California Day 8 - Lancaster to the Tejon Ranch Outlet Mall

 Decisions were made today. There is a clear path forward.

The issue here is there is a heat wave where the temperatures are in the mid-90s in the afternoon. And there are giant mountains between Lancaster and the Pacific Ocean. What to do.

One thing that was settled is I have to go over Tejon Pass. Elevation is 4200 feet, which is about 2500 feet higher than Lancaster.

By leaving at first light, when it was nice and cool out, this objective was met by 1:00 PM. Temperatures were still in the 80s.

And it was a great ride up to the pass. Because poppies. Not because of this giant oak tree growing in the desert.

We must not allow ugly cell towers, only ugly transmission line towers. And ridiculous fake trees.

But the poppies are a big deal. There is an entire giant preserve devoted to poppies.

The fields of poppies in the preserve are kinda underwhelming, though.

Examination of poppies growing next to the road reveals that they are not awake yet.

But give it a few hours, and WOW.

There are so many poppies everywhere, not just in the preserve.

And there are more than poppies. Check out this lupine.

The desert roadside is so beautiful.

It was like this for most of the morning-long climb. There was a stretch on "The 138" for a few miles, though, which is a two lane road with not much shoulder and lots of semi trucks. And I passed over the California Aqueduct from time to time.

Anyway, back to the top of Tejon Pass. After cresting the top, I pulled off a couple miles later to ponder my options while getting lunch at a Subway in a gas station.

One option would be to ride 10 more miles and up another 1000 feet to a nice motel in a scenic mountain town, which would set me up for another 4000 feet of fairly steep climbing tomorrow. 

Or, I could have a nice 17 mile downhill coast to a cheap motel next to an outlet mall, which would leave me with 2500 feet of moderate climb tomorrow. 

I think I'll choose the option where I get to coast the rest of the day, and I save 2500 feet of climbing.

There is only one catch.

Do you see a "no bikes" sign? I don't see a "no bikes" sign.

And the cop who stopped to talk to me while I was taking this picture confirmed that, believe it or not, riding on the shoulder of I-5 here is legal. I think he was just checking to make sure I don't have a mental illness.

What's great is because the hill is so steep, trucks have to stay in the truck lane and can only go 35 MPH. This is actually considerably safer than the much longer stretch I rode on The 138 this morning where there is no shoulder, it's all uphill, and most of the semi trucks passed me without slowing down.

That white thing off in the distance is the outlet mall next to my cheap motel. There are also distribution centers for Ikea and Dollar General down there.

What's great is this picture includes two different runaway truck ramps.

I dropped 3000 feet in elevation in that final 17 mile glorious payback. And at the lower altitude, it was hot hot hot. Good thing I didn't have to do any pedaling.

Yes, it is hot out and it was a long day.

But my room is surprisingly nice for a Microtel Inn, and they have free breakfast tomorrow.

There is a place called the Black Bear Diner next door. The menu has solid comfort food, and they have beer. So I went over there for dinner. The place is half empty, and there are a bunch of people waiting in the lobby.

me: "Can I sit at the counter?"
Hostess: "No. There are two big parties, they just put their order in, and the kitchen is backed up."
me: "But if I sit at the counter, I could have a beer while I wait."
Hostess: "I can put your name on the list. The wait is 15 to 20 minutes."
me: "Thank you, I'll get dinner elsewhere."

She shouldn't try such crap when her diner is next door to a truck stop with a Popeyes.

Here is the Strava track for today: https://www.strava.com/activities/17784688906

California Day 7 - Exploring Lancaster Some More

 Lancaster has a meadery! It's a couple doors down from a Tractor Supply in a dying shopping strip near the interstate. Not exactly a glamour spot.

They make small batches in association with a wine maker and brewery called Two Tracks. The mead is quite tasty.

I tried three varieties, this was my favorite. It's the special Christmas Mead.

They also had a peach/pineapple and a strawberry with lime. 

