Day 98: Escaping civilization

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Ben

I spent most of this morning in the Lowe’s parking lot reinforcing the broken bike rack strut. I’m glad I brought my angle grinder and all the other tools that made the fix possible!

On our way east, we passed the massive windmill field west of Palm Springs:

We got off the freeway at sunset and settled in to a lovely patch of BLM land just south of Joshua Tree National Park. Trish said “Try to get WiFi”, which of course is ridiculous since we’re in the middle of nowhere. Imagine my surprise when we pulled in WiFi from almost 5 miles away! See the distance field below:

I confirmed the distance using Google Maps:

It’s a somewhat academic victory since the bandwidth is so minimal that it’s pretty much useless, especially since I’m getting 3 Mbps on 4G, but still, it’s amazing that I can connect to a Wireless Access Point that’s 2 hours away on foot!

Celebrate this achievement by revisiting the WiFi antenna deployment video, won’t you?

Despite it being dark when we got here, it was only 6pm and the moon was up, so we decided to sit outside and chat as the night cooled, and then go for a moonlit walk. Trish and I are both thrilled to be back in the middle of nowhere. In the distance, we can see the nocturnal denizens of the interstate plod along. It’s quiet here, and the air is crisp and clean.

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 97: Leaving LA

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Ben

Here we are getting ready to leave what’s been our home base for the last 4 days. We had a great time visiting our friends, but tomorrow is supposed to be really hot so it’s time to go. While packing up, I noticed that one of the struts we added to the bike rack was cracked almost all the way through. I used a strap to hold it in place and hoped for the best.

On the way out of LA, we stopped at an all-kosher supermarket and stocked up on meat and cheese. We then went to the California Science Center, which is free except for the $25 oversized vehicle parking fee. We were told to park in Lot 2, but the Lot 2 attendant wouldn’t let us park there because they were moving all the Lot 6 folks over to Lot 2 because Lot 6 was being use for a special event. He directed me to Lot 3, where I was told I couldn’t park because we were oversized. The Lot 3 attendant called his boss, who told us to park curbside:

Our son tried out the video input sports game:

Full size replica of the Cassini probe:

…And a 1:5 scale Hubble model:

California Science Center is the home of Space Shuttle Endeavour, so they had a Space Shuttle themed display area which includes a collage video of all 135 launches happening at once:

Finally, we got to see Endeavour, the Shuttle built to replace Challenger:

The Science Center also had a display about different habitats, including a kelp garden:

We went back to the RV for lunch, then back in to the museum:

The museum has a display for Felix Baumgartner’s high altitude capsule jump from the Red Bull Stratos capsule at over 120,000 feet above the ground. A capsule and suit were on display:

By the time we left the Science Center, it was dark, and we had the pleasure of experiencing LA rush hour traffic on the way out of town:

We stopped at the Lowes of Moreno Valley for parts to fix the bike rack. When I got out, I saw that the strut had completely failed, so we decided to spend the night here. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 96: Wheels and Blades

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Ben

This morning, I got up before dawn and rode from where the RV was parked up Fairfax and up Laurel Canyon to Mulholland. As I rode west on Mulholland, I passed a lookout towards the north:

I crossed the 405 and continued west until Mulholland went to gravel:

On the way back, I didn’t take Laurel Canyon back down, but instead continued on Mulholland eastward until it ended, then taking Cahuenga back down. In the last section of Mulholland, I could see downtown LA to the South, as well as the Hollywood sign on the hills:

That afternoon, Trish and the kids went ice skating with our friend’s family. I had to stay behind due to lack of seating in our friend’s van, so I stayed “home” and did some chores. I hear they had fun:

Day 95: Tour de Museums

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Ben

We had a wonderful Shabbos with our friends in LA, and come Sunday morning, I was genuinely surprised to see that, as of yet, we have not received a parking ticket. We have a visitor permit, put even so, I was sure that somehow parking enforcement would find something…..

This morning we walked about a mile and a half from the RV in LA to the La Brea Tar Pits in Hancock Park. The naturally occurring tar pits preserved Ice-Age mammals, insects, and plants. We visited the museum at the tar pit site:

We had arranged to meet Ariza, our friend from Portland, and her daughter at the museum. Together we contemplated the tar lake, watching methane bubbling up:

The tar just bubbles up to the surface:

Here’s some tar pushing up through the grass:

My cousin Melissa joined us at the tar pits, and after Ariza said goodbye we headed up Fairfax and had pizza, then returned to the tar pits, for next door is LACMA, Los Angeles’ art museum:

The most interesting exhibit was the sculpture Metropolis II, a huge “marble run” for matchbox cars.

Thankfully, Melissa took us home so we didn’t have to walk back in the dark.

Day 93: From the plains of dust to the city of smog

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Ben

This morning we left the Walmart of Selma, CA and continued south through California’s dusty central valley to Los Angeles. We will be spending Shabbos with friends of ours who used to live in New York (names withheld for privacy).