Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s bike club ride was the Airplane ride. A quick trip to Burbank to see the F-104-on-a-stick in the park on Olive Ave, and then to the airplane topiary at the entrance to Burbank Airport. It was a perfect day for riding.

On the way out, we stopped briefly at South Hills Church to contribute some food items to their Little Free Pantry. When we got to Priscilla’s, all the tables were taken. As I said, it was a perfect day outside. So we went across the street and sat in the shade over there. That was the fist time I’d noticed the utility box there painted with the cute pictures of dogs with rockets strapped to their backs.

All in all, it was a good day for riding.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today is the Sunday before Halloween, so it’s time for the annual Halloween ride to Culver City to visit Bela Lugosi’s grave. We’ve been doing this since 2007. The route has evolved over the years, but it always comes in at about 55 miles. This time, we had a couple of flats on the way back, and the little cafe we usually stop at has apparently closed permanently. But it was a nice cool day, so we still had a nice time.

56 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This week, I was watching “Young Frankenstein” for the first time in a long while, so this Sunday’s bike club ride was yet another celebrity grave tour, this time to see Marty Feldman at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. It was a perfect day for riding. Cool in the morning, and no smoke from the fires this week.

We rode out through South Pasadena and Highland Park. There is still a closed section of the L.A. River bike path, so we had to take a short detour. But we finally made it to Forest Lawn and rode up the hill to Marty Feldman’s grave. The Findagrave app on the iPhone made finding it pretty easy.

After Forest Lawn, we rode over to Priscilla’s for drinks and snacks. That was where I saw the Hello Kitty donut tattoo. That made my day.

So, overall, it was a fun day.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This week’s bike club ride was a visit to two different 9/11 memorials in the L.A. area. We were supposed to do this ride last week, but the ride was canceled due to smoke from the Bobcat Fire.

The first memorial is in the city of Rosemead:

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/51182

From there, we headed to downtown L.A. and then out to near MacArthur Park before turning north to Echo Park. Along the way, we passed Angelino Heights, which is yet another place we’ve visited on the Sunday bike ride. The 9/11 memorial is at the L.A. Fire Department training center near Dodger Stadium:

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/35370

Our snack and drink stop was at Chimney Coffee House, just outside downtown L.A. It was a pretty nice place.

41 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This week’s bike club ride was a visit to Rose Hills Cemetery in Whittier to see Eric “Eazy-E” Wright. We’ve been there before, but the last time was pretty grim. It was a brutally hot day, and really uncomfortable for riding. Today looked to be much better.

When we got to the cemetery, it was again a pretty hard climb up the hill. I guess they called it Rose Hills for a reason. But we got up there, and we saw that Eazy-E has a new and much nicer marker now. Photos, a record, and notes that he was “The Godfather of Gangsta Rap”. He certainly made a mark on the world. And the empty beer cans showed that he still gets a fair number of visitors.

On the way home, we stopped for snacks at Merengue in Monrovia, which is always good.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was a visit to Griffith Park to see the George Harrison Tree. We’ve been to see this before, but it’s been a while. This tree made the news a few years ago, when it was reported that the original tree had been killed by and infestation of beetles. Go figure.

On the way there, we passed Little Dom’s in Los Feliz. I’ve been watching the HBO documentary “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark”, and in it, Michelle McNamara and Patton Oswalt mentioned several times about how much they liked the food there. So I thought I should make a note of where it is for future reference.

We rode up Hillhurst and Vermont into the park. At the top, we saw the tree, and the (currently closed) observatory. Then we continued on, over Mt Hollywood to Burbank and snacks and drinks at Priscilla’s.

The ride home was pretty uneventful. It was a nice ride.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

This past week, I found out that there are still just a few operating drive-in theaters in Southern California. I thought they’d all gone away decades ago. Apparently, they have been mostly operating as swapmeet locations, but now with Covid-19, they have started showing films again. So today’s bike ride was to go visit the one in City of Industry.

We rode out through Duarte and Azusa to get to Panera in West Covina for snacks and drinks. Then we headed over to Industry to see the drive-in. On the way back, we passed by Rose Hills, which we’d visited before to see the traveling Vietnam Memorial, and to see Eazy-E, and also Jaime Escalante.

42 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Today’s bike club ride was a trip down to Vernon to see the big mural painted on the outside of the Farmer John meat packing plant. We’ve been to see this before, but this is the first time in a long time.

The route brought us through downtown Los Angeles. Along the way, we saw several large homeless camps in El Sereno. When we got to downtown, we took a short side trip to see how the construction is coming along for the tunnel entrance for the Regional Connector on 1st St. We also paused briefly to see how the new 6th St bridge is coming along.

In Vernon, we stopped to admire the hog mural. We tried to see inside the gate and see the mural of the big angels flying off to hog heaven, but there was so much stuff set up inside the gate, we couldn’t see it.

We rode back through downtown and then up to Echo Park. There was yet another big homeless camp next to the lake in Echo Park. There really seem to be more of them than ever before, which is disturbing. I was sort of glad that I didn’t have to check to make sure there wasn’t a Dodger game today, although that’s because of Covid-19, which is far from a Good Thing.

We stopped for drinks at Antigua Coffee, and then headed home up the Arroyo Seco bike path.

42 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

This past week, I saw a little item in the news about how someone had decorated some stainless steel things in a park in North Hollywood to turn them into “Star Trek” holodeck control panels.

https://www.cnet.com/news/star-trek-fan-re-creates-holodeck-controls-in-los-angeles-public-park/

Of course, I immediately said, “I know where we’re riding this Sunday!”

The ride out there was pretty straightforward. There’s still a detour on the LA River bike path in Frogtown, but aside from that, we just cruised all the way to North Hollywood. It turned out that the guy who made the holodeck control panels made two sets of them. Both are along the walking path that runs along Tujunga Ave. One is just south of Magnolia, and the other is about a half-block south from there. We all agreed that the simulation of a Los Angeles city park, circa early-21st-century was very realistic. The only thing wrong was the coronavirus pandemic, but we couldn’t find the power switch to turn it off and back on.

We stopped for drinks at Groundwork Coffee in NoHo, and then headed home. The route home went up and over the Linda Vista hill, which felt much harder today for some reason. But no matter. We made it back just fine.

47 miles

Route map and elevation profile

Watching the news these past two weeks has been surreal. Seeing protests and riots in cities around the world brings back the memory of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and so, it seemed appropriate that we should go to Forest Lawn and pay respects to Rodney King. He was the original guy-beat-up-by-police-on-video.

When we got to the cemetery, there was a deer wandering around. It was just strolling around and eating the flowers that had been left at graves. The cemetery is right next to Griffith Park, so I guess it’s probably not surprising that wildlife from the park would wander in.

After the cemetery, we continued on to Priscilla’s for snacks. Along the way, we saw a bit advertisement for “Wonder Woman 1984”. It said, “Only in theaters, June 5”, which seems a bit improbable, since all the theaters are still closed right now. I see in the entry for it in IMDB, the release has been pushed back to August.

Coming home, we did a route we haven’t done in some time. Up Verdugo and home through La Cañada. That was nice climb.

45 miles.

Route map and elevation profile