8/27/16

I usually hate kitsch.  I guess I am not adept enough to see past the schtick and into the humor.  It’s not like I have good taste or anything or I am a snob.  Becasuse I don’t and I’m not.  I just like things to fit.  And kitsch is usually too far outside of the navigational beacons for the fit to work for me.  Pam, on the other hand, is not too offended by kitsch.  She can just accept it for what it is.

Saturday morning started normally for me.  I got up while it was dark, went to the market while they were still restocking the shelves, washed my Cayman before 7:30 and was at theSpitfire Grill for breakfast with my Porsche cronies by 7:45.

The afternoon was abnormal.  Pam and I took the Metro downtown becasue she had to return a bracelet that kept breaking.  While I see the need for mass transportation, I am not the biggest of fans.  Too much planning.  Too easy to make a mistake.  Too many people.  Too much randomness.  Too many germs, despite the disinfectant small that permeates the cars, masking odors of things I just don’t want to think about.  Too much weirdness.  Too much plastic.  In short, too much kitsch.  But Pam hates the thought of traffic more than I dislike mass transit.  And on top of that her vote counts more than mine.  So we were taking the Metro downtown.  After the trip to the jewelry store, the plan was to hang out downtown and make a blue haired evening out of it, with drinks at five and dinner at six, meaning each activity started about an hour earlier than I wouild like and about an hour and a half earlier than Pam would like.

Speaking of kitsch, we went to Clifton’s Cafeteria for our drinks and dinner.  Clifton’s was an LA landmark for decades.  I grew up eating in the one in Centrury City.  Once when I was in elementary school, my friend Mark and I took the bus, as we had no other option at the time, to where it ended in downtown and ate at Clifton’s.  My detailed memories of the place are spotty.  My memories of the décor at the downtown location are non-existent.  So when we walked into the recently reopened and remodeled Clifton’s on Broadway, I almost lost my mind.

The place just felt old, a feeling I am experiencing on just about a daily basis.  The ground floor was dark and somewhat musty.  Pam and I went upstairs to one of three levels of bars, picking the floor with the trunk of the fake tree surrounding a fireplace.  There were stuffed animals of various species and the bar tender was pouring a $.35 happy hour drink that was psychedelic blue.  In short, way too much kitsch.

Pam and I decided to sit on a couch right in front of the fireplace that was nestled inside the fake tree.  We ordered some drinks and just sat there wondering why, why, why.  We googled the backstory about the remodel.  We kept wondering why, why, why.  Then we noticed something.  Other people came over to the area we were in and took pictures of themselves sitting in front of the fireplace in the tree.  Pam even took some group pictures for them.  We kept wondering why, why, why.  Whether it was the alcohol, it’s always easy to blame things on alcohol, just listen to a Brad Paisley or a Pat Green song, or our observation of others truly enjoying the décor, eventually we stopped wondering why, why, why.  We just relaxed and had a great time.  Shockingly, I felt myself getting into the kitsch.

Soon it was time to eat.  I have very specific memories of Clinton’s Cafeteria food.  Not because I have a good memory, but because I always ordered the same thing.  Not because it was good, but because I was too afraid to order anything else.

Despite the fact that I work for a food company, I am not a foodie.  I never have been, and I never will be.  When I was really young, I drove my mom nuts when it came to dinner.  I’m sure I drove her nuts other times, too, but those are not germane to this post.  I grew up in a family of carnivores.  They loved meat,  rare, blood dripping meat.  I, on the other hand, liked salad and vegetables and mashed potatoes, especially mashed potatoes.  I could barely eat meat when my mom made it, not because it was made poorly, but because she made it rare.  I could never eat it that way.  I would make her make mine my way, which meant it had to be really well done.  I mean it had to be killed.  And of course it had to be devoid of all fat and gristle.  I understand I am not normal, and I understand that meat cooked that way is not necessarily good, it’s just the way I need it to be cooked.

Which brings me back to Clifton’s.  As much as I hated when my mom made meat, at least I could more or less eat it.  I would never, repeat never, order it out, mainly because I could not affect how it would be cooked.  One day, I learned that I could order turkey breast when eating out.  And so I did.  Over and over again.  So when I first saw the turkey breast being carved at the Clifton’s of my youth, I was ecstatic.  I always ordered it with the normal complement of cranberries and, of course, mashed potatoes.    It was my go to meal.  And as Pam and I walked into the cafeteria portion of Clifton’s, all I could see and smell was turkey.  Pam saw updated food items like caprese and pizza.  I saw turkey.

We got our food, sat a table, and ate.  I was grinning from ear to ear.  Not because the turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberries were that good, but because I was chewing my way down memory lane.  It could have been the alcohol, but I am convinced it was the memories that made our Clifton’s experience delightful.

By the time I was done eating, the kitsch faded so far into the background that I stopped thinking about it.  That lasted until we walked back to the Metro station and boarded a train.

7/24/16

I guess I don’t need to say it again, but I just can’t help myself.  The drive yesterday was heavenly.  After an unexpected cleaning of my windows and a shake of my head at the ash and soot coating my car, I left the house and headed towards Topanga Canyon, where I would exit and get on to Mulholland Highway.  The drive to Topanga was uneventful, but I did notice that the temperature was unusually hot.  As I crested Mulholland on the 405 at 6:45 in the morning, it was already over 80 degrees.

