Mom, Dad, and I arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport and met up with Kendra. We took the RER into Paris and then transfered to the Metro and went to Kendra’s place in Neuilly. We then went to the English pub around the corner for dinner because it was Bastille day and already past 10 o clock (but still light out!!) so not much was open. I had a burger. Then Kendra and I went into the street to see some of the fireworks coming from the Eiffel tower but we couldn’t really see much. Then we all went back to Kendra’s and went to sleep.
Here we are on the plane and at the airport waiting because our bags were on a different flight. Typical.
Stippling is basically making an image with a bunch of really small dots. Like comic books and newsprint. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stippling
I decided to try it out. Here is my inspiration:
And one ruined Sharpie later:
(Click the image for high resolution and you can see the copious dots used)
I was going into the garage to get some paint today and I heard this scratching noise coming from the pipes right below the paint. I got dad’s camera and took a picture looking down the first pipe.
The two side walls have been put back in Clifford and I also cut out the wall that goes up against the back of the cab and painted it. I also went to Home Depot and got 14 windows for the shell. I made a cutout for one in the new wall for rear view mirror visibility and also cut out 4 spots on the passenger side wall and 5 on the driver side wall. Then I routed them all so that the glass will be flush with the outside walls so that then I can put a piece of trim over it and it will be held in place.
I set my alarm in the park in port Hueneme for 6:00am because I wanted to get out of there before people started showing up. I also wanted to get an early start on day 4 because I wanted to make it all the way to Torrance where I could spend the night at my friend Donald’s house. However, I guess the alarm didn’t go off or maybe I just didn’t hear it. But I woke up around 9:30am anyways. To my surprise, there wasn’t anybody in the park! It was a sort of foggy/cold morning but I still expected people walking their dogs or some kids or something. Anyways, I still quickly packed up my stuff, and got on the road. I made it out of town pretty fast and then came to this little off the road outdoor museum of a couple old jets and missiles:
Then I came to the Pt. Mugu military base and I guess once you go in the front gate, there is no other way out except back through the front gate. But my directions said there would be a back exit so I tried entering the base. However, I got stopped and the guy gave me different directions. He was a jerk though. He asked where I was going and I said Santa Monica (only about 50 miles from Pt. Mugu) and he just started laughing. He didn’t believe me and then I told him I was actually going to San Diego overall and I had already came 200 miles and that shut him up hahaha.
Anyways, I got out back on the road and got a flat tire pretty much 2 minutes later. It was the front wheel. I took off the wheel, took off the tire, took out the tube, and started putting in a replacement tube (My patch kit was out of patches) when I realized that my front wheel and old tube had Presta valves. Presta valves are the narrower (6mm diameter) racing style valves. And of course, my replacement tube had a Schrader valve (8mm diameter) so it didn’t fit into the hole in the rim! Luuuckily, I had a bladed screwdriver with me so I sat there for 10 minutes twisting/shoving it into the hole in the rim until I had bored it large enough for the larger valve jaaaankster style HEAA! Then I put everything back together and pumped it up and got back on the road and finally made it out of Port Hueneme/Pt. Mugu and to the ocean again.
This is what you get in Port Hueneme/Pt. Mugu and nothing else. The little caption describes it all.
It was really cool to bike along this next stretch. It was all hwy 1 and a part that I had never knew even existed. It was sort of like the drive through Big Sur. It was long, right along the water’s edge, and there wasn’t really anything out there. It was really cool. It wasn’t high on the cliffs or windy like the Big Sur drive, just…. similar. The only things I passed were some campgrounds and this one random little town with a diner, a gas station, a convenience store, and some houses. but there were people surfing there!
Then I finally made it to Malibu. I had NO idea that Malibu was over 25 miles long! I thought it was going to look like something out of the OC but that was wrong. Just endless ritzy houses, super nice beaches, and going UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN in 50,000 degree full sun. Here is the start of Malibu:
And starting in Malibu alllll the way through allll of LA county, the lifeguard towers are painted really cool! There were about six different colors all with different designs on them. Granted, after you saw the first six, you had seen them all, it was still sweet.
So I continued through Malibu until I got to Santa Monica. And once I got there, I got on a beach walkway/bikeway that goes right on the sand! And this wasn’t just for one or two miles, it extended for 20 miles, ALL the way through Santa Monica, Venice, Manhattan, Hermosa, Redondo AND Torrance beaches. There was only one side track where it went inland because of having to go around Marina Del Rey. Here it is somewhere in the beginning of Santa Monica:
And then I came across Muscle Beach. I had always heard of Muscle Beach but I never knew that there was an actual outdoor gym there and gnarly guys on roids actually workout there hahahah what a joke!
Here is Dairy Fresh while I am going back towards the ocean after the Marina Del Rey detour:
AND THEN I CAME ACROSS THIS:
HANG GLIDER TRAINING! yessssssssssssssssss I. WILL. These guys would just put on their helmets, run into the wind straight off of the little embankment, and FLY!! hahahahaha it was so funny/cool to watch them glide down (about as far as that lifeguard tower is) and then run back up the hill with there huge glliders. I sat there and watched them for 20 minutes HEAA! I will:
Then I came to the Venice Beach Fishing Pier and walked out on that to watch the fishermen and the surfers:
You can see in the second picture that on the beach, there are a bunch of volleyball courts. And literally, that is not even 1% of 1% of the total volleyball courts I biked past. No joke, there are N O N S T O P volleyball courts 2, 3, and 4 courts wide, for M I L E S. Like FIFTEEN MILES. It is ridiculous. And I am not even kidding or exaggerating at all.
Then, I finally made it to Torrance. By this time, for some reason my left knee was kiiiilling me. I hurt really bad to move it. Especially after letting it rest for a while in a fixed position. I took some Tylenol and decided to see how it felt tomorrow. I met up with Donald and Gabbi and Danny, and two of their other friends around 9:00 and we biked back to Donald’s house where we dropped off the bikes. Then we got in a car and headed somewhere into LA out to dinner.
They decided on a place called Guppy Tea House. It was this hip asian restaurant that was SUPER GOOD. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t had much real food to eat and I was super hungry but either way, it was amazing. I got salmon fried rice and it was huge! Not even being as hungry as I was was I able to finish it. I only ate about 3/4 of it and had to take the rest to go. But we didn’t leave without getting dessert first. And Guppy Tea House is known for its shaved ices. When we were in the car, Donald was describing how big they were to me and I completely thought he was hyping it up and exaggerating. He was saying that a “small” was about the size of a large watermelon. And let me tell you, he was not lying. Not ONE BIT. It was insane.
All five of us split a SMALL. On the menu, it says it is enough for two people but that is a complete lie unless you made it a meal for each person I guess. Either way, this thing was huge. We got Strawberry Mango which meant that they put a whoooole bunch of cut strawberries and mangos on top of the shaved ice. And the shaved ice didn’t have any colored flavorings on it either. It was doused in some sort of vanilla sweet milk or something and it was sooooooooosososososoooooooo goood! All five of us baaareely finished the small. It was painful. And the table behind us had 9 people and they ordered a large (which according to the menu is god for 4 people) That is a lie also, The 9 people didn’t even make a dent in it. It was gigantic! It came in this huge clamshell shaped bowl thing (more like a trough actually) It was huge.
Here is a crappy cellphone picture I took of ours after we had all already taken some off the top:
Here is an internet picture of a small and a large:
SO HUGE!!!!!
Anyways, after that, everyone went home and I spent the night at Donald’s house. Here is Day 4’s route and a sketch:
