July 7 | Warming up!

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7 July: Warming up for the Trip in Southern Cal

As the first installment in our travel review, this page collects notes covering several days.[Pat's comment: Get ready, this has the potential to rival War and Peace] It is a sort of warm-up for the trip. We were too busy before we left to develop description of the plans, what plans we had.(Actually, we knew we had to go east.) In addition, the site focuses on our travels while driving Jack's white T-Bird to VA, so the section of our travels described here is a preliminary to that record.

Neverthless, there were some significant and happy events to report during this interval of the trip. Also, there are some preparations that will be relevant to the remainder of the trip [...like buying John a hat at a local dollar store to cover his head]. So, we provide here the "warm-up" or the "preliminary" to the main event.

One of the happy events to report was a party for my mother's 80th birthday. The party brought together many of Bobbie's best friends and a host of family members (including all of my siblings). Although Bobbie's birthday was on the 7th, we celebrated at her place on the 6th. Here's a photo of my mother with here great granddaughter, Montana, and Montana's father, Farhad.

Path

Our path began 4 July and led from C'ville to IAD. Pat drove her Explorer, with Corey and me as passengers. We left the Explorer (and Pat's cell phone) at IAD for Corey to use on her return from her brief stay in LA.

Pat and I traveled via JetBlue to LGB, where we hired a shuttle. About three-fourths of the way through the filight, a [VERY] large woman wearing a neck brace and sitting in the aisle seat next to me suddenly burst into a full-voice chorus of "God Bless America." When she finished, the other (a few) people on the flight applauded her performance and, demonstrating the power of reinforcement, she launched into another chorus. I was reminded of an incident when Corey and I were on bus in Naples during our European tour of 1988 [I was at home, working]; it was also the 4th of July and, as the bus filled with an international assortment of people on their way to tour Pompei passed a part of the harbor where many US Navy vessels were at anchor, a fellow passenger arose and launched into a loud, impromptu salute to the Navy, military force, the USA, etc. Coming on the heels of the US military's downing of an Iranian passenger jet, I found the speech unsettling.

For those who are not familiar with the Long Beach airport, there's lots to be learned about it. If one has only a modicum of imagination, it's easy to believe one has traveled back in time to the 1940s or 50s. The era could be invoked readily if one simply changed three features. If the director of a movie had people costumed in vintage clothing, hired vehicles--both planes and cars--from the target era, and banned cellphones from the set, he or she could create the image quickly. The terminal of LGB comes straight out of the

Pat went to her sister's in Hacienda Heights and I went to my mother's residence at Villa Gardens in Pasadena. After several days driving around the LA basin, we prepared to leave for the first leg of the driving adventure on Tuesday 8 July.

Sights

There's not much to report about the sights we saw in LA. We didn't go many places. However, I (John) did get the chance to see the last day of a show at bro' Frank's gallery (Frank Lloyd Gallery, not surprisingly) and the installation for the next show. The first featured George Ohr's amazing clay objects and Frank Gearhy's design for a musueum in Biloxi that will feature the Ohr work. The latter featured five ceramicists from Great Britain.If you're in LA, stop by the Frank Lloyd Gallery (B5b Bergamot Station, Santa Monica; 310 264-3866), as there's bound to be something interesting on display.

Food

Many of the meals during this phase of the trip we took with family. John's mother has an apartment at Villia Gardens and Pat's parents live at Merrill Gardens; both places provide sit-down meals for family and guests. We were glad to have the opportunity to use these facilities. They are close to our parents, our parents are accustomed to using them (introductions to friends form the facility are common, and our parents are--for some unfathomable reason--quite happy to show off their children [over, and over, and over again. I must have been introduced to the same person, 12 different times].

Beyond those dining facilities, we ate a few other places, including: (a) Mijares (honoring Jack, in large part); (b) Crocodile Pasadena (Frank and John had the four fish-type appetizers, which were good, and a couple of glasses of Wild Horse merlot); (c) Kathleen's (on N. Lake in Pasadena; it was one of Jack's favorites); (d) Le Petit Cafe (Frank and John) where the chevre appetizer was fine and the interesting white fish with 'shrooms and capers was a great idea that probably should have been cooked a little less); and (e) Playa Baja (the one further east on Beverly in Montebello; I think folks in the know call it "No. 2"). Kathleen's serves huge portions and the food is wonderfully greasy. Playa Baja is the choice of the Mexican places I visited. Of all these places, I'd return to Le Petit Cafe (2842 Colorado, Santa Monica, 310-829-6792) for another meal. I'll eat at the others, for sure, as they're known and servicable places.

Bird

Upon arrival, I went to Frank Lloyd's house in Eagle Rock to pick up the Thunderbird. Frank had kept if for me since December. I removed the cover and exposed it to the sun. With the hard top in place, it was ready to go for the immediate term. Pat and I had decided that we would make the cross-country trip using the soft top rather than the hard top--not much or a surprise, right? If we were going to get Jack to Virginia, he'd need to arrive in style. So we needed to prepare the hard top for shipping.

T-Bird hard tops come with a stand that keeps them safe. We needed it to be shipped, too. After many trials, we finally got the stand that came with the hardtop for the Thunderbird. We presumed Jack had it somewhere, but the attorney for the estate didn't find it on what we understood were at least two searches. Fortuantely, we were able to meet with the executor Monday the 7th and secure the stand for the top and the tonneaux cover for the open rear area.

Once I had the stand for the top, it was time to arrange for the entire set of materials to be shipped to NG, VA. So we shipped the top and accouterments. We removed the top and put it on its stand, ready for crating (image) and shipping to North Garden. I was very pleased with the services of Cookes Crating in LA. They ship fine arts, antiques, and such. The team--including Tom and Scott (l-r)--were wonderful about it. A special thanks goes to Wendell not only for working with an apprehensive owner, but making delivery flexible.

Birds

There's also not too much to report in this section for this segment of the trip. Probably the major avian interest was that pigeons (rock doves) roosted on the porch of the room my mother had reserved for me at Villa Gardens. There were several and they provided plenty of cooing for evening and morning sound effects. I imagine there was a good bit of billing going on, too.

Tunes

I (John) spent a bit of time recording music before we left North Garden. I put ~1300 songs on our 1st-generation iPod (15 gigs, for those who want to know, and there's still another 1+ gig to go). [My contribution was picking out the cds I wanted John to record.] I was left with a question about how to play the tunes through the WhiteBird's stereo system. Based on reviews from regular Mac folks and the exigencies of the situation, I chose to obtain an iTrip FM transmitter. (We couldn't use one of the systems based on a link via a tape casette, as the WhiteBird has no tape player; the competitor to the iTrip permits narrowcast over only a few frequencies, so I went with the iTrip.) I should note that, even with Corey Jo's help, I was not yet facile with using it by the time the trip began. Some struggles were likely ahead of me [aw, tension]....But, we had a stash of three CDs from some earlier explorations, so we could listen to them, PRN.

Runs

I was able to run a couple of times during the warm-up phase. There were the usual impediments: (a) time change, (b) different sitting and sleeping conditions, leading to changes in my back and, hence, my hip and legs; (c) continued recovery from the weakness of the sinus infections of June, and the recovery from taking a month's worth of antibiotics; and (d) my sloth. I managed

An acceptable Bob Davidson (i.e., 25 min) one morning,
A give-up (i.e., < 10 min) the next morning,
A respectable 38 min the 8th.

All in all, not days about which to crow, but I have to consider them in the larger context. I am running. I have had ups and downs over the 20+ years I've been out on the roads. It's O.K.