Category Archives: city

city, history, national park, travel, USA

West to East

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So on arrival back to San Diego, I found that the juveniles had got a plea bargain & pled guilty to chasing me with the baton & stealing my money (a much lesser charge than bashing Andrea’s face & attacking the other guy). I needn’t have arrived home a day earlier, rats. But it didn’t matter too much as I had the next leg of the journey to prepare for. The next few days were pretty cruisy doing mundane stuff – haircut, posting maps, return of rental car (over 3000 miles in eighteen days), pack up bike, order a whole heap of bike stuff to meet me in Pennsylvania (things I’d been putting off replacing until I got to the cheaper shops of USA – shoes, Camelbak, chain, tyre, grips, small tools & so on; I think I saved about thirty to forty percent) – & also took the Turners out for a large authentic Mexican meal & spent a bit more time down at the Cass Bar.

The day before I left San Diego was the final pack & also a little thing called Independence Day. As my bike was packed up & the car was returned I didn’t have too many means (except a long walk) to go & check out the crazy crowds down at the beach – but I didn’t have the inclination to be swamped by people either. Beverley & Chris put on a BBQ for about ten people – great food & red, blue & white cup cakes & also root beer floats for a bit of tradition. From the deck, we could watch about ten different fireworks displays down towards San Diego & Ocean Beach. I’ve seen some pretty big & impressive fireworks before (Sydney, New Year’s 2000 springs to mind); but I haven’t seen so many displays in such a short period of time before. Lots of big explosions & also some pretty cool shapes made by the pyrotechnicians; the only drawback of being able to see so many displays at once was that the distance somewhat muted the bangs & one couldn’t feel the wave reverberate through one’s body. To bed relatively early (11.30) to get up again in five hours…

Beverley & her friend Bronwyn kindly got up & took me up to LAX, I tried to stay awake. Uneventful check-in, even though my bike was oversize; on the flight to Philly I enjoyed looking down at all the canyons & then peeking down to the cropping plains as we got further east – the plains, or what I could see of them, were greener than I could see (& obviously a lot greener than the environment I’d been used to over the previous four weeks). Approaching over Pennsylvania, I could begin to see a few more details – a nuke plant, a few quarries, a lot of golf courses & once again, generally a lot of trees & woods. Then down over the Delaware River to land more than half an hour early, bags straight off the carosuel & Jessica waiting right outside – smooth. Jessica & Doug (American friends I meet in Palmerston North in 2004 while they were on sabbatical) live in a small town thirty or so miles north of Philly – we had to pick up their two kids (2 & a bit years & 5 months) from Jessica’s sister’s place on the way home. Once off the freeways & driving down what the English would call B-roads in to small subdivisions I was impressed again by all the trees & lush green grass (apparently June provided a lot of unseasonal rain for the area). Clearly a lot more water available for growing things here than in California. The house that Jessica’s sister & family live in, while also I would say is a typical American house – it was completely different from the Turners’ in San Diego. For the climate I suppose – steeper roof, two storied, huge basement, large garage, lush lawn, Stars & Stripes flying, & strangely (to me) no fences or hedges between neighbouring houses (I would soon get used to seeing a lot of this) – hard to describe just how familiar (too any movies & TV programs) it seemed. After spaghetti & meatballs & letting the kids run around the soccer field chasing balls it was off to my home for the next few weeks.

Doylestown is a very quaint little town with a lot of old row houses & has a nice town feel to it (as opposed to a series of subdivisions with a strip mall plonked somewhere near by) & some nice skinny streets. D & J live not far from town in another very nice leafy area. Saw another fireworks display (postponed from last week) & in to bed after a long day of travelling (lost three hours along the way, but getting up at 4.30 I wasn’t too fussed). Monday was a recovery day & a orientation around Doylestown – drive around, check out the college Doug is a professor at, meet a few people, assemble most of bike (still waiting on package to arrive with the chain) & plan a few things. I’m off to New York City on Friday for five nights – can’t wait.