All three had an interesting and unique earthy flavor, which I suspect comes from the local honey which is based on nectar from the abundant sagebrush.

Sadly, Two Tracks is closing at the end of the month. This may put an end to the mead operation, which piggybacks on the winery.

Two Tracks doesn't sell any food beyond nachos, and I needed more for dinner than that, so I popped in to the Vallarta Mexican Grocery on my way back. Also to top off the snack bag because I am back on the bike touring tomorrow.

THE MEXICAN GROCERY IS AMAZING THEY SELL FRESH TAMALES HOT FROM INSTAPOT STEAMERS!!!!!

This is so good. And I got Mexican pastries to go with my coffee tomorrow and apples for the snack bag.

I want a Mexican grocery that sells tamales in Elkridge. Somebody please make this happen. OMG SO GOOD. I mean it's right up there with the fried lake trout at the Green Valley Market hot bar. Seriously.

Lancaster has a stadium. I passed by it on the way to the meadery. It has an FA-18 Hornet jet fighter out front that NASA used to use as a chase plan for experimental test aircraft.

What Lancaster doesn't have any more is a baseball team. They used to have a Single A Desert League team, the Sound Breakers, but they folded years ago. A soccer team uses the stadium now.

I also passed by the neighborhood elementary school.

I have never seen so many portable classrooms in one place ever.

Is it a coincidence that Lancaster is crazy over ADUs? Maybe they should have spent some money building schools instead of a baseball stadium.

I went out to the Brooklyn Deli on the BLVD for lunch and had a corned beef sandwich. It was great. The deli owner appeared to be both Jewish and Mexican.

The highlight of the day, though, was visiting the Lancaster Museum Of Art and History (MOAH). This is a modest art museum on the BLVD.

But it's really good. Here are some of my favorite works.
This one is by Nathan Huff.

My thoughts on this are that pillows are comfortable for people, but these pillows are not comfortable for the tree, and if you don't respect the tree, you aren't going to get comfortable pillows in the end.

This one is called "Burn Pile/All Kinds of Murmuring Here and There", by Bachrun Lomele.

The artist solicited anonymous statements from his neighbors. These are randomly scrolled through red LED displays at the bottom of the piece. They are like embers.

This one is by Vojislav Radovanovic.

My cell camera cannot capture the intensity of the colors of this work. The violet and green of the bird are completely lost. The bird is eating a berry from the bush he sitting in. But the berries are eyes. Like his own eye.

There are also interesting things up on the roof, but I didn't record the artists.

There is a door with a window, for access to some machinery in a shed on the roof.

But if you look close, the window is actually a painting of an imprisoned girl looking through a screen.

It's hard not to think of the ever-growing horrors of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal with this.

There is a bench, with a mural on the base of roadside construction workers.

I like how whimsical this is. I hope the art we get at our new Elkridge Community Center is in this spirit.

And the architecture of the MOAH roof complements the view of the modern apartment buildings across the BLVD very nicely.

I really loved MOAH. It only takes an hour or two, if you aren't in a hurry.

California Day 6 - Exploring Lancaster

 I spent the day exploring Lancaster and pondering what my life would have been like if my parents had never moved back to Ohio, and I had grown up here.

Here I am in front Antelope Valley Hospital where I was born 62 years ago.

Antelope Valley Hospital is now a giant medical center with dozens of buildings, which do not look like they date from 1963. But their web site has a history section that has a picture of the original hospital, which opened in 1955.

Before I was born, my mom worked as a nurse here, and my dad worked as an electronics technician at Edwards Air Force Base.

I'm pretty sure they rented a duplex like this one.

There are lots of identical duplexes within a couple miles of the hospital. I've seen photos from this time that could be in such a home, and I once had the actual address from old records my sister had (and maybe still does). This particular house is very close to my 2000s vintage AirBnB. It's a rough neighborhood now. This house is in much better shape than most of its identical neighbors.

