TWNW #13

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Well it looks like my time in Los Angeles is drawing to a close; I'm leaving tomorrow morning for points east.

It was a busy past couple of days! Yesterday morning Jake and Gordon and I went to the L.A.P.D. Academy Diner for breakfast. For some reason the Police Academy has a diner/commissary thing that's open to the public so we went to eat some cop eggs and a cop burrito.

Please let's no one make a joke about bacon, it's been done to death already. A few of those go a long way in polite company, I was advised.

Anyway it was a fine breakfast, maybe even L.A.'s finest breakfast. Wheeeeee I got jokes! Crackin myself up over here. To Protect and Serve Breakfast All Day! Zzzzzzzing! I'm sorry.

Going again people, everybody safely back to one: it was a fine breakfast and the Academy grounds are in arguably the best real estate section of the city, up in the hills next to Dodger Stadium. All curvy paths and giant trees and rolling hills, with Spanish-style buildings that were put up as the main complex for the 1932 Olympics.

I came out here a couple of years ago to see about joining the L.A.P.D., remember? I got halfway through the application process and then I freaked out a little bit and skeedaddled back to Texas. This was in the very muck of my divorce adventure, is why. I wish I'd handled that better.

But so anyway being a cop out here was a second-string dream of mine for a while and I wonder what things would be like if I'd finished the process and become a cop. I still think I'd be pretty good at it, with my imposing physical presence and my obdurate disregard for ethics.

Then what? Hmm, finished up the bike stuff which took a while because Jake made me a cargo rack addendum so my gear will stay on better. Because I was involved, it took a long time and changes had to be made at the installation stage because while I can pick out a ruler in a room full of other things I don't really know what they do or how to use them.

But it looks great, the bike does, and I think the new stuff will really be a plus on the rest of my trip.

The bike's name is all-but-officially Milkbear, I think. Because of the logo. I know it doesn't make a bit of sense but it looks great and it sounds kind of funny so that's that. Milkbear!

It's out of my hands now anyway. The Milkbear concept just...sprouted wings and it's a whole deal now; I don't want to brag but you're reading the blog of the President of the MBMC (MilkBear Motorcycle Club), Coldspring Original. There's an Echo Park chapter too, but there's a real leadership void out there. Along with the standard gun-running and dope production gigs, we'll mostly be riding around having adventures and thinking up cool ideas for patches. We came here to drink milk with bears and kick ass...and the bears are getting sleepy.

We're two-percenters, if you had to ask.

Today the Milkbear and I made good on my vow to ride alongside the ocean. I went solo out to Malibu through Topanga Canyon, then up to just shy of Santa Barbara before I got bored and snapped the obligatory pictures and took the interstate back home. Yes okay fine, I should have done the epic part of that road when I came down through northern California, but I have a feeling that I would have been bored up there too.

I hate being bored, I think it says more about me than what I'm bored with, but today I was in a great mood and the weather was sunny and it should have been great, except it kind of sucked. I was glad to get back on the interstate; I love interstates.

I'm being a bad moto-guy. I'm supposed to abhor the super-slab and crave twisty scenic roads like a zombie craves brains, but I'm not there lately. On the old bike, the stalwart KLR, twisty roads were a lot more fun than highways because it had a top speed of 12mph or so but it cornered great at twisty-scenic-road speeds. This bike though, it gets bored at those speeds and feels like it might as well be wobbling around in a narrow, scenic parking lot. Yes: I could wick it up to track-day speeds and hang off in the corners and get a knee down etc etc (note: I couldn't really do those things) but I'm not stupid enough to go that fast on an interesting road I'm unfamiliar with. All those blind curves, all those hidden driveways, all those Toyotas full of scrap metal and leaf-blowers. Too dangerous.

But the interstate though? Optimal lines of sight, high (i.e., stable) speeds, and the people using the same road as you are doing more or less predictable things. Fewer unknown variables, I guess. I mean you still have to be ready for crazy disasters to happen to you on the interstate, which is a full-time job when I'm riding, but scripts about what to look out for and where to dodge at any given moment start to run in the background of your brain after a while.

Anyway, what? Yes, right, the trip to the ocean. The Topanga Canyon road spills out onto Highway 1/Pacific Coast Highway at Malibu. Malibu is 27 miles long. So great big hills on one side, and surprisingly tacky little edge-to-edge houses on the other, with glimpses of the ocean from time to time and stoplights all over the place, for 27 miles. Then the road goes inland for a minute, then there's a mini-city (Oxnard?), then there's some fog and it gets chilly so you turn around and slab it on home.

So there: I rode along the ocean for a while. It was boring and sucky. Next!

Tomorrow bright and early I'm pointing the Milkbear back east, because I have to be in San Antonio by August 1st; there's a curriculum conference that won't be able to proceed unless I'm there in the back row pretending to be awake. So tomorrow's ride will take me out of California and into Arizona and if there's time I'll detour through the more photogenic and exciting northern part, and I'll put up a message from there telling you all about it. If there's no time for scenery I'll stay on the 10 through the ugly part and I'll tell you about that, too.

Thank you for reading, still.

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Photos

LAPD Academy
a.k.a. The Rodney King Memorial Learning Center

LAPD Diner
Gordon's not a cop though, I made sure.

A Milkbear Goes...
vvvrrrrrroomvvrooooom etc

Look at the ocean.
Look at it.