Los Angeles, November 2022

I'm always amazed and grateful when I talk to people who actually read my blog - and of course you tell me you've noticed the decrease in frequency. Partly that's family- and career-driven, and COVID certainly hasn't done anything to increase my traveling. And in 2019 I wrote that I was just going to be a Californian for a while. I had no idea at the time how much I meant it!


FOOD

Venezuelan food in Little Ethiopia - previously unbeknownst to me, there is a little Ethiopia on Fairfax not far from the tar pits. A neighborhood never smelled so good about 6pm. That said, I went to Flavors From Afar, which has an interesting model where they have guest chefs who are refugees from various parts of the world. When I was there, it was someone from Venezuela. I'd never had Venezuelan. The shredded beef, goat, and cheese bread were pretty tasty. Not surprisingly, Caribbean, in my experience reminded me of Puerto Rican food.

As a rule, when I'm in LA, I will not leave without hitting Thai Town (~5100 Hollywood Boulevard.) Pictured below: octopus from Crispy Pork Gang.




Pictured below: Chengdu Taste in Alhambra. Pictured from left: fish, chicken, and gizzard.




Din Tai Fung - the one in Glendale. Din Tai Fung has developed the Mercedes model of international marketing. That is to say, at home in Taiwan, they're a solid but not fancy noodle house chain. In the US they are a high-decor type of place with earnest and good-looking young servers (the one in UTC in San Diego is similar), and prices to match. But the noodles are still quite good. I came back to life in this place after getting unexpectedly rocked by Mt. Wilson.


CULTURE

Laurel Canyon - I'd never spent any time in this area before, and it's pretty neat. Reminds me a lot of the Berkeley Hills. If you don't know the history (which I didn't until recently) it's an area well-known as the place where a lot of folk and rock figures from the 60s and 70s lived - Joni Mitchell (Ladies of the Canyon), Jim Morrison, Mama Cass to name a few. Jared Leto lives in a converted radar station at the top of the ridge not far from Mulholland because of course he does.


Above: the San Fernando Valley from an overlook along Mulholland.







Above: Laurel Canyon during the day, at night, and from inside our Airbnb. Below, Griffith Observatory, with important astronomical markers to scale.





Griffith Observatory - sadly the planetarium broke while we were waiting in line for it, but the museum and views are worth it alone. Also, not surprisingly, it's been used as a backdrop quite often (Terminator, Rebel Without a Cause, Metallica, and Star Trek Voyager.) Don't forget in Griffith Park you can also hike up to the Hollywood Sign or the Bat Cave.) Not an unreasonable hike from/to Thai Town.

California Science Center and Natural History Museum right next to USC, who I still have a problem with. They have a Space Shuttle but that's certainly not the only attraction. (I like to keep track of positive surprises when I travel and the positive surprise for me here was Natural History's mineral room.) The Science Center has a pay-by-exhibit model (like a small amusement park) but most are free, including the shuttle. Detail on the shuttle includes tiles, and reaction control system thruster ports.







Hollywood Boulevard. Of course. I think maybe I went there once with my parents when I was about 15 and found it underwhelming. I can't say I find it that much more exciting now - it has a claustrophobic, trying too hard to be Times Square vibe to it - but you have to take your family there once. Instead of Hollywood, here are pictures of the inspiration for the name, actual California holly (toyon), taken a few days later in Novato, Norcal. (Merry early Christmas.)





Danzing's Evil Bricks. Do you know who Glenn Danzig is? Do you know he had evil bricks? (Really, click on that.) We paid a visit to his house (or maybe he moved, I don't know) and to be honest I actually got nervous. Related, Monty's in Santa Monica has a dog as its mascot and the style of the logo may seem familiar (see below.)





OUTDOORS

Hiking up Mt. Wilson to the observatory. I was getting over a respiratory illness (not COVID) and this mere 7.5 mile, 4500' climb unexpectedly sucked the life out of me. Beautiful climb next to the Santa Anita trail complex, in the western greener end of the San Gabriels. My bizarre obscure association with the roads winding through Angeles National Forest is now the Name of the Game episode L.A. 2017 (made in 1971), one of Steven Spielberg's first projects, where he imagines a future Los Angeles moved underground due to pollution and policed by psychiatrists with intramuscular sedative guns.







