Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Los Angeles

Mike and I woke up early and got some breakfast. Not too early mind you, my ride today was real short, just from Oxnard to LA to visit my bro for a day or two. After a nice meal of bacon and eggs at a local cafe that Mike recommended, I hit the road.


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I went into Santa Monica via the coast, which was beautiful. Lots of traffic tho, so I didn't get any pics, too busy trying not to get killed. Some sort of stinging insect flew inside my sleeve and started stinging me on the arm, which was painful until I could pull over and deal with it. I finally made it down to David's work and we got some lunch at a local taco shop. Man, it was great to get So-Cal mexican food again. Been missing that a *lot*.

David lives up in the San Fernando Valley, just north of LA, famous for porn stars and hot weather. He recommended I take the coast back up and SR-27 (Topicanga Canyon Rd), which was nice and curvy. If it weren't for the danged traffic, I could have had some real fun. But it was nice and pretty. Stopped at a park for a shot of the valley.

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Finally made it to his doorstep in the late afternoon. It was about 105F out and my bike had been doing fine. But as I stepped off, I noticed I had a coolant leak that had just started a few min ago. I let the bike cool off as I tried to figure out what to do, I couldn't really drive it anywhere. Luckily I had planned to stay with him the next day so I had a day to get it fixed.

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Had dinner that night with our mutual college buddy Chris, who we both hadn't seen in years. David knows some good places to eat, and we ate at the Peruvian place down the street, so good.

Woke up the next day and called around a few places to see what I could do. I took off all the panels on the bike (and the crash bars) to get to the hose. Apparently the pipe only has a lip on one side, so it looks like it had just vibrated off over time. I stopped by a local auto-parts store for coolant and a local grocery for distilled water. Snugged that baby back up and re-filled the radiator and over-flow tank to the right levels. Done.

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Normally I would explore the towns I stay in a bit more but I've been up here a few dozen times so I just went for a mid-afternoon walk. I didn't know LA County had a logo, cool.

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Had dinner that night with David, his fiance Kavitha and my friend Jason. Had some great Italian food while David and Jason discussed the virtues of Redondo Beach, where David just bought a house. Jason and I stayed up late that night talking about my trip and his new job in San Francisco. Good luck up there man! I had also tried to meet up with my elementary school buddy Jay while I was in the area but we were just too tired to make it out, so we decided to get breakfast the next day.

Tomorrow, San Diego!

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