We came across another event going on in the Little Italy District - one street had been closed down for a few blocks. It was filled with stalls selling all kinds of Italian food, as well as handcrafts and other goods, The street was packed with people and everyone was having a good time. They had a couple of bands going at each end of the festival and as the evening rolled around, people meandered away and into the many cafes and restaurants nearby as the sun was setting over San Diego Bay. We left after having a nice dinner.
I have been following your whole thread, and it really has been a treat. Also it has been very interesting to see the changing nature of your posts from start to finish . Some of your early posts had some typical these-yanks-are-stupid-we-aussies-are-miles-better casts to them. Not surprising,really, as all Australians and New Zealanders are told daily on the News and other Television how terrific it is in Europe, and how ghastly America is. As you have discovered on your trip, that is nowhere even close to the truth. With the Car Hobby and, particularly, this venue in Cyberspace, to bind us together, we can appreciate and enjoy varied places and people, not come to other places with such unjustified bias..... And, as an aside....My Erco Pedestal Shrinker still has it`s Ryan Aircraft tag. I`ve always wondered if it really was used on Lindbergh`s plane........
I was born in southern California because my mom and dad were building airplanes at Douglas. I have my dad's machinist tool box with the Douglas logo and his name on it. By the way when the Japanese heard that I was born they surrendered.
And, my dad's toolbox had the Lockhead logo on it. We owe a lot to that generation. And, we thank Dad-Bud for his American travels to put this al in perspetive for us.
I totally agree. God Bless that generation, too bad we blew it. Thanks Dad-Bud for showing us what's left.
Hi there Kiwi Tinbender, I'm glad you've been enjoying the journey along with us. I'm really interested in your comment about the changing nature of my posts. I'm certainly not going to argue that they changed as we progressed along the way - they have been a reflection of what had been in the forefront of my thinking as the weeks unfolded. Some of my thought have been a bit raw and I feel that is just part of the evolution of the journey. I haven't gone back through the thread to reflect on your take that I rolled out the Antipodean notion that Euro-centric culture is best. I do agree that that line does get rammed down our throats by educators and much of the media at home which influences the psyche of our nations. As for stupid Yanks, there are unquestionably many many really dumb ones, just like there is an unfortunate abundance of stupid Aussies, Kiwis, Poms, Frogs, Jerrys, Latinos, Canucks, etc, etc. I prefer to believe I measure intelligence on an individual basis than cast a blanket over a whole nation but accept that if I provided a different slant throughout my posts I have to take that on the chin. I've always considered myself very much a Yankophile, growing up during the space race and being awed by the immense capabilities of US industrial power - putting a man on the moon within 3 generations of man's first successful baby steps into the air was a reflection of the exponential technological progress that just exploded as the American Century developed. The 2 generations since have had distractions of regional wars (clearly nowhere near as distracting as two World Wars must have been though), the realisation that control of oil is crucial to the world economy running smoothly, the enlightenment of man (the world is no longer dominated only by white Anglo-Saxon males (Obama, Arabs, China, women, gays)) the unforeseen influence of the digital phenomenon (computers, software, the internet, smart devices, connectivity, immediate communications, live news, etc), but when we look back and reflect on the 40-50 years since Apollo, should we consider the time and energies less well spent? I wouldn't have thought of myself having unjustified bias against the US but I'm not going to get drawn into an argument on it. If you believe my posts have had that underlying message, you're en***led to your opinion whether I agree with it or not. Your post has caused an explosion of thought for me, and for that I am truly grateful. My head is spinning from wanting to respond to so many subtle nuances but I've probably 'lost' most readers with my ramblings already. I agree 100% with you that this place has been a great influence for us in the Car Hobby. I think that we have all been provided with a great opportunity to see that even though we come from so many different backgrounds, we have a heck of a lot in common. As for your Erco Pedestal Shrinker - I'm jealous. I'm dreaming of some tin-bending tooling, but just spent all my money on an 8 week adventure. I guess it comes down to priorities, doesn't it? You can only spend the same dollar once. Thanks again for your thought-provoking input. Cheers. DB
Hey Six Ball. If you believe you were born because your mum and dad were building airplanes at Douglas, I think you're missing the point. I'm sure they loved each other and you would have been born even if they were working elsewhere. And I think you may have somewhat over-estimated your true influence on the geo-political outcomes of WW2. Conventional wisdom suggests that the names Little Boy or Fat Man related to the A-bombs, not you, but if you have a true revelation for world history, then it is time to get it out there. Haha. (Just joking - my mind is still ticking over from Kiwi Tinbender's thought-provoking post and I thought a smart-**** response might help flush my brain out - it's either that or a couple of pills and a bucket full of silly-soup).
