Thanksgiving Trip: Some Driving Numbers and Thoughts

After returning home, and trying to settle down before going back to work, I started to crunch some driving numbers, with the help of Google Maps. The numbers of hours are a little off, since we drive a little faster than their algorithm alots, but the mileage seemed decent enough.

Last week I typed up here about the email I got from a boss about resting nicely, and I'd been wanting to respond to that email for days before getting back to work and seeing the other recipients. I never did, but one thought running through my head was like: I hope you all had a relaxing time that didn't involve strapping a toddler into a car-seat for forty hours.

That forty hours always seemed like a guesstimate, like twenty there and twenty back. We made the drive to Austin for Grandma June in something like 20 hours, but it turned out to be more like 22 because we gave up the hours. Austin is further than the Harrison Farm in Clarendon, but it's more of a straight shot across I-10, and then up. Amarillo and the Farm is on/off I-40, further north.

Anyway, I started the drive in Long Beach and went all the way to Blythe when Corrie took over; she finished the first night's drive at the hotel in Scottsdale. The next leg was her driving from Scottsdale to the Petrified Forrest in northern Arizona. I left from there and drove the leg to dinner that night in Grants, NM. She finished off that long travel day heading into Santa Rosa, NM, east of Albuquerque. The next morning I took the last quick leg from Santa Rosa into Amarillo for lunch, and Corrie drove us that last hour out to the Farm.

On the way home Corrie drove out of Clarendon all the way to Santa Rosa, and I took over from there and went the next 200 miles to Grants, where I sat in the car and read an email as she ran and got the key. The next day I drove the first leg, Grants to Flagstaff, Corrie drove from Flagstaff to Needles, in California, and I drove the rest of the way home, Needles into Barstow and down into the Southland.

My only Texas drive was that first hour from NM to Amarillo, and Corrie's only California drive was Blythe to the AZ border, and later the AZ border to Needles, a combined 20 miles. Weird when we put it together like that.

So, crunching the numbers got a little unwieldy. Observe:

According to Google Maps, the trek there was 1130 miles and the trek home was 1140 miles, give or take on both, and the time was around 35 hours. Corrie drove more getting there and I drove more getting back. I drove LA both times. It was neat to drive I-40; here is a reasonable two-lane freeway without much traffic. Cruise control works well, and with a 75 mph speed limit, the cruising is genuine.

When I took over in Needles, it was dark already but early, and a little later when I-40 ends in Barstow and you merge onto I-15, I realized that we'd just made it back to "LA."

Barstow is 55 miles north of San Bernardino, which itself is 70 miles away from us in Long Beach, but whereas I-40 is the direct opposite of nearly every drive I've ever made up or down I-5, switching over to the 15 was essentially being in LA again.

Freeway Inventory: Coming home I tried to take roads I don't know very well...like the 15 to the 60 or the 91 and over to the 710 I know quite well; I know what that drive is. Sometimes shitty, sometimes cool, and this was a Saturday night. Instead I left the 15 early for the 210 west into Claremont and Laverne, heading along the base of the mountains towards Pasadena. From there I took the 605 south, all the way into Long Beach, on the east side of town, and surface streets home.

I-605 is a funny highway. Not quite as fugly as our own "home" freeway, the 710, it lacks something nearly every freeway has around these parts: a destination marking that is the de facto name of the freeway.

Consider:

• I-710: Long Beach Freeway
• I-405: San Diego Freeway
• I-10: (in LA area) the Santa Monica Freeway
• I-5: Golden State Freeway
• CA 91: Artesia Freeway
• CA 22: Garden Grove Freeway
• I-210/CA 210: Foothill Freeway
• I-110: Harbor Freeway
• CA 90: Marina Freeway
• CA 57: Costa Mesa Freeway

Generally the names are the remnants of the old scheme that was done away with in the sixties for the current numbering scheme, and the names generally had to do with final destinations. I've noticed that neither the 105 nor the 605 have any kind of destination naming scheme entry, and for the entirety of southbound 605, every sign just said "THRU SOUTH".

Tangents aside, the Boy did quite well in the car for nearly an entire work week, only really freaking out the last hour or two, as I sped home. The last jaunt on 605 I had no more fucks to give, beyond making sure my wife and baby were going to remain living, and maneuvered through traffic (dense at 8:30 on a Saturday night) like Norm and I were headed to downtown Sac in my Datsun.

Apples! Again!

Last year I wrote about the varieties of apples we were getting, and you can read about here. This may turn into an annual thing.

