Coffeeneuring

Sometimes I'm grateful that we don't have ad-blockers on the browsers at work, because that occasionally lets me discover new things I would likely never see here at home. One of those things is a Facebook cycling group The Slow Bicycle Movement. Because I joined that group, I also learned about Civilized Cycling (predominantly but not exclusively British) and Coffeeneuring.

The Coffeeneuring Challenge takes place in the fall/autumn, and this year, the 7th, runs 7 weeks (ending Sunday Nov 19). I decided to join, and spent several work hours on Google Earth and the mapping program I use at work and on Google seeking out coffee houses to ride to, or to stop at for a break on a ride from Point A to Point B and back again. As the start of the Challenge approached, there were more and more discussions about what riders were going to do, as there are a number of options. My original plan had been to visit some of the coffee houses in the area, but that fell by the wayside when I stopped for a break in a park on my very first ride.

And began a Without Walls Coffeeneuring.

That first stop was Central Park in La Palma, which was actually on the way to one of my planned coffee houses, but I found sitting under a tree Thinking Profound Thoughts (yeah, right) and watching baseball (the local Little League? I dunno) practices and working on a writing project quite pleasurable.

Number Two was undertaken during an abominable heat wave that saw me riding The Black Pearl, riding the MetroLink, riding The Black Pearl, riding OCBus, and riding The Black Pearl from Anaheim to Buena Park to Fullerton to Orange and back to Anaheim on a stupid-hot day. But I had a nice breakfast on the patio at the Kimmie's Koffee Kup in Old Town Orange.

Number Three took me to Founders' Park in Old Colony Anaheim, where I discovered that while they have both iron and concrete benches, they have no picnic tables! Well, I sat on a bench and had most of a pack of those mini-donuts, a banana, and my coffee. The vines are the same variety as, but not descendants of, the vines planted by the original German settlers. The house in this photo is the oldest residential building in the city, and out of frame to the right is an exquisite Victorian.

Number Four took me to Anaheim's Central Library to drop off the DVDs I'd borrowed the week before, and then back toward home to Betsy Ross Park, on the western edge of Old Colony Anaheim. Picnic benches there! And another person at another of the benches having a riding break with a beverage. I haven't seen any posts from other Anaheimers, so I'd guess he wasn't a part of the group. I actually got a bit of writing done that time!

Number Five was a post-work afternoon ride to Maxwell Park, also in Anaheim, the next-nearest to my home, and also home to the Edna Haskett Branch of APL, named for the city's first children's librarian. That one was hot chocolate, because I have a self-imposed time limit on coffee consumption.

Number Six actually happened on the eastern edge of Lakewood, in LA County. I had started out to attend a rubber stamp convention, but got some expensive news about van repairs, so I turned around and headed home again, stopping for a break at Palms Park.

Number Seven was a shorty, basically a ride around the big block to gain the necessary minimum mileage, at the nearest park to home, Brookhurst Park, squished between a middle school on the east and an elementary school on the west. The whitish case on the back is the case I carry my spiral notebook and pen in. The brick-bounded area in the background to the left is the park's skateboard park.

Number Eight, my just-in-case ride, ventured over to Pearson Park, one of those in Old Colony Anaheim. And in an act of utter laziness, I'm copying and pasting from my laboriously-typed-on-the-phone-post-to-the-group! The cactus garden was planted many, many years ago by Anaheim's first parks superintendent, a gentleman who also hybridized a berry made famous by a fellow down the road in Buena Park. The berry grower was Walter Knott. The hybridizer/park superintendent was Rudy Boysen. There is also a park named for him, not far from the place us oldtimers still call Anaheim Stadium.

I also rode over to George Washington Park, even more centrally located in Old Colony, built on the site of one of Anaheim's earliest elementary school and the first elementary school in the state to have been financed by bonds, according to the plaque on this column: 

The Coffeeneuring Challenge has been wonderful fun, both the doing and the reading about others' doings. I'm really looking forward to not only participating in next year's challenge, but also in continuing with "off-season coffeeneuring"! Thank you, Mary! I'm really glad I stumbled over this all because of the lack of an ad-blocker at work!

Mapped My Ride...

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

Map My Ride: 20.28
Bike Computer: 20.13

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.

January 2011

33.704 walking miles. 6.18 elliptical miles. 38.64 cycling miles. 78.524 total miles.

On the latest journey through Middle Earth: 88 miles past Rivendell on the road to Lothlorien.

