Trip down memory lane

Farmer Jon, or perhaps fishmonger Jon

I've been looking for containers to use as part of an aquaponic system that I will maybe someday put together. My latest stab in the dark took me back to my ol' stomping grounds where I spent my formative years, looking for of all things a plastic horse trough.





As a kid, this place was one of my favorite places. It made me want to "go rural". I can't believe it's still there, just like I remember it. So very few places in L.A. have any sort of history. It was fun showing Skye a little bit of my history.



This is the house where I grew up from I think like 4th grade to college. Oh the memories.



Woodland Hills Academy was Parkman Jr. High School where I attended 9th grade.



And then off to Taft High, 3 pretty dismal years.



When I went to school, I remember there were a couple of armed plains clothes detectives who regularly frequented our hallways.

Skye and I swung by the other day and there were two squad cars parked outside which was a little disconcerting.



In-and Out Burger survived, but McDonald's did not.



This Pollo Loco was where a McDonalds used to be, home to my first job and perhaps a good part of my fear and loathing of McDonalds.



Location of my first savings account, but it was a Llyond's Bank way back then.



Corbin Bowl survives. Bravo!!!!!!!


Pierce Community College

I took classes at various times, particularly during the summers, as well as running through the campus with Taft High's cross country running team. The campus' pastoral setting made me want to retreat an "easier" way of life out in the countryside, but that was not to be.





Skye enjoying a suburban farm moment.



This was not here when I was a kid. Pretty cool. Skye and I picked up some corn and some sugar pumpkins that we would later convert into pumpkin pies, more on that latter.




I love corn mazes, but Pierce didn't have them when I was growing up.

All in all a wonderful journey

Running on empty

Overbooked maybe????

Juijitsu(My class)-Playa del Rey; Girls scouts Westchester; Pick up race bib USC, retrieve and collect costumes, (Baldwin Hills); Back to pick up Skye and buddy from girls scout to take to Capoeria (Santa Monica) via trip back to Baldwin Hills for forgotten Capoeria uniform(Oops); Home school Halloween Family dance (Studio City); Back home to drop off Skye and then off to USC to run in the Human Race at just past mid-night.

And all the while working on "school work", a little car-schooling, here, some audio-book bits there, and utilizing hand-held digital devices for edu-tainment.


Nike's Human Race 2009



After being up since around 6 am and then bopping all around LA, it was more than a little tough to trek on down to USC 10ish to jostle around with a few thousand other runners, many being college age USC types.

Once I got there, parked and got all checked in and was hanging around the start the energy was infectious. And I was ready to bust out a good 6 mile training run.

Considering the first mile was little more than a shuffle of packed in sardine-runners, my 50 minute run wasn't awful and the fact that I had plenty left in the tank as it were, was a positive. But I did feel a bit sluggish and heavy.





I am in full support of making LA more beer friendly.



This was post-race. The girl on the phone in the foreground was one of many. Cell phones, Facebook, texting... All of the connectiveness, that at times disconnects us from our immediate surroundings lends itself to many questions and discussions that will be obsolete almost as soon as they are voiced, given the speed at which technologies and trends are changing.


Unbooking

As full as Friday had been, Saturday wanted to match it. But I was done. There were several "350" events that I had wanted to make it to, there was the Film Maker's Alliance picnic, there were friends that I had planned to see and just couldn't. I hibernated on Saturday. And actually did more of the same on Sunday, when Skye was away for the better part of the day and I was supposed to run my long-training run and didn't.

Early Morning Miles

I put in 20 miles Monday morning, heading out around 6 am, 3 plus hours on the road. I was feeling and running slow. The result of not enough sleep, bad diet and mostly weeks off of training and being jammed in a car for many hours a day of road tripping.

Tuesday-Speed Work

I hit the road to work on some speed, put in a good fast 1 hour bit. 15 minutes into it and I am feeling dehydrated and heavy as a clydesdale. And then I remember that I should really be taking a day off.

Ouch!!!

Another glorious Super Duper park day

Hurray the Super Duper

Always a frame work for lesson planning or life-learning or as the case was most recently was a "teachable moment"or is presented by the monthly Super Dupers, basically a home school show and tell that precedes one of our park days.

Skye wanted to be a gypsy. Well there's a lot there. We went to the library got some books on gypsies, realized very early on that Skye's outfit would be gypsy-inspired as their "traditional" dress was rather glum and dour. We dispelled a couple of the bigger misconceptions and myths in regards to gypsies, but have yet to really jump into the "study" of gypsies as I had imagined.