Cheers dmorago. I agree wholeheartedly with you and Six Ball that the generation who devoted everything to fight tyranny from the Axis powers deserve nothing but admiration and thanks. It's hard to imagine that hot-rodding would even exist today without their efforts and sacrifices.
DB, I didn't see any of that just someone seeing it from another background. I think we all changed a bit from the beginning to the end of your trip. I'm glad you came and shared your thoughts. You made me want to see more. Thanks for Beaver Crossing and I'm glad you took highway 12 in Utah. I'm pretty good with the SW and Central to South West Coast, Montana to Texas but the rest is unknown to me. I need to get at it. Thanks!!
You don't need expansion joints if you provide expansion loops to absorb the expansion (or contraction).
Hey there Six Ball. I must admit I was taken aback a little by Kiwi Tinbender's POV, but while I mightn't completely agree with him, he has every right to propose his view. It really got me thinking about a cubic mile of ****, but in a really good way. I agree that the journey has changed me, and the chance to develop and spout my own layer of BS has been enlightening. I am glad the responses have been so positive all the way through. I'm also joyed that our trip might influence you (and maybe others) to hit the road to new places. There's so much to see. It's a wonderland out there. Thanks for all your help.
My family goes way back in San Diego history and aircraft building. My wife's grandfather welded up the fuel tank for Lindberg's plane. The original Aeorspace museum was located on the Prado in the Electric building. Unfortunatly it burned to the ground along with an extensive collection including the only replica of Lindberg's plane. The museum you saw started with almost nothing. The Electric building was rebuilt and now houses the San Diego Model Railroad museum, the Sports museum and the San Diego Historical Society. It's been several years since I have been there so some of the tenants may have changed.
Dad-Bud.....I appreciate your thoughtful reply more than you know. I don`t think that you had an` unjustified bias` at all, but rather a residue of the subtle but continuous media deluge so apparent downunder. In fact, your last sentence to Six Ball says alot. I will be going to SEMA on Tuesday morning , and am in a group of guys that includes another Aussie. He is flying here for the show, and is staying in our area for a week afterwards. I will be interested to see his reactions to that small cross section of Automotive life... I remember my first trip here in 1984 having some of the same sets of feelings and results. I have lived here almost 30 years now, and love it, but I will always be a Kiwi. That said, I know I am different because of those travel experiences, and, indeed, the results of being exposed to other cultures, countries and ideas on this forum has made a difference too. I travel back to New Zealand every year, and encounter some terrible viewpoints...... I`m glad you had a great trip. Perhaps I will eventually get over to your part of the world... and if you come back over at any time, get in touch. There is always a bed here at the House.... Perhaps I can be generous in light of the Rugby result...(couldn`t resist....)