Here is the high school in Lancaster, Antelope Valley High School.

Weird connection with Baltimore - Frank Zappa spent his childhood in southeast Baltimore and the vicinity. His family moved to Lancaster when he was a teenager, and he graduated from Antelope Valley High School.

There is a lot of Mid-Century Modern architecture in Lancaster, which had a period of rapid growth in the late 1950s/early 1960s. The high school is an interesting example.

For comparison, here is a picture from that era of Bellbrook (Ohio) High School, which I attended.

The cool Googie zig zag roofs were renovated into oblivion in the 1970s due to chronic leaking and energy efficiency.

Here in Lancaster, my sense is there is no appreciation whatsoever for the architecture of the 1950s and 1960s. Browsing through Redfin, every listing for an older home is all about opportunities to add ADUs, or to get rental income from the ADU already added.

One interesting characteristic of Lancaster is the pervasiveness of these columnar evergreens in landscaping.

See also the vintage picture of Antelope Valley Hospital. I believe these are "Taylor Juniper", which is a variety of Eastern Red-Cedar. This would obviously not be native to the Mojave Desert.

I remember when I was little, my parents had planted these around our house in Ohio. Perhaps this was an influence from California. The driveway was also lined with globular Arborvita. Which can also be seen in front of the old photo of Bellbrook High School above.

The newer developments do not include the non-native columnar evergreens. They have Bradford Pears instead. Ugh.

Note also in the picture above is the wall around the residential neighborhoods. Just like in Las Vegas, the streets are laid out with major thoroughfares on a 1 mile grid, with neighborhoods surrounded by walls. Perhaps this is a desert adapatation? The walls lower noise from the roads, and break the wind so the landscaping doesn't dry out as much?

Here's what the view is behind my AirBnB. You can see the AirBnB's neglected back yard, the one behind it with nicely maintained native xeriscape, and the one to the right with more intensely maintained trees and greenery.

I confess to being a bit disturbed by the play structure and kid's bike in the backyard. Are there kids normally living here who get relocated elsewhere when there is an AirBnb guest? This makes me uncomfortable.

Lancaster (pop 170,000) and neighboring Palmdale (pop 160,000) are the two main cities in the Antelope Valley region (pop 370,000). The Antelope Valley is roughly the same size as Howard County, MD. In addition to the local employment driven by the aerospace industry and military bases, the Antelope Valley is also a bedroom community for the Los Angeles region. There is commuter rail service to LA. There is also some local agriculture using irrigation from wells tapping the ever-lowering aquifer.

An urban area this size in the middle of the desert is spectacularly unsustainable. I imagine in the summer people spend their lives quickly moving from one air-conditioned space to another. Living on Mars would probably be similar.

I started my exploration of Lancaster with a morning visit to the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve.

This is a patch of intact Mojave Desert on the west edge of Lancaster. In the cool morning, it is teeming with life. There are quail, ground squirrels, and rabbits everywhere. Songbirds are abundant. There are hummingbirds. Another visitor told me where the Roadrunners hang out, but I didn't see one. 

The contrast is pretty stark with the developed areas, which are pretty much completely sterile. 

Next I went to the bike shop, and restocked on CO2 cartridges and spare tires. I had a nice time chatting with the owner, who greatly admired my touring bike setup.

After that was some tasty ceviche for lunch at a storefront tavern on the fancier side of town.

I had a nice time talking to the manager about the dismal state of the craft brewing industry. He was admiring my Flying Dog bike jersey. We both think hyper local is the only way to stay in business as a craft brewer now.

After lunch, I went back to the AirBnB and did some bike maintenance. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out the best route over the many mountains and deserts between me and the Pacific Ocean. The next few days will be an unseasonably hot spell to add to the challenge. I don't have a plan for this yet.

For dinner, I went back to Lucky Lukes, which was open on Tuesdays, and a mob scene due to it being St. Patrick's Day. I tried the Buffalo Wings.