This year as I was unloading the farm box, I noticed a yellowish apple with brown speckles, something you may see on a dusty tree living on a dusty ranch-type road. It had a sticker:

Ashmead's Kernel? I know kernels from linear algebra, but how do these words even make sense together? I had never heard of such a thing. I peeled the sticker off and took a big bite.

YES. An all-caps single word answer to the initial experience of the Ashmead's Kernel. The body was crisp, the meat tangy and sweet, with a tart ending that left you both thirsty and quenched. My my my, such a drab facade hiding such a wonderful thing.

The Ashemad's Kernel was first recorded in the UK back in the early 1700s, and is one of the very few British varieties that thrive in the US as well.

This year we haven't had the 18 separate varieties over two months like last year, but there have been a whole slew of new apples that, again, I had never ever heard of. For example:

The Northern Spy was developed in the 1840s near Rochester, NY. Our specimen was good, tart and sweet, but less transcendental that the Ashmead's Kernel, but the nearly mushy flesh may have played into that.

Another heretofore unknown to me apple variety:

The White Winter Pearmain. This apple was too mushy to get a full idea of how good it could be. The pearmain apple is from the UK originally, but this yellow one was only slightly more interesting than the yellow delicious you can find in supermarkets.

We also got a bag of the tiny and awesome Crimson Golds that we used to saute on a smoking pan with brandy and maple syrup for a pork garnish:

This year we also got a pair of Pink Pearls, but the pictures didn't come out so well. the cool thing with them is that the flesh has a pink band between the skin and the white flesh around the core. The flavor was as close to sweet tarts I've found in the apple world.

Also, I lined up one box's apple contents up like last year for a photo shoot. In this one particular box, we got seven different varieties with two each. The Arkansas Black's this year have been great, as have the Mutsu and the Calville Blancs.

Those Calville Blancs have been crisp and juicy, so I've been able to place the flavor, which last year it was tough because they were so mushy. Their flavor resembles lychees, which was a pleasant surprise. With each week the Ashmead's Kernels lose a bit of their incredible-ness, a reality I try to ignore.

APPLES!

Having Returned

At work we are associated with an improvement network, and I've been learning about improvement science. Previously I wasn't aware that there was such a thing.

A group email updating some information about upcoming events from a boss ended with: "I trust you are all resting nicely." I read it huddled in the car with a sleeping toddler as Corrie was checking into our night's stop that evening in Grants, a tiny mountain town in central New Mexico. It was after midnight and a blistering wind made the 34 degree night painfully frigid, at least for us beach denizens. We were on our way back to California.

"...resting nicely." I nodded to the email as it rested on the steering wheel.

I have a series of posts about Cassius's first trip to the Harrison Farm in Clarendon, TX, an hour south-east of Amarillo in the panhandle region of that enormous state.

It was magical. There was tractor riding, hornet battles, coyote howls in the darkness, and some pistol shooting. We got to the Petrified Forrest and later, Flagstaff. Cass even had a nice dinner with his Great Grandma Lorraine before we left Arizona for points east.

It was a great time, and one that will look better as time goes on and we begin to forget that we strapped our toddler into a car-seat for almost 40 hours, a full-time job's week worth of work.

But first I have at least one other post I have to get to before the Farm posts get going.

Urban Pumpkin Patches and the Petting Zoo

Somehow this year we missed our trip to Riley Farms for their U-pick for pumpkins and apples. I mean, sheesh, how'd we missed this? We were planning it for months, but when Corrie called to get some information she learned the apple harvest was over and the pumpkins were nearly done. Whoops, I guess.

We did get back over to Pa's Pumpkin Patch, our outskirts-of-town-urban pumpkin patch that parent drag their toddlers to every year:

They also had a petting zoo, where we subjected our Boy to sheep, goats...

...and chickens...

...among other critters.

Later on Corrie and Cass rode their tiny train as we introduced him to kettle corn:

As the season changes over we're beginning to see the holidays through the eyes of a person experiencing it for the first time. Last year Cass was here, but "experiencing" was limited at best. Even now, it's limited, but he has loads of fun doing these novel things.

Like Halloween. Our Boy missed Halloween this year, but mostly because he was sick. But also: we don't really live in a Trick-or-Treat area; he doesn't know what candy is; he doesn't really know what costumes are, and only has the mummy/chef outfit grandma sent him:

So, we're left with the for-the-parents pumpkin patches on the outskirts of town...

Did you see where I put that boat?

Apparently "abandoned on a random stretch of Eubank Ave" was the correct answer:

I drive on this stretch of Eubank everyday, and last Friday someone was there hammering away on the backside where a propeller might have been.

