Mapped My Ride...

...today and compared it against the bike computer.

Map My Ride: 20.28
Bike Computer: 20.13

Endeavour's Homecoming

I drove to the Norwalk Green Line Metro station, unloaded the Black Pearl, and took the Green Line, with the Black Pearl to the Mariposa station, which is the first stop after the LAX shuttle/Aviation Blvd stop (and the stop right on top of the Kings' practice rink). I chose to ride up Mariposa rather than Imperial Hwy because I thought a paralleling side street would be a better option.

Mariposa can be quite hilly!

Immense gratitude to the City of El Segundo and their police and fire departments and parks and recreation department!!

First pass inbound across LAX.

Also the first pass.

Second pass across LAX, headed out to sea before coming around for landing.

Last pass, again.

And again.

And again.

Taxiing off the runway and headed to the Boeing hangar.

Headed to the Boeing hangar.

Making the turn in front of the Boeing hangar.
I have more in video, but the videos need to be converted from QuickTime.
Let's try a little YouTubery for the post-landing rollout.

There and Back Again

Or something along those lines. My total mileage since I began tracking it is now 11,131.697. Yes, I'm tracking to the third decimal: it's what the treadmill does.

Expo Line

I got a really early start this morning because I wanted to ride the Black Pearl to the Metro station, and ended up riding around and didn't get on the Green Line until the first stop, Lakewood Blvd, instead of the terminus in Norwalk. Green Line to Blue Line to Light Blue Expo Line. I actually went ahead and took the Metro all the way to the 7th St station (northern terminus), then doubled back on the Expo Line. The two lines share a track from the 7th St Metro station downtown to the Pico (Staples Center) stop, then the Expo Line heads down Flower until it reaches Exposition Blvd, where it heads west to Culver City. I only rode as far as Exposition Park this time.

Got off the Metro and walked across the street to the Park, where I learned they don't like bicycles in the rose garden. :-Þ~~~ Walked the bike back out to the perimeter sidewalk and headed east to Figueroa and rode down to the parking lot entrance on the south side of the museums. I stopped to take a photo of the A-12 Blackbird on display, then continued westerly past the Science Center and the north wall of the Colisseum. Up the western perimeter sidewalk and east along the south face of the Natural History Museum to a construction site, then around to the east, and far prettier, face of the Natural History Museum. A little more riding around the perimeter of the rose garden, a brief conversation with a staff member, then back to the Metro. This time I just rode the train back to the Staples stop to pick up the southbound Blue Line to the Green Line, and then the Green Line all the way to the eastern terminus.

And back home again.

The Black Pearl at the north gate of Exposition Park:

An interesting building or two at some college or other across the street from Exposition Park:

 The fountain in the middle of the rose garden, from the north:

The LA Memorial Colisseum, from the Figueroa entry:

I hate lawns. They're a awful waste of land, water, and labor. I'm sure they could find something more practical to plant here.
The A-12 Blackbird:

The ugly south facade of the Natural History Museum and a bit of the construction site I mentioned:

The Black Pearl at the western edge of the Rose Garden:

Then turn around and walk the Black Pearl across the sidewalk to the far more beautiful eastern facade of the Natural History Museum:

Then turn again to face the south:

and Endeavour's "temporary" home. They'll house her here for about eight years while the old aviation museum building is torn down and a new one built. I don't envy them getting her into this spot, and can't imagine how many cranes it'll take to get her there without tearing out all the trees on the south lawn (the lawn you can see a part of in the pic of the south face of the NHM).

The only rose I photographed, because it was so close to the perimeter walks (in this case, the ramp you can see behind the Black Pearl in the photo of the rose garden from the east facade of NHM).

The north face of the Science Center building:

It's the building in the background behind the fountain.

From the Metro train, a view of the Watts Line of the Pacific Electric:

There really is a railroad right-of-way behind the two walkers on the platform. This right-of-way eventually ended up in downtown Santa Ana. Only one segment, in Bellflower, is currently a Multi-Use Path.