Hey there Kiwi Tinbender. First, (through gritted teeth), Congratulations to all New Zullanders on the All Blacks winning the Rugby World Cup. BTW, I've never understood the 'cross-country wrestling' - I'm an AFL guy who played a bit, so I didn't see any of the games. I understand it was as good as it gets. The 1st Cricket Test between our nations starts this Thursday, which might be a bit interesting - although, ........ should we discuss the Cricket World Cup from earlier this year?, or are we just OK now? I'd love to visit to attend a SEMA show. Timing-wise, this year is not the right year for us, but maybe next year or the year after. I've heard about SEMA shows in rodding mags for many many years but hadn't quite joined-the-dots on the 'what' or the 'why'. I'm sure those will quickly become apparent after a visit and you never know, it might prove to be a lightbulb moment - I guess I'll find out one day. Our recent trip (the subject of this thread) was our 10th visit to the US since our first in 1985 - not a record, but we're pretty pleased to have had that many. If we added them all together, we would have spent nearly 6 months in the US, but visiting another country is not the same as living there. (We know because we've lived in the UK twice for two years each time (85-87 and 11-13) - woulda preferred for the opportunities to be in the States, but they were in London) I've always dreamed of living in the US and admire your ability to achieve that prize. I've never felt I've been in a position to pack up everything and head over to try our luck. There were always too many hurdles, real or imagined. It's probably just an excuse, but so be it. That's how I roll. As you say, visiting and living in different environments gives you different perspectives on so many things. I'd also love to sit down with you over a cold beer or two (or three or ..........) and ponder on how we might go about trying to fix parts of the world (or at least the bits that really pi** us off) - I'm sure that after a few beers or decent red wines we'd be agreeing on defining the problems, then we could set about identifying the fixes of those most likely to have caused the headaches for us. It always seems to work pretty good while I'm doing that with a couple of mates I've got - if only we could remember the 'answers' the next day, we might even achieve something (other than a dry mouth and a headache). Ah well, maybe we might even get a chance to action that one day. Anyway, I really mean thanks for your $0.02. As I tried to say, I really did appreciate your thoughts even if I didn't agree with all of them. It stretched my mind about a couple of things, and I always consider that a good thing. Cheers Digger.
It's been a busy time since getting home. I've had to jump across to Melbourne for a week to take care of some now overdue family business. It's just more excuses for why I haven't finished, I realise, so I should just get on and keep posting about our trip, so here goes....... Day 52 - San Diego to Palm Springs It's not a looooooong way from SD to Palm Springs, and there are easy ways and there are less-easy ways to get there. Being the 'adventurous types', we headed up I-15 to Escondido and then across country (and hills) to get there. The road was in pretty good shape, the traffic was dense, but moving pretty well through the winding and rolling countryside and all-in-all the drive was pretty enjoyable. The hills were rugged and covered in small boulders for large parts of the trip, but there were a few farms or ranches with some horses, etc along the way. It didn't look like anyone was getting really rich from agriculture in this part of the US, but they seemed to be surviving. The weather was hot but the sky was hazy. After cresting the mountains to the south of Palm Desert and Palm Springs, you get a vista of the cities resting along the floor of the valley. The winding road was fun to drive down - not too tight, but enough to be interesting. We stayed in an older resort motel just out of Palm Springs which proved to be wonderful. Very 60's in its decor but with all the modern facilities you might hope for, and just about the best value place we stayed in during our trip. No night-time photos of Palm Springs or Palm Desert - there's not that much to see at night, but we had a quiet night and were winding down from the previous 7+ weeks on the road.
Day 53 - Palm Springs to Downey Our last week wasn't so well planned - I had tried to plot out our path through the previous journey and kinda kept the last week up our sleeve to be used in case we got held up along the way or we couldn't keep up to the pace. That doesn't mean our last week was 'lost', just that we were happy kicking back and taking it easy. Getting up later in the mornings, etc. Why am I saying this? We didn't take so many photos, so I don't have so much to post - hence only one post covering the day before. I'm not trying to short-change the tale of our journey because we are now home, just so you understand the reason there is less to tell. Anyway, we headed out of Palm Springs back towards LA. The mountains 'behind' Palm Springs that we had driven over the day before. Just out of town, alongside I-10, you drive past a forest of wind turbines - there are literally thousands of them - over 4000 to be precise. Positioned to take advantage of the area being one of the windiest places in the USA. Being a tight-****, as I am, we had spent a bit of time the previous night looking through where might be reasonable value accommodation in LA. Not wanting to pay $250 a night, but also not wanting to stay 100 miles out of LA or catch some disease from some old flea-pit joint, or get mugged being in an unsavoury neighbourhood, we finally settled on Downey. Sight somewhat unseen. Prices were OK and it was pretty central to most of LA as well as being not too far from the airport for when we were to leave after a few days, so that was to be our destination. Palm Springs to Downey is a pretty easy journey and we could have done it in just over an hour - how boring would that be?