Strange scenes from the Southland...

Nobody Cries for the Yankees

The Yankees missed the pennant and a chance to play the Dodgers in the World Series by just a single game, losing game seven to the Astros the other night.

I got some condolence texts, but really, this year for the Yankees was only about developing their young players, many of whom---the really great ones---are still just kids in the minors. To even make the playoffs was a happy surprise. To beat the Twins in the play-in game, and then to knock out the Indians was amazing. To then be up 3 games to 2 on the Astros, one win away to make the Fall Classic with two chances to win? Incredible...

I was bummed, but not really broken up about it, because, dang, it's not like we Yankee fans are a tortured bunch. Sure we lost two games that could have sent us on to the ultimate challenge, but where do they rank on the list of heartbreaking losses?

Also, do Yankee fans like myself even have heartbreaking losses? Game 4 to Boston in 2004? Game 7 in Arizona in 2001? Those 2004 Yanks hold the dubious title of Only MLB Team to Lose a Best-Of-7 Series They Once Lead 3 Games to 0, and before game 7 started you knew Boston was going to win. I mean, Kevin Brown starting? He left in the second inning and the Red Sox were up by 10 or something...

We Yankee fans got to watch an all-timer go through his entire career as our shortstop with Derek Jeter. He won five World Series, and that's enough for any fan.

So, no, nobody really feels bad when we lose.

And, since this entire postseason has been just a gravy year, we know that our team is going to be poised for years to come, and create an entire new generation of haters.

Some Culture for the Boy

From September through February here in LA county many various art galleries are participating in an art event called Pacific Standard Time LA/LA. The "LA/LA" stands for Latin American and Latino Art. It's a celebration of many of the diverse local and not-necessarily-local-living-but-local-collections of works created by artists of a Latin American descent and the related diaspora.

We happen to be lucky enough to live less than a half-mile away from the MoLAA, the Museum of Latin American Art, apparently the only museum dedicated to contemporary Latin American art in the US. Of course they're participating prominently in the Pacific Standard Time event, and on Sundays they are free to the public.

This past Sunday I took Cassius over there to have a look see. They have a very cool sculpture outside that's very photogenic, and I've taken multiple pics over the years of the free-Sunday allowances using various cameras.

This past Sunday

While on the small side for a serious art gallery, the space was happily dense right now. The focus for their part of the PST LA/LA event is the art of the Caribbean islanders or the associated diaspora (that's twice for diaspora!).

Upon entering was a large video projection of the ocean as seen from a driving car along an ocean-side route. Called "Perpetual Horizon," the video tried to capture the feeling you get living on or growing up on an island, the ocean meeting the sky in a constant loop around your home.

The legacy of Columbus is felt all the time, and it's captured neatly in this rendering of the man himself:

It may be hard to tell, but those are staples on wood. I tried to take the picture so the light reflected in a way to be picked up by the camera, but the idea of sharp metal being embedded into nature drives home the point.

There were a few mobile pieces, like these silhouetted faces on strings that swayed, making for dynamic shadows:

There was a very expressive and beautiful---and quite large (4' x 7')---and very pink painting of the sinking of a (possibly fictional) ship called the Flamingo:

Possibly my favorite piece here.

One exhibit was a a mock up of the beach, but done with plastic garbage you'd find in the ocean, and all were correctly coordinating shades of blue (and I got a good picture of Cass, who tried to mess with everything):

That boundary was just his height.

There was an interactive piece with wooden bird calls, all of which looked like pepper mills:

One very striking and beautiful piece was actually multiple pieces put together, but they made for an enormous jungle scene:

Cass used for scale.

That was another one of my favorites.

The third set that I really dug on was the following triplet:

From a distance these three look like storms.

And that's what they are. BUT, they are artistic renderings of three separate hurricanes done in the medium of doily.

Yes, doily. Check out a detail:

I had no idea the power of doilies.

Around another turn was this cool vision of a grey sea:

But on the edges it looks like there are some frayed things, but upon closer inspection you see that what is making that ocean pattern look are actually all fish hooks nailed into the canvas:

How cool is that?

One of the last things I took a picture of was a series of photographs on light boxes, photos of awesome and colorful projections onto buildings and the like, from a series of nighttime exhibitions called "Starman Visits":

If you find yourself in the LA or LB area between now and February, you could do worse than to check out the gallery on a free Sunday.

I feel so lucky to be able to share this kind of thing with the Boy, even if he won't be able to remember this exact afternoon. I think the emphasis on exposure to and discussions of art and its importance is the main thing.

That's what I tell myself, anyway.