morning, I headed down to Long Beach to the Queen Mary for the Ink and Iron Festival there. This is the fourth year they’ve had this tattoo show, and it’s grown quite a bit in that time. It’s grown into a big tattoo and hot rod show with bands and gone from just the hall inside the ship to taking over most of the area outside the ship, too.

I got there about 2:30 or so and went in. It was already crowded. I have a whole circle of friends that I see only at these events, so I just wandered aimlessly, knowing it was only a matter of time before I saw someone I know. And it wasn’t long. In fact, I wasn’t even inside the ship before I found someone I know. And the rest of the day was like that. It was great fun.

Highlights included the girl with the full-head tattoo getting her head shaved at the barber shop. Also, watching my friend get a Samoan-style hand-tapped tattoo. I also found another old friend who I haven’t seen in several years. She had some personal turmoil and had dropped out of the scene for a while. It was good to see her back again.

There were a lot of nice tattoos there, but my personal favorite of the day was the one pictured here. The color and shading on it were really quite nice.

And all the pictures from the day are in my tattoo convention photo album.

Today’s ride was the “La Tuna Sandwich” route. Up and over La Tuna Canyon, and then down across the valley to Burbank and home by way of the L.A. River bike path and through Eagle Rock.

We met at the Pasadena Elks Lodge. That’s where I saw the parking space reserved for the Exalted Ruler. And I always thought that was a joke. The ride started out going past the Rose Bowl and up into La Cañada. We regrouped at the top of Hospital Hill. Then we headed down into Montrose.

Riding over the top of La Tuna Canyon, we passed the Verdugo Hills Golf Course, where the temporary Japanese internment camp was located for a time in 1942. Then we rode down the long downhill into Sun Valley.

In Sun Valley, we rode through the wasteland of auto dismantling yards, past a place where the road was washed out, and finally into the North Hollywood Arts District. We got a pretty complete tour of The Valley in the process.

At the bottom of the Valley, we turned on Riverside to ride into Toluca Lake. We passed the Barris Kustom showroom on the way, and then we stopped for a snack at Priscilla’s.

After the stop, we headed home by way of the L.A. River bike path. This is where we went on the bridge over Los Feliz Blvd, and I was wondering why a bike path bridge gets posted with a weight limit of 4 tons. I’ve been hearing about the epidemic of obesity, but I didn’t think it had gotten that bad.

Anyway, it was a very nice ride.

50 miles.
cycling