We did however at the last moment succeed in coming up with an idea of a costume. We were able to use scraps of fabric that we had acquired from a friend at one of the studios drapery department. So the costume was environmentally friendlier because we were using fabric that was otherwise on the way to a landfill.

Materials in hand we started pattern-making(which Skye ended up not using) and cutting and pinning and sewing up the skirt for her outfit.

The machine we have is an industrial machine and quite sturdy and efficient, a real task horse and fast as the dickens and hard to control at least for amateurs like Skye and myself. Add to that our rushedness because of the looming parade, all of a week and a couple days before Halloween and the "teachable" moments became about planning, taking on unrealistic goals and learning when to "cut bait" as it were.

After cleaning up the garage enough so that we could use it, and finishing up all the other bits and pieces that make up life I took the skirt pieces which Skye had already pinned together done much of the sewing and took over so she could get to bed before too late, which at our house is pushing 11 o'clock. She's a night owl and one of the wonderful things about home schooling is being able to allow for her natural sleep rhythms. So I was off to sewing into the smaller hours of the night or morn, depending on one's perspective.

Skye was fine with the first version of her Skirt. I however thought that it was too full and decided to remove a panel or two, and then I thought if the hem were weighted say by some beading it would fall better and then to hide the bunchiness of the drawstring we could add a waist band. I decided this the morning of the 11 am costume parade.

Did I mention part of the great fun of the Super Duper is the potluck that follows? Yes we would be cooking up our proscuto wraped figs with melted manchego center festivally displayed on these black driftwood trees that suited the halloween theme.

So at 9:30 I was sewing back Skye's skirt after tearing out some panels, redoing the drawband that I had torn out to add the waistband which I decided was too complicated for the time being, and putting away all the lovely beading I had dug out, all the while hoping that Skye could manage to make the figs on her own.



Skye in her gypsy outfit. Very simple and scaled down, embellishments may or may not follow.
Had I not attempted to re-do things and "fix" it, it would have been a doable and simple project.






This is an older version of the "fig tree" . Skye was successful in her cooking exploits and together we hung the fruit and made it to park day just in time, in spite of LA's mean traffic.

We were there the better part of the day, had wonderful food and conversation and I am realizing the time right now and will finish off this post to avoid a less than nice 'teachable" moment.

Home Sweet Home

The first days were spent downloading from the trip,literally, be it physically with our luggage and goods or virtually from various digital mediums.

Daisy the Banished Cat welcomed us home by making a point of reminding us why she was banished peeing and poohing defiantly on couches and beds, which of course meant stripping them down, cleaning and laundering sheets and such and then rebannishing Daisy.

Then came the rains, which had me punching holes through out the house trying to track down leaks and drips. Somehow knowing that I had to repair one ceiling (where I put up the trapeze-type rig) made me feel like a few more holes wouldn't be that much work. I will regret that latter I'm sure.

The pursuit of the aqua-invaders had me looking from above as well, pulling out the extension ladder and climbing all over our roof as the rain made things nice and slick. At one point, I was up on the roof with a shop-vac, cleaning out gutters and then tracking the water's paths with food coloring. More to-do's jumped on the already endless list.

Then it became the scramble to re-insert ourselves back into our L.A. community.

Monday brought a surreal park day, with us just barely getting there before more rain and me unable to coherently tell much about the trip and of course that feeling like you've been gone forever and yet never left.

Tuesday saw Skye starting a Shakespeare program and just starting to prepare for her speech for her Public Speaking class, which was to be 6-8 minutes, can feel like an eternity when speaking in front of a group.

Wednesday we were back swinging around in our aerial, and then practice, practice, practice on the speech, oh that speech.


Thursday---The dreaded speech,.........

SKYE won the BEST SPEAKER AWARD,

BRAVO!!!!!!!

We reunited with our two rats and a wonderful park day.

Friday had me rolling around, back to jui jitsu training. Add in all the typical chore type things, errands and nonsense and continuous unpacking, training for the upcoming marathon(s).

ETC.
ETC. ETC.
ETC. ETC. ETC. ETC.

The garden was left mostly untended, its plethora of tasks looming on the horizon, like the dark rain clouds that welcomed us back.

