Huntington Beach & Hollywood

Ian, one of the guys from the group I hang out with had a bit of a gathering down at the beach. The weather was really really lovely. Spent 2hrs in the surf. I managed to break a boogie board in half by being thrown off the crest of a big breaker. I checked out the local pier and a few shops and we attempted to play volleyball but had to use jandals which are rather useless because the sand was so hot.


We then went and had a drink and some food at the Huntington Brewery. Great food here. I had a very very unique and yummy Chocolate Chip Calzone with melted white and dark chocolate inside and a lump of vanilla ice cream. It was exquisite.




I have also been down to Hollywood just to check it out and have a drive round. It certainly is not what you think it would be. Rather small in terms of the nice spots and the streets surrounding the central Hollywood Blvd area are very depressed, almost ghetto like. Not too cool really.


It was kinda cool seeing the cliched things such as the Walk of Fame, and all the hand and foot prints of various stars not to mention the 100s of stars on the boardwalks. All representing some one 'famous' though I had not heard of 90% of them. The smog was also not too bad so we got a pretty good view of the big Hollywood sign.


Tabetha knew an old friend down that way working as an editor for a TV channel. He knew of a good Indian place so I had my first Indian since I left NZ. It was pretty good though not spicy enough. Strangely they did not give the option choosing how spicy it should have been.


On the way home we drove though Downtown LA and checked out little Tokyo. For all the bad wrap LA gets its was ok, and there is potential. Still they will need to move the ghettos more than 1 or 2 blocks away from the nice spots. The contrast over a block or two was huge. Almost felt like a warzone in parts and all you needed to do was drive a block too far in the wrong direction.

A Slog up the highest Pk in Southern California

On Sat 14th June on what was a very warm day in Redlands (40 odd degrees) we arose at 4.30 in the morning to be driving by a little after 5. We were off to climb the highest peak in Southern California. San Gorgonio is the name and the Trailhead is just 40 odd mins from where I live. It is 11,499 feet (3,505 m) high and was the highest I have ever been by about 1400ft (I think). The route we did of course it is not the easiest and has over 7000ft gain (2200+ odd meters) and we took a longer route back so did 28 miles all up in a 10hr mission. Part of the reason for leaving that early other than for time constraints is to beat the hot temps before we got to the summit.

Anyway the fellows on the expedition were Derek, Myles, Mike (another guy from work) and surprising Dave Bones. Have not seen him in years and he has just recently moved to Orange County so thought what better way is there than two former CUTC (Canterbury University Tramping Club) Committee members to catch up. We might as well slog up the side of a big ugly granite mountain. Well hey at least it got us above the smog right…!!!

What was quite interesting is that we had 3 kiwis and two Americans climbing an American Peak. Figure that one out aye...



Anyway as you can see from the Pics its very different than the mountain back home. It really is odd to me that you can be on the top of a 3500m peak and not far below are large trees. Not to mention the Chipmunks trying too steal our food. I held up pretty well though. I think we all had stiff muscles a couple of days later. Well I know I did. The main issues I had was my big toes. They are quite bruised so I am hoping the nails will not just fall off.

Anyhow this climb has got me keen to do some more. In Sept all going well we plan on climbing the Mountaineers Route up Mt Whitney (The largest Pk in the US outside of Alaska) as well as the large local 'Cactus to the Clouds' climb up San Jacinto. A huge 3000m+ ascent in a day.

The day after the climb I headed round to Al's place for a pool party celebrating 3 birthdays. It was 40 odd degrees again and Margaritas and a pool were just what the doctor ordered after the big day before.

Until next time keep safe,
Cheers,
Kurt


This is absolute gold...

Baseball, Beach, Swimming, Food Markets, Touch Rugby - What a weekend!!!

So the weekend that Chris and Em left I headed down to Dodgers Stadium with a few of the boys in Downtown LA. Derek is a big time Chicago Cubs fan (Baseball) and his team was playing against the LA Dodgers. Unfortunately the cubs lost. It was an ok game but personally once or twice a year will be heaps. Good experience though I must admit and it was cool to see another stadium and just go somewhere different. I had heard great things about the Dodger Dogs but they were as ‘crappy’ as every other hotdog I have had here. It’s a bit Ironic really that the American Hotdogs are so much better in NZ than in America.


A Great Stadium. Sits about 52000 people.


Love having a camera with a big zoom...





After the game since I was much nearer to Myles place at Manhattan Beach it made sense to hang out there for the weekend. Myles is one of the 4 other kiwis I know working here at ESRI. He is also like Edan from Christchurch (well Woodend) so yeah 3 Crusaders Supporters within 100m of each other at the ESRI campus. We all went to a lovely place for dinner in Manhattan Beach (great margaritas) and great Mexican (surprise, surprise). Myles and Ashley really have a cool wee pad down there. It’s a lovely place. On Sunday morning we played 1.5hrs of touch rugby South African style with a bunch of Sth Africans, Kiwis, Aussies and a few Poms and an agro Scotsman. It was heaps of fun and takes some getting use to running in sand and playing the 1 touch rule, instead of the 6 touch rule back home. This is a regular Sunday occurrence at Sth Santa Monica Beach. We got some lunch at a great wee market in Sth Santa Monica before checking out the AVP Beach Volleyball being played on the beach in Hermosa.