We rattled our brains about where we could head, and settled on Griffiths Observatory, just to the north side of downtown LA. Mrs DB has more than a p***ing interest in astronomy - she has taken a couple of adult education courses out of interest and can name many of the stars in the heavens without reference to star charts, etc. I figured that, as as I had 'dragged' her along to car events, museums, etc, it was only fair to visit a place she had been wanting to visit for a while. (Geez I'm a nice guy, aren't I?) While the observatory is small and doesn't do much in the way of star-gazing, it provides a spot for locals to come to think about the stars, look at a couple of cool exhibits, attend a planetarium presentation and generally connect with stars of another kind to Hollywood. (This is the view to the west)
We spent a few hours there, looking at the exhibits as well as taking in the great views south over LA and the urban expanse that surrounds it. A**** the exhibits was a Tesla generator which was an early theory he had about distributing electricity through the air. I'm glad it never caught on, as it would have been a bit freaky. They turned on the operating Tesla Coil which brought the previously 'dead' neon signs in the foreground to shine without any wires. It was interesting and a little bit weird, but interesting. (Yeah, I know I repeated myself - did I say it was interesting?) Downtown LA has grown a lot over the years since we first visited 30 years earlier. The number of very tall buildings has increased a lot
After spending a few hours there at Griffiths Observatory, we ventured into the LA peak time traffic and made our way to Downey. The traffic was heavy - real heavy with plenty of snarls along the way, and the roads are really rundown with lots of broken surface and plenty of potholes - undoubtedly due to the enormous traffic loads and the difficulty in shutting down roads to spend time on repairing them (plus not doing anything saves spending money - any accountant can tell you that!). Downey turned out to be OK. Sure, it's not Beverley Hills, but neither is it East LA. We got ourselves a good feed at a local diner and settled into the recently renovated motel, pretty pleased with our choice.
The Griffith Park Observatory is a great place to visit for outer space geeks. Many years ago I saw the "Laserium" show in the dome: very cool multi-colored laser lights with fantastic instrumental music. It was a great experience.
dad-bud, again thanks for sharing this journey with us gear-heads. I now live in Palm Desert and am glad you got to visit our area. From your discription of navigating downtown LA, you reminded me why I moved out of there. I lived in the Pasadena and worked downtown LA (in the Twin Towers) for nearly 20 years. **** M
Hi there tom124. As I said, Mrs DB has a star-lust - about 15 or more years ago, we hand ground and polished a 10" optical gl*** blank into a reflecting mirror and built a telescope for her to gaze at the stars. The mirror was actually a really interesting process - it took us many weeks but we ended up with a near-perfect mirror - accurate to approx 1/10th of a wavelength of light, which is a decimal inch with many noughts before the 1. The only way to measure it is with lighting trickery. I rely on her to tell me which stars are which - I don't need to know for myself if I have someone close to hand who knows for me. I guess if that makes us space geeks, then, guilty as charged. Having already confessed my geekdom for things rocketry and space travel in previous posts, I did appreciate the Griffiths Observatory and its sciency exhibits, and admire the great generosity of visionaries such as Griffiths who built the observatory and then donated the land to LA. The story goes that LA city didn't really want it at first because they thought it was a bit too far out of town and would cost them more than they wanted to spend building a road there. Fortunately, it all turned out OK and is now a wonderful ***et for the people of LA and also from anywhere else, who might visit.