Up, up, and a way and away

2009 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.--Fireworks and Glodeo

To prevent setting up camp in the dark we found a campground just south of Albuquerque, more like an hour south, but we did successfully find the campground and then managed to set up the tent, nice and secure and then we headed north to the 2009 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Like I said, we camped out around an hour south but the traffic made it more like 2 1/2 hours til we got to the fair ground parking. We didn't quite make it to the Glodeo but we did see the hot air balloons illuminated from the highway as we sat in traffic.

And we did make it in time for the fireworks. And in time to sit in traffic on our way out.






I figured we would have to wake up around 4:30 to get to the Fairgrounds in time for the Mass Ascension.




I was wrong. We really needed to leave at like 3:30. This is after we had already been in traffic for around an hour and still a long way to go. You can see a balloon in the background.



Our first balloon sighting.




And a few more.....




Until the sky was full of balloons.







Of every shape and size. And this was just from the car.



Hurray we finally made it. ... More balloons.






A scare crow will rise among us



We saw Pink Elephants little before all the balloons had lifted away.




Looking up into the belly of the "beast"



Up, up and .....not away.




After checking out every last balloon until the field was empty, we went to find out more at the balloon museum. Who knew that the history of hot air balloons could be so interesting.
During World War II, the Japanese launched thousands of balloons rigged with bombs. They floated to the States on the Gulfstream. Balloons made it as far as Michigan. Interesting little tidbit.



What is he carrying????




By the time we got back from the museum, much of the fair had packed up, taking a break from
crowds and maddness, except those who still had Darth Bader pins to sell.

And of course, the chainsaw scultping competion.



Because is there really any better way to pay respect to Native Americans than using a gas powered chainsaw to carve out images of them from enourmous logs.

The Mad Dash Home

We had planned to camp out for a few more days and enjoy more of what the southwest has to offer but we were both done. So after grabbing some carnival snacks we beeline home.

Although we passed many more worthy and redeemable sights along this last leg, we did make time to see our old the Ostrich friends.








Maybe more like acquantencies.



The place was too surreal for words.





A final goodbye to Arizona,,,,Hello California.

Return to Hotsville

A Week Ago Today

After our amazing hike to the Top of Texas, we headed down to our friends in El Paso.
This marks the first time we retraced our steps.

Last time we visited, as fate would have it one of our hosts got horribly ill on our arrival, hopefully we wouldn't cause a relapse.

We didn't, thank God and our friend was back to his charming self (with this blog I always am wondering about whose name and or pictures to include so pardon my oddness of not using names at times)

Upon our arrival we were whisked away to a triple art opening at El Paso University which was cool, but not as cool the former speak-easy bar we were off to next.
Back in the days of the Prohibition,( you remember that remarkable failure, no ?...I guess neither does everyone opposed to legalizing marijuana. Different times, different issues,.... not so many, really.)
Anyway, Hollywood movie stars would arrive at this wonderful spot in New Mexico on its private runway. It looks much like it would have back in the day, except for the cityscape that was built up all around it. That and some other things, but it retained much of its original charm and was ultra hip and cool.

We had dinner at another lovely El Paso dig which boasted a wide selection of beers. And then off to bed, for we had a long day ahead of us on Friday.

Back to Hatch

We had a lovely brekfast, (I finally got the juevos rancheros I had been searching for) at a local joint amidst cotton fields and then headed north to Alburquerque and hot air balloons, but not before a quick trip through memory lane.

Last time we were in Hatch, New Mexico was on a Sunday at around 5 am, the weekend after their big annual celebration. Then it looked like, well a small tourist trap the weekend after its big annual celebration.

Now however, the mess had been cleaned up, the posters had been stowed away and it returned to its semi-quiet stature of being an off the main drag tourist trap. During the day all the shops were open and the wonderful aroma of roasted peppers floated through the entire town. There all things of chili, everywhere. What a difference it makes to visit a place when it's open.



Hatch, New Mexico Chile Capital of the World



I especially liked the added effect that drying the chili's on the roof had.



Fields of fire




This looked very much like one of the installation pieces we saw the night before at the art opening, a piece called "Snagged".

Don't know how I really felt about the piece itself, but it did spark several conversations on cotton and its place in the Rio Grande Valley and how legalizing marijuana would be the best thing that could happen to Ciuad Juarez, El Paso's sister city in Mexico, juat across the River and also currently the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere.

So perhaps it reached its goal, at least in part.