La Mirada historical marker:

A flower of a type I've never seen before:

This was in Norwalk on the Foster Greenway MUP, and actually on the outbound leg of the trip today, not on the homeward leg.

CicLAvia 120415

Today was CicLAvia, a closed-streets ride through parts of downtown Los Angeles. I actually drove to the Metro Green Line station in Norwalk, rather than riding, and I'm glad I did. The hills weren't that high, but they were long! I transferred to the Blue Line for the ride to the Washington Blvd station, and rode the three blocks or so to the Central Av hub.

 My first stop was the African American Firefighters Museum, one of two all-Black fire stations in LA. It's beautifully restored and obviously lovingly maintained.

 An old fire wagon.

 One of the two poles from the living quarters to the truck bay.

 Another shot of the fire wagon.

 The front.

A bad shot of Steamship Coca-Cola, a Streamline Moderne bottling plant that's been there since the first time Streamline Moderne was popular.

 Old sign.

 One of the oldest buildings downtown.

 This building was once home to the Pacific Electric.

 City Hall.

 The LA River, looking seaward from the 4th St bridge.

 I rode right past it the first time, and finally found someone who knew where to look. The little red thing on the street sign is the Rising Sun flag (I've actually seen a rosy-fingered dawn like that which the Japanese flag was based on!).

The Challenger Memorial in Little Tokyo, with the Black Pearl in front and City Hall behind.

 It's hard to see in this shot, but this is just one of the many old buildings in LA with interesting facades.

 MacArthur Park.

 Another interesting building in LA.

 A Korean Presbyterian synagogue. No, really! The Jewish congregation which built this outgrew it, built another sanctuary, and sold this one to a Korean Presbyterian congregation. I didn't get any good shots of the facade, but there are quite a few distinctly Jewish elements still there. One example is the 10 Commandments tablet, the light-colored element above the blue Korean sign.

End of the ride. This is the Black Pearl at Steamship Coca-Cola. This is the opposite end of the building from where I started my ride.

Happy Valentine's Day!

On Sunday, I rode The Black Pearl from Maxwell Park in Anaheim to the Norwalk Green Line Metro station. Took the Green Line to the Blue Line to the Red Line to the North Hollywood station (where the Red Line ends). Rode the Black Pearl on the Chandler Blvd bike trail to Buena Vista St (about a mile farther than I should have gone!) and then up to Empire St and back to Hollywood Way, to the Marriott across from Burbank airport. All to have David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser autograph two of my Starsky and Hutch DVD sets. And to see, up close, one of the two cars which played the role of Starsky's Torino. Took a picture of The Black Pearl and the car as soon as I arrived, and immediately posted to Facebook. Took some pictures with my camera. Paid the fee, went inside, found the table where DS and PMG (and also Antonio Fargas, who played Huggy Bear, but I didn't get to see him because he was on lunch break), had them sign the DVD boxes (DS on the Season Three box and PMG on the Season 4 box), bought PMG's book Chrystallia, went outside and took some more pictures of the car, with and without the bike. They even had the jacket Hutch wore and the sweater Starsky wore in the pilot (and other episodes).

Headed back down Hollywood Way to the Chandler Bike Trail to the Metro Station. Took the Red Line back downtown, and got on the Blue Line. We got as far as Florence Ave, where we had to stop because there was an accident farther down the line. So I took The Black Pearl for another ride, east on Florence to Alameda, then down Alameda to Imperial Hwy, and east to Long Beach Blvd, where I could get on the Green Line again.

Somewhere along Alameda (or maybe Long Beach Blvd), I hit a nasty bump, heard a metallic crash, but kept on riding, thinking I'd probably hit something metallic, since there are a lot of junkyards along both of those streets. Didn't stop.

It was my camera.

Lost the pictures I took in Santa Ana last weekend at a Queen Anne Victorian that was home (and office) to one of the first women doctors in Orange County. And all the pictures I took Sunday. I'm bummed.

Endings and Beginnings

My last bike ride of 2011 was last Monday. I'm headed out soon for the first ride of 2012.