"The traffic was heavy - real heavy with plenty of snarls along the way, and the roads are really rundown with lots of broken surface and plenty of potholes - undoubtedly due to the enormous traffic loads and the difficulty in shutting down roads to spend time on repairing them (plus not doing anything saves spending money ---------" Every time I go to a heavily populated area I am overwhelmed by the infrastructure it takes to make it work. Up here on the hill one old guy is in charge of making electricity show up at the plugs, water run from the faucets, toilets flush into the septic tank, propane flow through the lines to the burners, vehicles run up and down the road and even keep the two miles of road p***able. To get all of that to millions of homes and businesses blows me away. If some of it is in disrepair, I get it. There was snow this morning! No wonder I don't get hot rods built.
Thanks dmorago (****). I thought Palm Springs / Palm Desert was a nice community. We didn't spend long there but found it easy to get around with open streets laid out in a grid pattern. The sun was beaming down which made it obvious that it must get pretty hot there for a number of months each year. In Perth, Western Australia where we live, our daytime temps are very similar to those in LA, which is maybe not quite as hot as in PS/PD. We are fortunate that Perth gets very regular afternoon reasonable sea-breezes which knocks the temps down from 100+ to around 75 just about every day, so later in the afternoon it becomes a very very pleasant place to be. If it just stayed hot day and night, I reckon that the population would only be a tenth of the current two million. After driving so many miles around the US, I observed that you guys are absolutely blessed with your road system. Sure, some of it is getting a bit tired, but the vast majority is excellent. Everywhere we went, the roads were laid out to minimise travel times, reduce congestion and avoid risk to drivers where possible. American drivers are generally good-willed towards others (except maybe for a few in the largest cities where it's a bit more dog-eat-dog). Australia has many fewer roads and they are not developed to anywhere near the same extent. The major arteries take decades of tail-backs and congestion before anything is done about them, then the replacement roads are built to a very high standard but take forever. They quickly fill again and the cycle continues. An example is the main road between Melbourne and Sydney - the Hume Highway. The road is about 500 miles long, joining the two largest cities in Australia, spanning two states. The state of Victoria, the Melbourne end, completed making freeway standard two dual lanes for about 200 miles to the state border around 10 -15 years ago. New South Wales, the Sydney end, has only just completed theirs 2 years ago. They had a few hills to go over or around which slowed them down. (Australia's hills are very minor compared to your mountains - not even as big as the Appalachians), but the cost and effort was still been too great for NSW to commit to joining the two biggest cities in the country until recently. Hundreds died on the old two-lane blacktop road in the past 50+ years since freeway style roads became common elsewhere around the world but even this death toll still forced no urgent progress. The roads that do get built are very high quality with landscaped and manicured verges but we have far too few of them to justify the road and fuel taxes we pay. I am disappointed at how backward we are here in Australia when it comes to roads and feel we do not get value for our money. I wish some of our road decision makers would spend some time, as we did, actually getting to grips with roads in other advanced countries. Your original point, before I started waffling on about how badly done by we are in Australia, was the dense traffic in LA. Having worked and lived in London for a couple of years recently (2011-13), even LA traffic is a walk in the park compared to the total grid-lock that occurs in British cities which were laid out hundreds of years before anyone ever dreamed of the first car. The US and Australia are very lucky with being so much younger and having the ability to adapt and adopt to cars. It might mean less public transport, but who a**** us (here on the HAMB) really wants better public transport? While I might moan about missed opportunities for roads in Australia, we are still lucky compared to olde-world built environments. (I get it that Boston, NY, etc have tighter spaces available, but they are generally the exception in the US rather than the norm). (Anyway, I'm sure this will start a fire-storm of those wishing to take me to task or correct me for my broad-brush generalisations - so be it. That's the risk of having an opinion and sharing it). We thought Pasadena is a really nice area - again, not Beverley Hills nice, but nice easy-going and without too many h***les. We reckon we could live there without too much drama. Anyway, thanks again ****
Thanks 1949 caddyman - I am embarr***ed by such praise, and very glad that you have enjoyed our trip. Cheers.
