19 May 2024: Barbie and the Whale

Landed in Rincon again on Sunday

The week started back in Burbank with Greg and Loretta.  Decided on Wednesday to cycle around the 'Hollywood Sign' mountain.  Serendipitous, really surprised by how beautiful the area is.  Turned out to be about 30 miles of cycling, but really interesting.  End point was the Bronson caves - which is really just a man made tunnel in a quarry, but then, this is Hollywood.

Los Feliz neighborhood with Jakaranda type trees

The Griffith observatory

Someone had too much time on their hands - in the quarry by the tunnel

The great cave!!

The touristy part of the sign

View from the hood

This is Hollywood after all

Somewhere random.  The area was well setup for cycling

Saw a starlink rocket get launched from VanDenBerg spaceport (thanks Trump) and Elmo, and saw the booster rocket come down again... I think somewhere near the Baja peninsula.

Headed to a new Thousand Trails (TT) park in Soledad canyon on Friday.  Only 40 miles from Burbank, so Greg and Loretta came to stay for Saturday night - to see the non-existent Northern Lights...

Nice lights, but are they North...

Met up with the Solo Escapees gang.  They were there for a few more days and were then heading to the beach at Rincon.  Had a 'braai' on their last night.  One of the Carol's in the group (there were 5 Carol's at one stage, but now there are only 2 lefts) has this awesome built-in gas barbecue in one of her slide-outs that she setup herself.  Hits a button on the hydraulic slide comes out.  Cook your food, wait for everything to cool down and then hits the button again, and all done.

Masterful design - could apply for honorary South African citizenship based on this

James moving out

Carol(1) moving out

Carol(2) moving out

 

Spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the front-end connection on Barbie to connect to the new tow bar I bought... unfortunately the light bulb is still dim on that front.  Also took Barbie off-road for the first time - down a dry sandy riverbed.  It is just the best little off-road car around.  Had lots of flashbacks to going down the Dune in Noordhoek to surf with ChrisJ.

Also went to Vasquez rocks with Kathy (the Solo who stayed behind).  Was a place where Vasquez (a Mexican bandidos) hid from the law.  Also the place were a lot of Star Trek scenery was shot.  Kathy has been full-timing for a number of years, spent a lot of time in Kentucky as a dog groomer, and now has 2 fluffball dogs that still has a grooming table, etc. for their weekly personal hairdo grooming.

Looks like a worm from Dune

Blooming yucca's everywhere

Started noticing a number of hitch-hikers and generally unwashed people on the road near the RV park.  They were all heading to the nearby town - Acton.  Turns out, the RV camp was close by the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail - click the link) and these were all through-hikers.  We were at about mile 440 from the start of the trail at the Mexican border.  Still had another 2,200 miles to go to the Canadian side.  There was also a restaurant/saloon in Acton - the 49'er - which catered for the hikers.  The bartender was very busy organizing the local 'Uber' driver to go pickup hikers, etc. and they had about 15 tents pitched behind the saloon where hikers were taking a 0 day and just resting.  I went in there to get a photo for our own hiker (Jack) for when he does the PCT.  Started talking to a group of people sitting around a table in the backyard.  One girl was from Cape Town and had been working after school for a few years to get the money together to do the hike, another had done the AT (Appalachian Trail on the east coast) twice, the Arizona trail, and a few other ones including the Continental Divide trail and just needed to finish this one and he would have done the triple crown - and he was not even 30 years old yet...

Cape Town local on the left

The 49'er

Animal sightings for the week was 1 Bobcat (could not get a photo, but basically a large cat with a stumpy tail and very shy), 1 desert rosy boa (also no photo, but follow the link and about 4ft long), 2 deer while cycling and some falcon.

Then...  got my first real bite for a job from a consulting firm based in Chicago.  Got the first interview setup for Monday with a company that I had consulted for back in 2007.  Was very excited, except that the cell/WiFi reception in Soledad canyon was spotty to say the least.  I decided that I would leave on Sunday (was booked in until Tuesday) and head for Rincon where the cell reception was good and I could do the call without panicking.  So, who knows, the holiday might be over soon...

Barbie with an oil change and a wash