I sure am a long way from Buffalo. Just sayin'. 

While munching on my wings and drinking more Schwarzbier, I was watching the bartender make an endless stream of various unappealing bright-green drink specials. Until they ran out of Midori. Which picked right back up again after an emergency visit to a nearby liquor store.

But she also made this amazing looking thing:

me: "What's the drink with the red goop on top?"
Bartender: "It's a Mango Mamacita. Nobody has ever called that 'red goop' before."
me: "So what is the red goop?"
Bartender: "Mexican candy."
me: "Is it spicy?"
Bartender: "I don't think so." 
me: "Is that nonalcoholic?"
Bartender: "No way. It's 10%! It's our own seltzer."

So I tried one. The red goop is amazing. It's mildly spicy, sweet and salty. After grilling the bartender some more, she told me it's called "Refi-rim" and it's produced locally by a Mexican guy, "from his Mom's secret family recipe."

https://www.refisnacks.com/s/order?item=SMJLMLXSXIENY5P7MCUVYE2S#ERHT2IAYVP3JZGZ72ZZ762PW

This goes great with mango seltzer, but I'm pretty sure it would also be incredible on the rim of a glass of capsicumel. I have a plan.

California Day 5 - Victorville to Lancaster

 I am in Lancaster, CA.

I was born here, but my parents moved back to Ohio when I was an infant, and I have no memory of it. I'm taking a couple days off to see what it's like.

Today was 60 easy miles from Victorville on "The 138". It mostly looked like this:

Sixty miles, no hills, only 800 feet of climb. The last 40 miles was a gentle downhill. The first 40 miles was a tailwind, which became a cool, refreshing headwind for the last 20 miles, by which time the temperature was in the 80s.

I feel great, no cramping, I am hydrating, hydrating, hydrating.

I saw this amazing Fir tree thriving in the middle of the desert outside Victorville!

Oh wait. Never mind.

Why even bother making a fake tree to hide a cell tower out here in the middle of the desert? There are transmission lines everywhere you look.

This was just the first stage of my annoyance this morning. Garmin, you need to work on your auto-routing.

It is not helpful to tell me I need to make a U-turn in 24917 miles.

Another milestone for today is I saw flowing water!

First time this trip!

Lunch was at a Thai place in Palmdale. I wolfed down a mountain of Pad Thai before I remembered to take a picture. My appetite is strong, I feel great.

I have an AirBnB for three nights, at only $65/night. It's a room in a house with a shared kitchen and living room, but I seem to be the only guy here except for Jorge the caretaker, who stops by to feed the three huge German Shepherds in the back yard. It's quite a deal.

My room is huge, but it's on the second floor, so my bike is secure in the garage.

The farther west I've ridden, the nicer the cities get. Palmdale and Lancaster are almost nice. There is a ton of newer residential neighborhoods west of Victorville. Were these houses built right before the housing collapse in 2008? There are homes in the desert in the 40 miles between Victorville and Palmdale.

Lancaster and Palmdale look fairly prosperous. I believe most of this comes from the proximity to Edwards Air Force Base and the aerospace industry. (Which is why my parents were here when I was born.) There is also a prison in Lancaster.

Palmdale is nicer than Lancaster, which has plenty of street people and homeless. But Lancaster is trying hard, they have named the main commercial strip in town "The BLVD" and it is sort of alive. It has some shops and restaurants and a museum.

The BLVD has a brewpub, so I went to check it out for dinner. It's pretty good. Lots of varieties, not just IPAs, and they even has a Schwarzbier.

I love how the tap handles are random tools welded to the tops of the taps.

I did the corned beef sandwich special, due to the imminence of St. Patrick's Day, instead of wings. 

The food is yummy. I may be back here for wings.

All in all, it was a very easy and interesting day. 

Here's the Strava track: https://www.strava.com/activities/17747917988