I'm always surprised by how "ferny" the western end of this range can be. It just seems inappropriate for them to be in such close proximity to yuccas.




We also rode from the Venice canals along the boardwalk past Muscle Beach and the skate park to Santa Monica pier.









Idyllwild up on San Jacinto. San Jacinto is part of the SoCal mountain trifecta which I bagged starting from Humbert Park in 2012, though the Cactus to Clouds route is more interesting for sure. The mayor is a dog, Maxwell III. At lunch at a brewpub twice I overheard from the hostess speaking to a group of customers "Unfortunately we're at our dog capacity so we can't seat you right now.") A group in the late 60s manufactured LSD there and then dropped it out of a plane onto Laguna Beach. It's just that kind of place. As for us, we just met up with a nice family and had ice cream and played with Aussie shepherds, so you can do that too. Below: two photos of Idyllwild I found online, forgot where, if they're yours comment and I will gladly credit you.






ERUDITE CULTURAL COMMENTARY

• People like to talk about how LA is a homeless hellscape. Yes we saw a few tents and homeless people. It was maybe a little worse than the average U.S. city. The worst thing I saw was a breadline on the boardwalk in Venice Beach on a Sunday morning with about 20 people in it. Two of them said hello and were polite and just regular folks.
• I made a point of driving by Paramount's Bronson Gate (reminded by having seen the tank sticking up looking down from Griffith Park.) I wonder, why do some studios have an amusement park and others don't? Is it just real estate? (On review sites people seem to complain more about the lameness of Paramount's tour.)
• Downtown Glendale is getting better and better and I like it for many reasons. And it's going to sound cringey but I'm going to say it. Walking around, I saw a bunch of young people with genes hailing from every corner of the planet, either busting their asses working hard, enjoying life, or both. This is the American experiment working spectacularly well. When these kids run across some aggrieved Republican crying about America's supposed decline and yelling about taking it back and making it great again, I can only imagine they just think to themselves "What are these people even talking about?"
• What happened to the prominence of the defense industry in SoCal? The pseudodystopia of Kim Stanley Robinson's Gold Coast is not what happened.
• Like many northeasterners who migrated to California, I imprinted on the part of CA I arrived in (Norcal) and absorbed the chip on my shoulder about Socal from the people in the Bay Area. But it really is a one-sided rivalry, and after living in Socal for a few years I got over it, and I really like visiting LA. And, amazingly, a city based on the entertainment industry DOES have a lot of good-looking people! Shocker! Still, somehow LA always gives me a feeling of desperation coursing underneath the smiles (that I'm certainly not the first to observe) which is at the same time somehow also freeing. I cannot recommend this essay enough.

BONUS: CITY OF THE TEN THOUSAND BUDDHAS, UKIAH, CA (learn more here)







FIN

Fires and Terrible State Parks

We recently evacuated due to the Kincade Fire. The text alerts from CalFire and the Sonoma County Sheriff were great, and sorting Twitter by latest for #Kincadefire was also very useful. I have never been this scared or anxious or felt I had so little control - and we got out with family and critters and papers well ahead of when the fire would have come, but waiting to find out if your house burned down is no fun. We love Sonoma County, but we don't love this aspect of it so much. Climate change is giving Sonoma County LA County's weather, and when you already have forests, they burn, which is how the landscape will gradually look more like LA County (or almost instantaneously, geologically speaking.) The natives who preceded people of European descent here set controlled burns every autumn (and this has been witnessed since before contact), but when you have this many people in non-mobile dwellings that can't be rebuilt in mere days, that's not an option. Low humidity plus longer rain-free periods plus heat and bad Diablo winds (our local foehn winds) are how this happens.

So, a thank you to the people who hosted us and our various critters or who offered and were ready; also to the men and women who put themselves on the line to hold this fire. Had it not been for you, many people would have died, and I wouldn't have a house right now. Take a minute to thank a firefighter, buy them a beer, send a card, whatever. There are few people whose work matters more than theirs, especially in California.