Tuesday (today) was up too early, despite the alarm not going off, & on the train in to central Philly (the express takes about seventy minutes). Today was to satisfy my history bent walking around the Independence National Park – lots of historic buildings to do with the drafting, signing & proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, rooms that housed Congress & the Senate once upon a time & being the Monty Python fanatic that I am – how could I not visit the Liberty Bell? Although, when visiting the bell, Sousa’s tune was playing – so the whole place seemed a bit silly after that! A great day wandering around (a lot – sore feet again) looking at all sorts of all things & enjoying the parks & very pleasant weather.

Some trivial, & some not so, differences from CA I’ve noticed so far – the traffic lights have yellow housings, there are far fewer SUVs & pickups and the predominant minority has changed from Latino to African-American, unfortunately there are nowhere near as many mountain bikes on cars going to trails (although there is still the group in the city devoted to fixies). Home in time for dinner & fantastic dessert Jessica was trying out the recipe for – a sherbert & frozen cream-cheese mixture – how to describe taste? There wasn’t a whole lot left.

Except for the little mugging episode (which I escaped relatively unscathed), my time in California was fantastic – I did a lot of cool sightseeing things, but it was mostly made by all the various people I met. All the very generous mountain-bikers who took me places & showed me some great trails & scenery – but most of all the wonderful hospitality of the Turners in San Diego & getting to know them eighteen years after they left Papamoa & New Zealand. Thanks all.

bikes, city, engineering, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Hot dam!

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Up at seven & off to go riding (why else?) before it got too hot. After sorting out breakfast, making my way the half hour or so east to Boulder City (town was constructed to house those building the Hoover Dam). Managed to find the well constructed trail head – ample shade, water, showers & toilets – and was riding shortly after nine. Unfortunately, the trail map on the board & the signposting wasn’t too great. I rode up a couple of nice rocky trails for about forty-five minutes, the grade was pretty good (middle ring the whole way again), but although it was still relatively early it was getting hot. Easily in to the nineties & then touching the low to mid-hundreds (around 35-40 degrees Celsius – rather warm), I carried on up & was rewarded with great views of the desert, Lake Mead, Boulder City & then Las Vegas.

Definitely time to turn around – the downhill of the same trails (I liked the look of them on the way up, so decided to go down the same way) was fantastic. Some nice rocky switchback, some bits that flowed well, & all the rocky steps that I had had to lift the front wheel over or attack at pace made great drop offs.

Half way I met a couple of local guys that had started the climb after me resting under the only shade I had seen – an overhanging rock. Happy to see some other people, I stopped & chatted for a while & they recommended a place for lunch in town before I headed to Hoover Dam for the afternoon. The next & last trail down was also fantastic & had big sweeping corners, berms that rose & lots of little jumps to pop off – & more rocks! A quick shower & it was off in to Boulder City to have a little poke around. A nice sleepy little town with bits of dam building history around. I had a great lunch at a cool little microbrewery – it turns out that any time anything is offered with a boysenberry flavour, I have to have it. This time is was a tripleberry beer, a few days ago it was boysenberry frozen yoghurt. Must be my way of dealing with being away from home.

It was on to see the Hoover Dam after lunch – I’ve long wanted to see this product of a lot of engineering & pure hard slog. It definitely didn’t disappoint. I was interested to see how much the building of the dam & the taming of the Colorado tied in to Imperial County’s irrigation & the All-American Canal (this is relevant as I spent the weekend in Imperial County ten days ago). By now the day was getting really hot (eventually it got to 111 degrees) & there were a lot of people at the dam. I was impressed enough by the parking building – it was pretty big & tucked in where a lot of rock used to be. I did the tour of the powerplant & got a look inside one of the diversion tunnels. As expected, the whole place was massive & photos may be better than me rabbiting on about it.

Intake towers

Lake Mead

To cope with all the traffic going down the road, this new bridge is being built – next year you will not be able to drive over the dam.

