Los Angeles

Day: 60
Date: 01/06
City: Barstow, California
Miles ridden: 182
Cumulative miles:5191

We packet everything and carried all of our stuff to the car park. It was really hot. Here is a view from the top of the car park, I thought the view  of the mountain was great.

 

After both bikes were packet we had a look at the Titanic exhibition, but unfortunately no pictures could be taken. It shows the story of the Titanic from the cradle to the grave, supported by pieces recovered from the bottom of the sea. They also had a piece of frozen seawater, I didn’t realize that saltwater ice in the sea is much colder than zero degrees because of the salt contents. The exhibition was nice and cool. After that, we rode to the Mirage to have a look at Sigfrid’s and Roy’s secret garden. We arrived there around lunch and it was stinking hot, so guess what the panther, lion and puma did? Right! They had a nap, great timing 😛 (I didn’t bother to put the pictures up), but the dolphins were active, that really saved the day 🙂

Below are the Diddles in front of large fish tank in the entrance hall of the Mirage, the a jumping dolphin and a view from the underwater window.

 

Then we headed off to the BMW dealership to have a look for the Schuberth C3 helmets (Sigrid has size C3W 55 and I have C3 59). It was still stinking hot. We found the helmets were quite nice but our communication equipment wouldn’t fit. A bit frustrated we started to head towards Barstow, only 150 miles, but it’s around 40 degree Celsius and the wind was hot. It didn’t get any better when we were riding thought the Mojave desert. We saw a truck or bus that was completely burned out on the opposite highway lane and that some poor bugger tried to move it from the road. There was only one lane and in no time we could see a traffic jam and plenty of cars on the side with their bonnet open. At the next stop we made sure that we had enough water, just in case. The temperature was still around 40 degrees. After some short water stops we arrived in Barstow. The first thing was to get the bathers on and hop into the pool! The pool was not heated so it was nice, cool, and refreshing. We had and early night.

Day: 61
Date: 02/06
City: Los Angeles, California
Miles ridden: 153
Cumulative miles: 5344

Had breakfast in the room, in the breakfast room (entrance) there were only 2 tables and both were busy. We organized a hotel in Los Angeles and since we only had a 2 hour ride today, and the room was available after 3PM, we decided to have a look at the ghost town ‘Calico’ just seven miles from our hotel.

Calico is a rebuild ghost town. In the late 18 hundreds it was town with around 2000 people and a couple of silver mines. When the price for silver sunk, the population shrunk and at the beginning of the 20th century it was a ghost town. Anyway, the town was on a hill and in the middle of a desert. Most of the rebuilt house had some sort of shop in them. There was as also a duel going on (for show only) and a train, that drove around the mines. It was stinking hot but all shops were air conditioned 😀.  It was quite interesting to see how the people lived/survived 100 year ago in a desert.

 

After we looked at all the houses, we rode to Los Angeles and straight to the hotel. After bringing all our stuff into the room we jumped into the pool. Oh! We also took the laptops to the pool and I noticed that the beer must have dried out, all letters where working again! One less thing to worry about. After our swim we went to WalMart riding two-up to buy some stuff that we needed. (That is, a swim suit for Sigird, new short trousers for Sigrid, because we left the old ones somewhere). On the way back we stopped at a Vietnamese Restaurant, great food and we payed only US$20.

Day: 62
Date: 03/06
City: Los Angeles, California
Miles ridden: 95
Cumulative miles: 5439

In the morning we road to the Griffith Conservatorium to see the Hollywood sign. When we arrived at the top of the mountain and the end of the road, there were no car parks left, but just in front of the entry there were plenty of motorcycle parks, all free

We took the pictures of the Hollywood sign and then headed into the Observatory. There were some exhibitions about astronomy and physics, some physics experiments and the Foucault Pendulum. That prooved that the earth is rotating 🙂

After that we rode to the walk of fame,

and walked it up to the Chinese Theatre, where famous people left their hand and foot prints.

 

After that we walked back, and did some riding through the hills. There is some really nice views from the hills to LA and also overlooking some great houses. Then we arrived in Santa Monica pier, the end of route 66. We walked to the front of the pier, which was huge. There was a merry go round, some stalls as well as a restaurant and some live music.

 

After taking some pictures, we went back to the bike and rode to the Venice Beach. The weather became cloudier and when we arrived at the Venice beach the sun was hiding behind the clouds. We dipped our feed into the ocean,

and had a look at the body builder hall of fame and some gym equipment. Unfortunately the  gym was closed.  So we bought some icecream, sat at the beach for a bit and went home after that. There was no sunset since the sun was behind clouds. The ride back was ok, we took the highway which was fast (since the traffic is easy on Sundays). Had something to eat at the Vietnamese place from yesterday and went to bed.

 

 

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