If you spend much time on social media, you will notice (especially on Twitter) Russian troll bots taking advantage of Trump's threat to abandon California even while he promises fire aid to Siberia. They do this by trying to stoke the fires of "CalExit", which may be the dumbest thing anyone has ever thought of (give Trump's party a permanent majority in Washington and dividing yet another of Russia's main competitors.) You'll recognize them when you see them - the one I clicked through on was full of pro-Brexit, pro-Catalonia independence messages, while curiously silent on the protests in Hong Kong or independence for Russia's neglected Far East territories. I wonder why? I Twitter-replied to this effect and my reply was deleted within a minute.

The following pictures were taken from China Camp State Park the following weekend. Fire is about 60 miles north at 75% containment but the smoke layer is obvious and Mt. Tam is still quite hazy. Bay pictures are looking east across the very top of the Bay (curved, with mouth of the Napa River) with Mt. Diablo just visible through the smoke layer in one looking southeast toward Richmond.










Next three below: you'll have to forgive my obsession with manzanitas. Their bark is the bubble wrap of the natural world. It peels like that as a defense against fungus; I wonder if, as uniquely woody members of the heather family (see ice plant here), this is more difficult for them than other plants, that have specific endochitinases to kill fungus (rubber trees and mangoes both do, but they're in the wet tropics. Incidentally it's this endochitinase that causes allergic cross-reactivity, ie why people allergic to latex are often also allergic to mangoes.)








Above: this picture was taken from the International Space Station, looking south along the Pacific Coast, with the Kincade Fire plainly visible. Below: fire-smoke sunsets are obscenely pretty.



As it happened, the weekend we evacuated we actually had a pre-planned trip which took us to Southern California, and I had all kinds of runs planned down there and of course while we were there, their local foehn winds came through and everything caught on fire there too. So no running in Topanga State Park for me. Instead I ran in Chino Hills State Park, which is the most useless state park I have been in. A cluster of oaks along the canyon bottom, and then the rest of it just brown curved hills covered with those scratchy sticks that poke you (my shins are still paying the price.) Gross. Feel free to skip these pictures, they suck. If you live there, I hope you didn't have to pay more for your property for living near this "natural resource", which I would put on par with the industrialized part of the North Jersey Meadowlands (and not even with cannoli.) Seriously, it's the ugliest state park in California, hands down. Good points: a) fine, I saw a tarantula (see below) and some wild gourds growing, b) it looks nice in the spring when it's green and you're driving past it, and c) I will never have to go there again before I die. The hikes listed on Nobody Hikes in LA are faint in their praise.

May 2019: A Classic California Road Trip

Above: Los Angeles, 2019. Below: Los Angeles, 2019.


We took this road trip during a break in both our careers in anticipation of moving to Sonoma. (And here's a list of the good things about Sacramento I'll miss.) Originally for this trip I had big ideas about Norway or elsewhere, but a) I'm a dad now and toddlers don't care about "culture", so why torture both yourself and the toddler with a long uncomfortable plane ride, time differences, and unfamiliar food? and b) flying abroad, or flying period, is a lot less flexible than jumping in your car and just going. Plus, at this stage I'm kind of ready to just be a Californian for a while. (Being honest, it's not a hard thing to be.)

A side note - I'd been to most of these places places before and the obscurity of some of the attractions here reveals that these are the final checkboxes for me. And some of those I didn't care so much about anyway, which meant - I could relax with my family, sit in hot tubs, eat good food - you know, human stuff. (I have often meditated about obligatory relaxation enforced by being in mundane or familiar non-home places, and this trip was a good example.)


SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY

On arrival in the Central Coast we began our consumption of mass quantities of tri-tip barbecue. Big Bubba's Bad Barbecue in Paso Robles has good tri-tip, plus a talking buffalo head, and you can eat your meal in a jail cell. We then went to Pismo Beach to see the dunes and did a lot of boring non-photogenic family stuff.




