Downtown L.A. and Griffith Park
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It’s #$%^&! hot today. Today’s ride was into Downtown Los Angeles, and then up into Griffith Park.
We met at the Elks Lodge in Pasadena, and then headed out by way of Highland Park to get into downtown L.A. Then we headed straight west on Olympic to Western Ave, which took us up to Griffith Park. I found two photo opportunities on Western. The first was Stan’s Adult Superstore. I make a minor hobby of collecting pictures of businesses with my name on them. The second was Pink Elephant Liquor. Not quite as funny as Hammered Liquor, but it’s still pretty good.
Then we got to the park and headed up the hill. We stopped for a snack and drinks at The Trails in Fern Dell. It was very pleasant there in the shade. It couldn’t have been more than 95 degrees.
When we left there, we headed up the hill to see the newly reopened Griffith Observatory. It looks pretty good. You can hardly tell that they dug up the whole hillside to build a big building underground. We also got to see where the fire burned up the park last May.
Coming down the hill, we took Avocado St to get to Rowena so we could take the regular route home through Eagle Rock. When we were riding across the L.A. River, I noticed that my front tire was going soft. So we found a shady spot and I sat down to fix it. I put in the spare tube and pumped it up. Then, when I went to put the wheel back on the bike, I saw that the back tire had gone flat. So I had to take the tube out and patch it. But then we finally got back on the road.
It got hotter and hotter as we headed back to Pasadena. When I got home, the thermometer on my back porch said it was a nice even 106 (42C). But aside from that, it was a very pleasant ride.
41 miles.
