CANYON CRUISIN

Not a lot happening recently.  We bought Mom a couple of puzzles for Christmas and set up the card table for her to work on.  We got dragooned into it as well.  All we need now is the horrible weather they’re having back east to justify staying inside and working on them.

In mid-January we took another RV outing with the Caravan Club to Lake Perris, which is about 90 miles ESE of here.  This is a good outing for Mom as there is water and electric hookups, and a grey water dump right at the site.  The three of us can do well for the five days of the trip.  The weather was quite warm during the day, and cooled down only to the 50’s at night.  That’s about 40 degrees hotter than the high back in Indy.  Mom was a happy camper.  This was a pretty routine caravan, so I didn’t bother taking many pictures.  Mom used her spare time to work on a blanket for the newest-to-be great, great granchild back in Ohio (my late sister, Nancy’s progeny).  One thing that was neat about this trip was the rising of the full moon  after the air became a little dusky from a large fire that broke out about 40 miles away.  This shot really doesn’t do it justice, but it’s the best my pocket camera can muster.

As usual, we ate ourselves silly.   Our sub-group within the Caravan, the Past Tents, is blessed with good cooks across the boards, and our potluck dinner was incredible for its variety and – dare I say it – healthiness!  Lots of veggie and greens dishes with all sorts of grains and such.  You could (and I did) pig out and still feel virtuous.

Oh, yeah.  The title of this was Canyon Cruisin.  That didn’t have anything to do with the RV, but was another scoot trip, this time an 85 miler into all sorts of twisty roads snaking through the western Santa Monica mountains. 

It was a small group, starting out as 12.  The meetup place was just down the road from us and I was happy to see my old frat bro, Dave, had joined the group.  We took off up PCH for our jumping-off point into the hills.  One of the group uses one of those helmet cams to film the rides, and he edits it down to a manageable length.  Here is the link to this round of scooting.  I’m not in most of the shots (look for the yellow jacket) as I was riding “sweep,” and bringing up the rear to watch for stragglers.  Actually, that’s right where I belonged as I, Dave, and one other guy were significantly slower than the rest.  Dave had a bit of bad luck (actually, mixed with good) when he lost his rear brake as we were coming down out of the hills for our first break.  Bad, because he had to go home, but good because it happened close to PCH and not in the middle of nowhere, and he didn’t kill himself on any precipitous corner.  My only mishap was putting my inside foot down in a tight corner.  I forgot that the hiking boots I was wearing are designed to grip, not slide.  They worked as designed, but not as I intended, and my foot went “sproing” and whipped back, twisting my ankle and banging it on the edge of the foot platform.  Fortunately, no sprain and only a minor bruise, but I learned my lesson.  Neither I nor the scoot is made for leaning over that far in turns. 

There is a photographer that works a particular twisty near the famed Rock Store.  He takes photos of everything that moves through the corner.  For a little while, at least, there’s one of me at this url.  I tried to purchase a download of it, but it takes 3 days to a week to deliver (in the computer age?), so no go on that one.

We finished the day at Duke’s Restaurant in Malibu (the logo for which was on the video above), where I was the only fish taco eater amongst a crowd of burgers.  I will live forever!