Every time I go to this place I think that anyone who denies the existence of line in nature should come here.




Above: tracking dangerous wildlife, which I subsequently found, engaged in burrowing behaviors.




Above: you can almost imagine the taller one stiffly walking through the dunes and saying "That malfunctioning little twerp. This is all his fault! He tricked me into going this way, but he'll do no better."




Above: I also managed to finally get up on one of the Sisters in SLO. At first I thought it would be a cakewalk but if you take the steep trails it gets a bit scrambly, and much more deserted than I expected.

I wanted to see Cal Poly's architecture graveyard but that will have to wait until next time.


SANTA BARBARA COUNTY


Above, a scene from Ostrichland in Buellton, where you can buy ostrich eggs and ostrich jerky, and even feed these nasty abominations, who literally bite the hand that feeds them. The little one could not have cared less about these creatures or feeding them, although it is much easier to to believe that birds descended from dinosaurs when looking at these things. I would also add that, like all birds, they are filthy, and their very size emphasizes this, as about every 60 seconds their ani would protrude and expel a splattering stream of viscous white fluid (graphic enough for you? I can never un-see it so you must suffer as well.) I would say that Buellton is the Leesport of the Central Coast.






Above you can see Santa Cruz Island (the biggest Channel Island) and below, just barely, Anacapa. (Read someone else's blog here for incredible pictures and descriptions of camping on Anacapa - which now I don't feel like I have to try, and like Ostrichlands also features filthy poorly-behaved birds.)


My original plan for Santa Barbara was to do an A-to-B from Gaviota Peak TH along 101 (where you park for the hot springs) to the old Reagan Ranch (Rancho del Cielo - history here) and then come out at Refugio Road, which is a very reasonable ~13 miles - but it would be trespassing, and you would get caught. Seriously, don't do it. I called the Reagan Ranch and asked nicely for permission and they equally nicely but also firmly told me no, emphasizing the surveillance equipment (seriously, it was outfitted by the Secret Service - yes, 1980s technology, but all those fake boulders filled with movement and sound detection devices are still there.) So then I thought I'd start back at Gibraltar Reservoir and come up and over the front range there but you can't get there either due to high water after a rainy spring. So I ended up just going to Tunnel Trail, although it was really overgrown with a lot of bees so I got some pics and threw in the towel. Eventually I'd like to try the Topatopa Bluff trail down in Ventura and Chorro Grande (Haddock and Reyes Peaks are cool too) but there was no way it would happen on this trip. Plus, this way I got to play on the beach with my daughter, which turned out to be better than any of that stupid stuff!














As you can see below, they have a nice moon in Santa Barbara, in fact it seems like the same one I saw on Orcas Island but moon-transport costs are prohibitive so I'm frankly not sure what to make of this.







LA COUNTY

(Ventura given a well-deserved snub because the Aquatic Center was closed)

The Verdugo Hills


The Verdugo Hills are jammed right between the Hollywood Hills and San Gabriels, and though they have literally the biggest conglomeration of media companies in the world on their flanks, you'd think they'd be somewhat better-known - but they're not. (Hey, so much for simple models of the world where everything is about proximity and linear gradients! rimshot) Like many hills or mountains, I first noticed these from other hills, namely, Griffith Park. And the world and my schedule have conspired to keep me from going for a run up there. They're just not spectacular enough to justify a trip to LA even from San Diego, or to stop off during a trip to Norcal on I-5. Last time I was going to try was during the Rose Bowl but it didn't happen. But THIS TIME, NOTHING COULD STAND IN MY WAY. In fact, we deliberately got a hotel near the Verdugo Hills, so I could sit in the room viewing them as you see above, savoring my impending victory over my arch-rival.



Above: looking back at the La Tuna Canyon Road exit off the 210. Below: just some of the wildflowers which dominated the flora.












You can see the beehive boxes stacked up in the back there. I've seen people complaining online about it as it's unauthorized use of public lands, but the bees didn't bother me when I passed by.