Guadalupe Peak

Car Camping

So watching hundreds of thousands of bats busting out of that ridiculously deep cavern was more than awe inspiring.

On the map Carlsbad Cavern and Guadalupe Mtn National Park looked pretty close together. Given that it was night time and the road was somewhat less than an Interstate, in regards to size and speed, well lets just say that the lightning and thunderstorm didn't bode well.

When we rolled into the campground at Guadalupe, it was dark, really dark, I guess. It was hard to tell with the tumultuous downpour and the hail. Hail? Are you kidding me.

I did get a glimpse of our surroundings with the flashes from the lightning storm that was crackling and zapping.

We Would NOT Be Setting Up the Tent In This Weather!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to the Hotel Prius, which was much more comfortable than I had imagined.....
that being said I hadn't imagined too much comfort crammed in the driver's seat under the steering wheel.

Guadalupe Peak--Texas High Point-- 8,749 ft elevation

One of the reasons we endured the rough sleep was so that we could get an early jump of the hike.

It was another 8.4 mile hike, 4.2 up and 4.2 down, just like the one we did in Oklahoma, except this one was marked strenuous and at the trailhead, it was suggested that you give yourself between 6 to 8 hours to complete. What follows is the description from the National Parks newsheet: "Difficulty:Strenuous. Approx. 3,000 ft elevation gain, steep, rocky path....Hike to the "Top of Texas" at 8,749' for spectacular views. Avoid the peak during high winds and thunderstorms. During warm temperatures, carry a gallon of water per person."

We were down in 5 1/2 hours and pretty worn out.



Just heading up. As fate would have it, on our toughest and most picturesque hike, my camera battery ran out and it was one of the first times ever that I went out without a back-up battery



Along the way up, we came across these most amazing looking grasshoppers, in the midst of what they might of wanted to keep private.

Maybe they put a curse on the camera and sucked out the batteries energy, because this was the last photo we were able get.



Thank goodness for the Iphone. Looking out over a little bit of Texas and a whole bunch of New Mexico and some Old Mexico.



It was cold and windy and views that went on for ever and ever. Our hardest and most grueling High Point to date.



Skye takes some of the pictures of me.




The Guadalupe Mountains as we hit the highway heading towards our good freinds house in El Paso, with a fresh battery.

Not of this World

Roswell

The previous night we drove deep into the night, listening to Twilight (yes the teen pop sensation), under a full moon on our way to Roswell. We got pulled over by a really nice Arizona cop, never thought those words would come out. He pulled us over for a faulty headlamp. We have taken it in to the shop, but it always works when it is at the mechanics, you know one of those "phantom" repairs. Anyway we got a fix it ticket and a helpful warning on local deer activity.

We had 4 hours to get the car fixed or off the road. We obviously weren't gonna find a mechanic for a Prius where we were at night, so we had to weigh our options.

Find a suitable place to bed down or try to make it to Roswell, our intended destination within the 4 hour allotment.

Of course we went for it.

We pulled into Roswell a little before midnight, a good hour before the cut-off.

After checking in, I tried to go online, but the aliens would have none of that, so we basically just chilled and planned for the days ahead.

The plans held for a couple of days, which was remarkable in of itself.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center

With such a long and lofty title I was expecting something big. I mean everyone knows "Roswell", but the "museum" was barely above the level of a high school science fair.

We did the audio tour, which usually is quite entertaining, but this one droned on and on. We didn't even finish it, out of boredom, mind you, not how crazy ridiculous the whole incident is, sorry for those believers out there, but really?




I was impressed by the number of people that were there.





Pretty fun and funky art and displays.



The horse was somewhat of an art project, but it works out well in the venue.





Finally there was a display of props used in a movie shot a couple of decades ago. Skye was less than impressed.


Carlsbad Caverns




Into the belly of the earth.




The caves were beyond impressive. We hiked for ever and the caves just kept on going.



It was a geological wonderland, to be sure.


We of course hung around for the famous, Bat Flight. A few hundred thousand bats exit the caves. This mass exodus can take any where from 20 minute to 2 1/2 hours. Cameras and electronic devices are not allowed so I had to search the web for a boot leg copy.

Please click on this link, it does show the bat exodus but the presentation is to die for. Is that still even ok to say, not to mention its non-hipness, maybe non-hip enough to be retro and therefore cool and hip.


The bats have left the belfry or the cave in this matter