Day 54 - Downey, Compton, Torrance, Pomona and the LA Hills Our first port of call this morning was to the local McDonalds store. Not to eat their fare, but to see the 3rd ever McDonalds - the oldest store that still exists, which was 'restored' around 20 years ago and with a Maccas museum that doubles as a partially enclosed seating and eating area. As it's 20 years since the last restoration, as you might imagine, it's getting a little tired again and will probably need another lick of paint and a shipload of spackle fairly soon. The museum section is fairly light-on but has a do***entary on the evolution of McDonald's that is on a continuous loop and tells the tale of the (now 2nd) biggest fast-food chain in the world. (Subway is now the biggest, I understand). From here, we dropped in to see Al Montana in Compton. Al ships cars (and just about anything else) from the US to Australia, and has been doing so for around 30 years. I used Al about 10 years ago to ship a few cars to Perth for myself (plus one for a neighbour) - I've still got all of the ones I bought. Al surprised me by remembering me after 10 years and hundreds or thousands of customers in the meantime. I just wanted to say "G'day" and get a contact in Perth for shipping any parts or cars at this time. Al was very helpful and suggested we meet him at Redondo Beach on Friday afternoon for a weekly car gathering. After there, we dropped down to Torrance - to see Edelbrock and perhaps look through their facilities and museum. When we got there, the receptionist was most unhelpful and virtually shoo-ed us away. They can keep their products then.
From there, we headed up to Pomona. I visited So-Cal Speed Shop in Pomona when I visited LA back in 2004, and Pete had been very welcoming and showed me around the hot-rod shop. When we got there, just like at Edelbrock, no-one was in the least bit interested that we had come to visit and all they wanted to do was sell us some t-shirts - expensive t-shirts at that. I asked about a catalogue for hot rod parts, but they had run out quite a while ago and the guy there wasn't the least bit interested in helping. Harumph - struck out twice. We were going to go to the Wally Parks NHRA Museum at the Pomona Showgrounds but I felt a bit sorry for Mrs DB - she had entertained my numerous visits to museums of a motoring or aerospace nature quite a number of times and she hadn't complained. She still wasn't going to complain if I did go to the NHRA Museum, but my conscience wouldn't have allowed me to enjoy it. Damn you conscience!!!!! During our lengthy journey around and through the left half of the US, we had seen many many RVs. Some modest, some pretty luxurious. We had admired them and discussed about how one day we might get one and tour around (even though I reckon the renter plus motels is a pretty fair alternative to driving a huge truck-home from place to place). As we were heading towards the Museum, I saw signage for an RV exhibition and decided that the holiday was Mrs DB's as well and it would be 'the right thing to do' to go there instead of the museum.
Mrs DB was drawn to the largest, shiniest RVs and fifth wheelers - I guess it's a female thing - kinda like being attracted to large diamonds in rings. As we weren't buying, but just looking, I really didn't care, and it gave Mrs DB something to get excited about. We looked at some enormous luxo-barges - 45 footers with leather, granite and marble everywhere. Big-screen TV's, king-sized beds as well as pop-outs everywhere. Some even had balconies (or decks) with BBQ's and showers. Wow! The prices were pretty steep, but still cheaper than big boats. The only problem with any of them is that, being 6'5" tall, none of them had a shower tall enough that I could stand up without my head touching the roof. There is no way I was going to consider spending even dream money on something that I couldn't stand up straight in - too bad for them. We looked at a couple of fifth-wheelers and found that a few of these would have 'p***ed the test'. Again, too bad for them that all we were doing was kicking some tyres. They rolled out all the sales techniques to see if we were interested and all became crest-fallen when they realised there was no chance of a sale. At least they were all professional and still wished us well, as good salespeople should. While we were at the RV show, it was very hot - up round 100 deg with some humidity. The only saving grace was that nearly all of the RVs and fifth-wheelers had their a/c units cranked up to maximum coolth. Naturally, we enjoyed inspecting the inside of many. We spent a few hours at the RV show - Mrs DB was quite animated about the dream fifth-wheeler and large tow-vehicle we would need. I did my best to jolly her along, saying "Yes dear" but knowing it isn't going to happen. Let her dream, I say.
The Jalopy Journal