I expected VH to be a typical dry, scrubby Socal dust-and-rock pile. As you can see, it was not. In fact it was quite pretty! Especially the lower reaches on the east side where I started, which had - wait for it - woods and streams. Even after a wet winter I was amazed they were still running in late May. The wildflowers were out of control too. Glendale has signed the area really well. I always just thought of Glendale as a generic near-LA/Valley neighborhood but on the flanks of VH the homes were really swayt.






The white powder-appearing material is actually white flowers, datura probably, thousands of them, like a children's fairy tale book.


















The area you see here to the east is La Crescenta-Montrose and La Canada-Flintridge. The very tall mountains you sometimes see further east are the San Gabriels and progressively darker gray clouds gathered during my run until it finally did rain in the afternoon. In May. In LA. It was our fault.






















Finally the summit/saddle area is sighted. Above is the Plantation Lateral, viewed from the southeast.




The summit ridge has been gained. As noted, it was really well signed up there. At long last, O my liege! I looked down into beautiful downtown Burbank. To the south (a bit left) the LA skyline is visible, with Griffith park closer and to the left (and the Hollywood sign facing away) and the hill of the Palos Verdes Peninsula rising dimly in the distance. The Burbank airport is plainly visible in the middle of the valley.










The signs were cute, but the kinds of people who will smoke and litter won't be affected by anything other than a blunt and serious threat of punishment. I'm clearly getting old because cutesy things annoy me now.




Above: There is an antenna at the very highest point, Verdugo Peak, and this annoying photo is my proof to the International Committee of Pointlessness that I was there. Below: the ridgeline that awaited me. There was plenty to go after this, including a few miles through Glendale.












They're missing an "-er". Meanwhile, I continued down the mountain, marching behind the crooked cross, so I just closed my eyes and forgot my name. Looking at those clouds, it seemed it was about to rain blood, from the lacerated sky. LA got noticeably closer during the run south on the ridge.




Above, a castor bean plant, which looks poisonous, and is. Highly invasive. (Thanks to the smart folks at California Native Plant Society on Facebook who as usual identified it within minutes of posting the photo.) Below, Griffith Park from the back, which I would visit the next day.



The next day I went to Griffith Park to do the thing that all normal people who go to Griffith Park do, which is hike up to the Hollywood sign. I had been there once before but not gone to the sign. Also greener than I expected! I heard a disturbing number of English accents during this hike. We have to work harder to keep these miscreants out.















Above: don't know the story there. Below: when I was looking down at Burbank from the backside of Griffith Park and using Gmaps to figure out what streets and buildings I was looking at, I noticed Ronny James Dio's grave was marked on the map, in the cemetery between Griffith Park and the 5. While he seemed like a nice guy (I kinda sorta met him backstage in like 03) I thought it was a bit much to specially mark him on there - and then realized that Google knows I'm a metalhead...interesting.










Above: crows had built a nest on the D. Ergo, those crows must really like the D.




Above: lots of surveillance around the sign now to keep tragedies like the Caltech prank from happening again, where in 1987 Caltech students changed the sign to read (what else) Caltech. Note, by "tragic" I mean "the best thing that ever happened." Below, Griffith Observatory at left watches over LA and waits for the arrival of naked time-traveling cyborgs that demand punks' clothing.





In LA proper I also went on my own to some obscure locations I wanted to see like the filming location of the Bat Cave (also in Griffith Park) and encountered a little kid unironically wearing Batman pants on the way up. I also drove through the Second Street Tunnel (used in Blade Runner and the Terminator) and drove by the Time Travel Mart, but couldn't go in because it was closed to shoot a commercial when I went there (I commented to the people at the door that they must be checking for real time travelers because that wouldn't stop them, but they didn't appreciate my brilliant quip.) We then went up to the 70th floor of the Bank Tower and I went on that transparent slide on the outside of the building - no joke, it was a lot scarier than I thought it would be. I'd already gone to the Bradbury Building before to re-enact the Roy Baty pursuit of Deckard, but this time I saw it from high up. (It's not a high rise despite the ending, and especially doesn't look like that far to fall from up there.) There were two helicopters flying in close proximity around the building no doubt shooting something, but it was actually a bit nerve-wracking.














