February 1, 2008

As I mentioned yesterday, we were worried about being the late people for dinner with the girls, so there was a hurry when we got to Lance’s apartment. His apartment is in downtown LA which is well known for the wide selection of homeless, bums, drug-addicts, and people of unsavory character amid the historic and beautiful buildings. As a result, it was a priority to secure things to prevent the invitation for someone to smash the windows on the beast (like they could!), so I put a couple of my bags into the afore-photographed box. It was a tight fit, but a well placed fat ass on the top closed the box. Funny thing though, the over stuffing caused pressure on the opening mechanism and I was unable to get into it for a sleeping bag to lay on the ground. Good news though – if I can’t get into it, neither can anyone else.

The concrete floor (spine-aligner) did its magic on my back – right as rain. So we got up and after some bitching by Lance, we piled into his Civic and started the first leg of our day with a trip to the Brooklyn Bagel Bakery (Est. 1953) and got some fresh baked jalapeno bagels with cream cheese and ate them construction worker style in front of a laundromat. Then we rocked due east from downtown LA toward 29 Palms.

We drove through miles of power-generating windmills… they were a lot more hi-tech than the ones I saw in Missouri (Jan. 25) and all of them were spinning away. We entered the West end of the park and pulled into a series of exhibits and parking areas and messed around with digital cameras, Bryan’s fish-eye camera and video camera. It was eerily quiet – not even the sound of the wind blowing. We had perfect weather (mid-50s) and got to walk around the desert, the trees, and climb on the rock formations – the rocks had a rough texture that made it easy. Let’s be honest, this is more pic than word worthy.

We headed back to Lance’s and took a detour at my favorite west coast institution – In n Out Burger. It was crucial as it had been eight hours since the bagel, and everyone was getting cranky. At this point I decided that Bryan actually has a tape-worm or some other parasite in his body that allows him to consume vast quantities of food without gaining any weight. After Lance got us back to LA, we hopped in the beast and cannonballed down to San Diego where Caleb and his girlfriend Dana had made reservations for outrageous portions of food at the Hash House. Because Dana had to work (nurse) at the hospital, she abandoned us and we visited a few bars before retiring for the evening.

Pics: let’s start with the sniper-photographer on the road – lance has already posted some of his own pics that are available to you, for a low, low, price of… clicking here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninedragons/
local pics: a) windmill farm in the desert; b) check out the little people on the top of the rocks, they climbed up there! c) check out the big idiots on the top of the rocks, they climbed up there! d) welcome to late night tacos in san diego


Like it is:
Lance Miles: 315;
MPG in the 2006 Civic Hybrid: 45.6
Mack Miles: 157; Trip Miles: 4,713
Mack avg MPG: 17
Number of times Bryan used ‘gnar’ as short for ‘gnarly’: too many
Venues in San Diego: Hash House, Nunu’s, Wit’s End, Alibi
Most enjoyable beer at wit’s end: Firehouse Ale
Exit 88 on 101: Santa Claus Lane
Original Retail Price of Snake Eyes GI Joe Action Figure: $2.48