Its hot work running round in the sun on the sand...










One of the many poses. Still do note there is no woman sitting next to him :-)






Looking down to Manhattan Beach from Hermosa Beach

All in all another great weekend in pure Southern Californian Style = Dodgers baseball, freeways, beaches, volleyball, fine dining and mighty fine weather.

First Kiwis to Visit Me

Well it’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted which is not really all that long but I have been up to a bunch of stuff in that ensuing time. First and foremost I had my first Kiwi friends visit. Was great to see both Emily and Chris for 5 days before they took off in their Blood Red Rental Chrysler PT Cruiser for a great few week road trip from my place, through Las Vegas, to the Grand Canyon, up through Utah to finish in either Idaho or Montana before Chris competes in an Adventure Race.

They were not here for a weekend which was bad timing but I managed to take them to some yummy places for dinner, and on a Mtb ride in the local hills, as well as a little climb up to Forrest Falls.















The highlight however was taking the day off and heading to Six Flags Magic Mountain. A theme park which can only be described as one thing… Roller Coaster Mania!!! It’s essentially all we did for the whole day after a large 100 mile drive out there. Man I still cannot get over how many people on the freeways are in their cars by themselves. Despite the traffic we had a pretty clean run out there as we could use the single transit lane (you need 2 or more people in your car to take advantage of this lane). So here we are zipping along at 70miles while 4 or 5 lanes of traffic right next to us with single people (or dumb people) were chugging along at 30 miles. Go figure aye…

Anyhow I have a few pics of Magic Mountain and a video also. I was lots more brave after getting use to big rides on the Gold Coast earlier in the year, and with the addition of my small camera, well I had the guts to hang onto in on a few of the rides. I loved ‘The Riddler’, a standup coaster and the ‘Viper’ with 7 loops (both have video). Well in fact I liked most of them bar a very tame water ride. By far the scariest was the last ride we did with a line of 45 mins. It was called ‘Tatsu’ and is essentially a lie down coaster. It’s so scary because you are at the mercy of the machine completely the way it holds on to you, also because you cannot see where you are going. Freaky but real fun. It was the only one that I actually did not want it to last longer. No video of this sorry bar a little from the ground. J One thing missing was themed rides. They are often surprising amounts of fun like the ‘Scooby Doo’ ride on the Gold Coast at Movieworld, however I suspect all these rides and no doubt better ones are at Universal Studios.











Anyhow I had a great time with Em and Chris and I hope to entertain more of you with the delights of an oversized, overpopulated, smog ridden metropolis again soon J. Who will be next to visit me???

1st Race in the States...

First up I have put a video on youtube of some fun riding up at Big Bear. It was more technical track than last week and I had my big bike with me this time so it was great fun. Link is here. Make sure you have the player turned to high quality otherwise it does not look that good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl2KNyipuhM

Righto so I was meant to go to Sequoia and Kings Canyon Nat park but had been feeling bad for a while. Bronchitis has been doing the rounds and the feeling it in my chest last week so was not super keen on heading away for the weekend. However on Sat I improved a bit, still not right but enough to give my first Mtb race a nudge over here in the States. It was the Big Bear Shootout. Part of the Southern California MTB Champs. Anyhow it went real well. The whole race was above 2000m so that was interesting and the temp was 20 degrees so perfect for racing really. I entered the Sport Class, I will end up in the expert eventually I imagine. Anyhow I lined up on the start line for the race and was a little worried. People over here really have the gears, flash bikes, full matching lycra and here I was on my trusty steel stead with baggies on and an old torn Dons Bikes Race top the boys who are sponsored by them wanted me to wear.

Anyhow the race started and we were off. One guy shoot off and I thought "Arh,,, here we go... Pain, Pain, Pain". I just stuck with the group for a few mins and let the legs warm up then decided that it was strange as I thought the pace would have been harder. Anyhow I moved up a gear and pulled away and caught up with the guy that shoot off. He had blown-up (predictable) hang with him for a bit then decided to move it up another notch. To cut the story short I did not see anyone from my class again and bet 2nd place (yep I got first) by about 4 mins.

So yeah a great wee race to kick things off. With more prep and a few more sport races I will be keen to move into the faster Expert division. We shall see.

The last downhill was awesome. Most people seemed to ride it pretty well. I passed a bunch of people, it was real technical and pretty scary at speed. Very cool :-) Big Grins

One thing I have noticed, its hard to tell yet but the fields are tighter. Basically less 'Sunday riders' than at home. The people that participate seem to be pretty into it overall really and its there passion. Back home you get some real 'slow' people but they are giving it a go which is great which spreads the field out. Over here those that enter appear are a bit more serious. So yeah its good and bad I guess. Good for racing as it might be more competitive, but maybe its a less inviting more formal environment which scares some people away that would have raced had it been in the NZ scene. Don't get me wrong though. The top guys back home are as fast as the top guys here. Just and observation form my first race. I may well change this opinion.

Race Stats:

• 34km
• 1000m Climbing
• Prob 70% fireroad (but fun fireroad, well the downs that is)
• Rest single-track
• Total time 1hr 36mins.
• Liquid consumed in the hours following the race - many many gallons.

Yep. They all raise there hands over here like real gumbies...