Above: the Hollywood Sign in the distance. Below, that's the slide from outside (from underneath.)





What I didn't get to do: run in the Santa Monica Mountains or any of the other northern preserves that my favorite running blog frequently features. I was too beat up (which is why I just hiked up to the Hollywood sign.) I also wanted to see Frank Gehry's house, the science fiction prop museum in Venice, and visit the LA Science Fiction and Fantasy meeting, as well as see the room at UCLA Library where Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a rented typewriter, and the Clifton Cafe where he often ate - but they'll wait for another time.

A note on Asian food, a principal reason for our visit to LA: we dined at Lacha Somtum Thai on the 5100 block of Hollywood Boulevard (hard to go wrong on that block), Sichuan Impression in Alhambra, and Seafood Harbour in Rosemead, all fantastic. We also cleansed the palate with a Western meal at Water Grill in downtown LA. Dress codes there have really gone downhill, you know I saw a guy in a T-shirt, holey sneakers and salt-stained shorts in there. Sheesh! I managed to stay away from Sunset Boulevard, although I do have a story about the Roxy for you. A kid I mentored was in a band that played there one night, and he invited me backstage. I was expecting all kinds of sex drugs and rock-n-roll, but what was the band actually doing? Playing Magic: The Gathering, and drinking soda. Diet soda. Real nice guys. Really enjoyed talking to the singer about the business aspect, which he was quite wired into. But totally deflated my idea of what goes on back there. (I think I saw Pauly Shore in the crowd at the show. He was an idiot.)

It goes without saying - only the city of Los Angeles herself - in all her glittering, terrifying, magnificent postmodern decadence - can make any claim to measuring up as the Leesport of Los Angeles County.


ORANGE COUNTY

You should go to Running Chicken in Irvine. Sadly, Orange County has no Leesport equivalent. This is the first time the team has encountered this and we still don't fully understand it, but we have top men working on it right now.


SAN DIEGO

There is a now a Din Tai Fung in San Diego. We made a reservation a month in advance for this Taiwanese chain. I always wondered why there weren't noodle chains, but now there are. They seem to be becoming the Mercedes of Taiwanese restaurants: rather middle class at home, but recognizing and fully capitalizing on their demand abroad. Lunch the next day was rolled tacos from Cuatro Milpas, which I've bragged about before, since having them makes me a better person than you. Dinner was at Sab E Lee in Linda Vista. For two nights. I fail to see a problem there.

I also went to Rose Canyon for my periodic fennel genocide (fennocide?). And I'm pleased to report that the area where it was worst, at the west end of Rose Canyon up on the hill facing the 5 where the preserve bends to the south to join Marian Bear - was almost entirely free of fennel. I saw maybe 5 plants. I don't think I can claim complete credit for eradicating it (though I can claim some) but to whoever else is there wiping it out - it worked! Thank you! I went back into Rose Canyon on the north side of the railroad tracks. I didn't have time to get it all and there are some thick stands. So if you want to get your frustrations out and help preserve San Diego's ecosystem, take the trail on the north side of Rose Canyon from the south dead-end of Regents, going west, and you will find fennel. WIPE THEM OUT. ALL OF THEM.




Looking across the small channel from the airport side to Liberty Station, then towards downtown. And yes that is a landlocked naval vessel, a 2/3 scale model used for training, the only commissioned US Navy vessel never to go to sea.









I will, one of these days, get out to the Mason Truck Trail (great description by the late great Jerry Schad here) and run up that thing to Sunrise Highway/Mt. Laguna, but didn't happen on this trip. I alsoi would've liked to run on the beach or Mission Trails, or hit Alesmith, but toddler. Regarding beer, San Diego has been quite complacent for some time, and Sacramento has a more down-to-Earth set of solid offerings. Plus, Pennsylvania produces THE MOST MICROBREW BEER.


Going Home - I-5 and Points North

For most people the Central Valley is a blank void that I-5 passes through. You're missing out - here's a quick list of points of interest.