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Published: June 25th 2017
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The Rock Store
The Rock Store is one of the most famous motorcyclist and biker hangouts in the world. Geo: 34.2809, -119.292
The reason we had a meandering slow-motion drive to close out our Route 66 experience was in the hope that we'd be able to hook up with a friend we had met in a Costa Rican pool some years ago. Having spent time within the U.S. political system on the Democratic side of the fence, when we first met him, Lance S seemed slightly left of Fidel Castro, but he seems to have mellowed with time. Instead of "capitalist pigs" he was now referring to the 1% as “financial backers” as he considers running for the Mayor of Malibu (actually I think everyone runs for councilman and they take turns being Mayor- very Californian).
Soon-to-be-Mayor Lance had recently sent us photos of him riding a motorcycle in the neighbouring canyons with a naked woman snuggly behind him on the back of the bike. Since I'm not allowed to look at naked women, the thing that caught my eye was the amazing landscapes and the road they were on, and Lance volunteered to take us on a ride through this same area (thankfully not on the back of his bike, and, even better, not naked).
After the driving tour, Lance took us
to an Oceanside restaurant for the requisite seafood lunch, and then showed us the mansions of Malibu that were soon to be sporting "Lance Chance To Elect A Great Mayor" signs. He even drove us by the bar where I suspect he was drinking with his buddy Mel Gibson on the night of Mel's career-ending racist rant (after being pulled over for DUI).
Malibu is a beautiful coastal town for the 1% and the fact that the next mayor will be an anti-fracking socialist who spends his weekends riding around with naked women on the back of his bike, should make for plenty of colour and intrigue.
After saying goodbye to Comrade Lance, we started our Ocean Road adventure. Aside from the spectacular views, we were already running into a number of quirky stops but the chart topper for me was an archeological site in the dunes just outside of Guadelope. What were they looking for? Believe it or not, Egyptian ruins.
Outside of Deb P (who might think that Egypt is somewhere in California) most of our readers have probably surmised that these weren't authentic Egyptian ruins- they are the remnants of a massive movie set that was created
for Cecil B DeMille's original 10 Commandments movie in 1923. It may have been the most expensive movie of the silent era- building the set to replicate Ancient Egypt involved 168,000 metres of lumber, 11,000kg of nails and 300 tons of plaster. After completing the movie DeMille ordered the set destroyed and buried in the sand dunes of Guadelope so rival filmmakers could use to set to complete a cheap version of his movie. I don't know what I find more compelling; the idea that Ancient Egypt was rebuilt on some dunes just north of Hollywood, the idea that the set was destroyed to prevent a cheap movie knock-off, the idea that a trained archeologist has been digging, grid fashion, within the dunes trying to find the ruins, or the idea that a museum has been established to display the 'finds' of this dig. DH is also somewhat mystified by the entire project but, of course, has a bigger struggle with the idea that I find any of this ‘compelling'. She did, however, get out of the car in order to visit the museum, so it ranked higher than some other sites we've been to.
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Amanda
non-member comment
more importantly, who is better looking......