Back in to Vegas, a short nap – this morning’s early rise & early, hot ride had caught up with me.  I then went up the Stratosphere tower & admired the view – & saw my first wedding since I got in to town. Also went on one of the rides at the top – Insanity – apart from dangling a few hundred metres above the street, it wasn’t particularly thrilling.

I took the monorail to the far end of the Strip & got off at MGM Grand & proceeded to walk the length of the Strip looking around.  In the end it was masses of people, many casinos.  It was better & more interesting than the previous night & I could see how it could be fun – but all I managed to get was a blister on the ball of my foot from walking about four miles on concrete.  Bed at the respectable hour of midnight – big day of driving ahead.

city, roadtrip, travel, USA

Road trip!

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Most of Monday was spent packing & organising & waiting. With the car loaded up & a vague idea where I was heading for the next ten day, it was off to the fateful corner (Felspar & Bayard) to meet with all sorts of people. There was the detective investigating our case & a police photographer, two or three people who are prosecuting the juveniles & adults, another victim (he got attacked just down the road from us – I was even more glad to have given up my $100 after seeing his seventeen stitches, the bat may have had nails in it), Andrea & me. We spent the next hour & a bit talking about the evening, having our photo taken from various angles & so on. Finally it was over, Andrea & I delayed my road trip by going back to where it all began for some food & a beer. Eventually I hit the road after five for the two hundred miles to Las Vegas. Apart from a few rush hour snarl ups, driving was a breeze & I arrived safely to check in to the conveniently cheap Stratosphere.

I had a nice high (not in the tower though) & quiet room with a decent view of the north end of the Strip. After settling in, it was out for a quick explore.

Beverley asked me last week what I thought of the States or how I was enjoying it or something similar. I said that it was pretty much what I had in mind – everything was bigger, it was warmer, Californians love the sun & are pretty active, the scenery I had seen was quite different & there is just more of everything; consequently, I was loving it (mugging excepted). Las Vegas was similar in some ways – it was bright, it didn’t sleep, the casinos were huge, it was hot (hottest day so far this year – 104 in LV, 110 a bit out of town), there were people everywhere, it was slightly sleazy. But walking around, I found I didn’t really like all that & walking around parts of it by myself even felt slightly vulnerable (that may have just been all the bums or the mugging experience putting me on edge). Turned in nice & early at midnight to get up early for a ride before it got too hot.

Speaking of turning in early, I must go to sleep as I’m exhausted from driving four hundred miles today, I’ve lost an hour to Utah’s decision to not go to daylight saving, & the JEM trail awaits tomorrow morning. The second day in LV was much better & today better again.

city, engineering, history, travel, USA, vehicles

Ships – of various shapes, sizes & uses

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With no bike rides planned, it was off to the San Diego Maritime Museum yesterday. The museum has eight historic vessels – the oldest being laid down in 1863. The main part of the museum (displays relating to the US Navy in SD, passenger ferries between SD & Coronado, fishing industry, navigation & so on) is housed in an old steam ferry. I easily spent a couple of hours looking at the displays & the upper deck, which was the main passenger seating area – for a twenty minute trip to Coronado, it was quite spacious & bordering on ornate. The next couple of hours were spent cruising around the harbour on a small pilot vessel (named Pilot, strangely enough) with a very informative talk from an ex-Navy guy. The much-mentioned “June Gloom” was in full force & for the first time since I arrived in SD the morning cloud didn’t lift in to a brilliantly sunny & warm day – just as well I’m from NZ & I am in the habit of taking clothes along on trips on the off chance the weather may change. One of the highlights of the cruise was going past the USS Nimitz, at over 330 metres long it somewhat dwarfed our 52′ vessel. An impressive sight to say the least.

Also neat to go around the other naval & commercial vessels (not as many in port as in Portsmouth last year) & under the Coronado bridge – this bridge was the death of the commuter ferries & is really quite tall to let the war ships pass underneath.