There And Back Again

It's been a month since my last post here, and even longer since my last Rivendell update. Well, I've not only returned to Bag End, I've gone to the Grey Havens to see Gandalf, Bilbo, and Frodo off with the elves and gone back to Bag End with Sam! And am now on my way to the Lonely Mountain with Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves. And have gone over 7,000 miles!! Total miles so far: 7042.573. A combination of walking, riding both stationary and outdoor bicycles, and ellipticals. A YMCA membership that I used in 3 different Y facilities (my home Y was Lakewood, but I also used Van Nuys and Fullerton), a hotel fitness room, a cruise-ship fitness room, and my home 24-hour Fitness. Plus a couple of home treadmills and some charity events both walking and riding.

Whittier Greenway Ride

Last Sunday, instead of putting my Caps-hockeyfied bike helmet on and riding over to Anaheim Ice to watch the Ducks open training camp, I rode up to Whittier to their nearly new (opened last year) Whittier Greenway multi-use trail. This is an out-of-service rail right-of-way (IIRC, it was purchased from the Union Pacific) which has been paved and planted for use as a pedestrian-cycling-equestrian trail, and runs from just shy of the San Gabriel River Trail on the northwest end to just shy of La Mirada Blvd on the southeast end. There are hopes and plans to try to complete the connection to SGRT (that stretch of land is currently privately owned) and south-eastward into Orange County (that would just rock!).

Here's Orion at the beginning of the trail, on Pioneer Blvd just a little south of Beverly Blvd.

Commemorating the Salt Lake Route, near the old citrus warehouses.
Orion at the far end, at Mills just off of Lambert.

More Ride Pictures

Posted in a Picasa album.

Fun Day Today

Well, kinda. And kinda not fun at all. Parked the van at Maxwell Park in Anaheim and rode Orion down Magnolia to Warner, then Warner to PCH, and then up PCH into Seal Beach. Stopped to refuel a bit (I'd ridden that bowl of cereal away completely), then went out Marina Av over to Alamitos Bay to the farmers' market there. Very pleasant so far, and even saved a wallet from who knows what when I picked it up off a bus bench and turned it over to the first LEOs I saw (actually the second ones; the first two were on the other side of the road, headed in the opposite direction from me). Stocked up on some stuff at the farmers' market, then headed over to the San Gabriel River Trail.

And hit my heel on the grocery pannier so hard that I knocked one of the pannier's hooks off the rear rack, and it crashed into the wheel, breaking a spoke in the process.

So I limped it back to Maxwell Park, and headed over to a bike shop in Fullerton. Where it'll be ready by Wednesday close-of-business, but I won't be able to get back over there until Sunday. So Radagast the Beige-and-Black will be getting some attention this week.

And I'm now about 20 miles from Bag End.

San Diego Rides

I have an album showing most of the few pictures I took while visiting San Diego last weekend.

Last Week's Rides

Just the usual jaunt down the SGRT from Rynerson Park in Lakewood to Seal Beach. The Falls of the San Gabriel River, this time at or very near high tide. The concrete river bed is about 10 miles long, and this point is about 3 miles or so from the beach.
A white pelican near the Falls.
A sign in Seal Beach at Marina and Pacific Coast Hwy:
Later on, probably tomorrow, I'll post some pictures from last weekend's trip to San Diego.

Alameda

By the time I got to Alameda, there wasn't much time left for a ride before the stitching get-together, but I did get to see a few things of interest. Like this tattered but interesting looking house about a block away from where the GTG (Get ToGether) was held:
Then I started to ride past it and saw the doors:
They don't seem to be using it for anything right now, but like Anaheim (which is at least using theirs for a museum), Alameda has a Carnegie Library building:
And a dyslexic lane marker:
And apparently just one park:
But a charming little cottage complex with an irrestible-to-me name:
The view through the gates:
And a 13th Commandment at the Episcopal Church:
Finally, here's Orion at the beach in Alameda:
I want to go back. I want to see more. And not just of Alameda, but of Santa Clara and San Jose, too. It's so very, very bike-friendly up there!! What's the weather like in December? The Caps have a West Coast road trip which has them at the Shark Tank on December 30.

A few pictures from recent rides...

A coyote in Coyote Creek, along the eponymous trail.
One of the Navy's blimp hangars in Tustin, seen from the north side:
A heron hunting for breakfast near the San Gabriel River Trail:
The Falls of the San Gabriel River:
Orion in Old Town Tustin, in front of a redwood:
A jacaranda in bloom in El Dorado Regional Park in Long Beach:
A tree trunk I thought looked interesting, Hyde Park, Orange:
A begging squirrel in Rynerson Park, Lakewood:
And if you're going to immortalized a guy in concrete somewhere in Tustin, at least spell his name correctly!