The guide also pointed out the San Diego Toolbox – sky scrapers that resemble common tools if you use your imagination a bit. There were two flat-screwdrivers/chisels (depending on which way one’s imagination went), a Phillips screwdriver & a set of hex wrenches. I was impressed that such an effort managed to be coordinated.

Back to land for a brief moment before checking out HMS Surprise which was a replica & was used in the film “Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World” – this was OK, but nowhere as impressive as HMS Victory. I was however impressed by going on B-39, an ex-Soviet submarine. As far as I remember, I have never been on a submarine – this one was 300 feet long, diesel powered & commissioned in 1974. Naturally, it was all very cramped & the watertight doorways were difficult to get through with a backpack on. I was suitably baffled by all the controls as they were in Russian & thought it must have been quite difficult to cope with only three toilets on board when there was a crew of seventy. Apparently vodka was banned on board (is this really a Russian sub?), but the crew was given white wine instead – when the museum took possession of the sub, about three-hundred bottles of vodka were found secreted in various places around the sub.

Torpedo tubes

Making my way out of the sub (it’s a lot harder to get lost in a submarine than parts of SD Zoo it turns out), it was off to the Star of India:

This 1863 ship is the oldest vessel that is still sailed – & was one of the first iron hulled ships. She started life as a cargo ship sailing from Britain to India, then spent over twenty years transporting emigrants from Britain to NZ (21 circumnavigations), at the end of the 19th century it was off to bring salmon down from the Bering Sea to California until 1923 – she has been in San Diego since then. Of course, it was of most interest to me that she had carried thousands of Britons to a new life in NZ. I was fascinated & somewhat humbled to see & read about the small cabins & life on such a voyage that Pheasants, Montgomeries, Wallaces (& others of which I forget the surnames) must have endured as they made their way to NZ. That concluded the maritime museum, & it was quite a walk to go & find some lunch. But well rewarded, with my first bagel in the States – delicious. After that very late lunch, there was just enough time for a very rushed tour of the USS Midway.

So after the confines of the Russian sub, the USS Midway seems even larger than it normally would appear – that is, it seems bigger than huge. Commissioned at the end of WWII, it went on to serve until 1992 (was flagship of Persian Gulf air operations in Desert Storm – I thought that quite impressive for a WWII era ship). Unfortunately, I only had the two hours before closing to get a quick glimpse at most everything – but it was fascinating. Just a few numbers to try & convey the vastness of it & because that’s the kind of guy I am:

  • 220000 hp
  • 69000 tons total weight
  • 2000 electric motors
  • 1500 telephones
  • 20 ton anchors
  • 4 acre flight deck (three inches thick)
  • 3400000 million gallon fuel capacity, 100000 gallons used daily, 260 mpg
  • Crew of 4500
  • 10 tons of food a day – 225 cooks & so on

But of course, all that doesn’t really compare to walking around the hangar & flight deck, up to the bridge & then down a bit the galley, wardrooms (officers’ facilities), laundry, sick bay & ICU. Pleasingly, there were also 25 historic aircraft on board – fighters, bombers, choppers, fixed-wing radar. I’m still amused every time I see a Skyhawk here that they are described as being very useful in the 1960s, yet NZ used them until the combat air wing was discontinued in the last ten years & still has some sitting in an glofiried garage somewhere.

Out for dinner Friday night as Anna-Marie is shortly off to Norway & England & other parts of Europe for four weeks. Italian fare was great – almost a year since Tuscany (which must mean my bike turned two a couple of weeks ago). Nice big sleep in Saturday & then chilled out, finished reading Tom Sawyer, due to the “June Gloom” setting in – I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that phrase in the last two weeks – just as well I missed “May Gray” weather. Five of us drove up to Orange County, Google Maps has been blamed for getting us lost, four came back – Anna-Marie should be well on her way to Norway by now, it’s a little quieter around here.  Back home & in bed by midnight, eager to get up again in five hours for a big ride.