Heading out on Mulholland, I saw an even more unusual sight.  The smoke from the Sand Canyon fire near Agua Dulce had blown out over West LA and Malibu.  The effect was somewhat surreal, and the sun was an unusual color of red.  The drive up Mulholland was great.  No cars were out and I opted to stop at the top of the snake to take a couple of pictures of the smoke on the horizon.

After that I took Kanan back to the 101 North and headed for Ventura.  Despite my best intentions, I was a little later than I planned and pushed the pace a little on the way to breakfast.  I arrived in Ventura and stopped to get gas right next to the restaurant where we were meeting.  No gas station ever looked better, as at least three Porsches were getting gas at the same time, two of them Caymans.

I ate a quick breakfast with Bob and his wife, Gail, and then went outside for the drivers’ meeting.  We had  26 Porsches on the drive, so the organizers decided we would split into two groups, leaving about 15 to 20 minutes apart.  This decision was not made because 26 cars in a line is impossible to maintain, because it is, but because it would minimize the impact on the staff at the restaurant where we were stopping for lunch.

I went in the second group.  While waiting to leave I took a few pictures and played with the walkie talkie.  We were split up at the outset, but our run group met at the base of Highway 33 just past the stop sign in Ojai to reform.  From there, we tore up the highway to heaven, stopping at the scenic lookout near the Pine Mountain turnoff.  This segment comprised about one third of the pre-lunch drive, but it is my favorite part, as we climb about 4,000 feet up to the lookout, negotiating an endless series of gentle inclines (at least in a car) and sweeping turns that bring out the best in my Cayman.

At the outlook, we stopped for a few minutes, took some pictures, and just gawked at the beauty of the view.  The Cayman sounds great in the city.  Out on the open road, with the sport exhaust on and the PKD in manual mode with the engine revving between 4,000 and 6,000 rpm, the exhaust note is just amazing.  Even from Porsche owners, the car gets a lot of compliments on its sound.  Yesterday was no exception.

From there we got back on the 33 and headed out towards Lockwood Valley Road, where we exited to the right and towards Frazier Park.  The Lockwood Valley Road has very little in common with Highway 33.  It passes through rugged, backwoods country.  It has many 10 MPH corners.  It has a roller coaster like feel, traversing several washes, where runoff water frequently flows, Porsches bottom out, and motorcycles catch serious air.  It takes lots of energy and serious attention to drive on this road at speed.  At one point going across a flat section, I slowed down and just looked around at the scenery.  When I looked back up all the Porsches in front of me were gone.  I mean they just vanished.  I was actually the last in line at this point, as the cars behind me had fallen way back.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was alone.  I knew where I was going and I have the route right next to me on the seat and I had the walkie talkie, but none of that mattered.  I was alone.  I had lost the others.  I was stunned.  I had not even noticed that they sped up or I slowed down.  I mean it was not gradual.  I was not lagging behind.  I looked up and they were just gone.  Unbelievable.  The reality was that they were about 20 to 30 seconds ahead of me, but for all intents and purposes, they were gone.

I kept driving, assuming I would see them eventually.  Finally, I a high point in the road and could see them in the distance.  Unfortunately for me, two cars turned onto the road ahead of me and slowed me down further.  I passed them when I had the chance, but by then it was too late.  I would have to meet up with the rest of the group at lunch, which I did about 10 minutes later.

Lunch was very nice, and soon we were back on the road to head towards home.  A few of us needed gas, so we invaded a gas station alongside Interstate 5.  The station was huge, but when about 13 Porsches parked around the pumps the excess space disappeared in a hurry.  We received some interesting looks from the other patrons while we waited.

We got on Interstate 5 for a couple of miles and exited at Gorman.  We then got on Gorman Post Road for a little bit before turning left onto Lancaster Highway and then right onto Old Ridge Road.  The unmaintained, historic road was THE ONLY way to get from Los Angeles to Bakersfield in decades past.  It has not been maintained for some time, but we were able to drive down to Lake Hughes Road on it.  That portion was unbelievably fun and even more unbelievably scary.  The road has no lane markings.  The road has no signs alerting the driver to the radius of the upcoming turns.  The road has no lane line markings.  The road is just about wide enough for two cars to pass by each other at slow rates of speed, something we were not doing, as we flew down it.  The road has no lane markings.  Thankfully, the road had no traffic.

Eventually we turned onto Lake Hughes Road, drove a few miles and stopped at the Ostrich Farm, which was really cool, despite the 105+ degrees of heat.  After a small donation to the ostriches and a chance to feel the heft of an ostrich egg, I headed down Lake Hughes Road to Castaic Lake.  Lake Hughes Road holds a special place in my heart and a not so special place in my stomach.  The last time I was carsick, 36 years ago, was while Pam and I were going up Lake Hughes Road.  I do not get carsick.  Pam was driving, AS much as I would like to blame her driving for my issues, I just can’t.  She is partially at fault, though, as my issues were a direct result of drinking too much the night before at my bachelor party.

On the way down, I am pretty sure I saw the exact place I asked her to pull over.  I really had no business being on a windy road that day, but Pam and I were picking out our puppy at the breeder who had a place off the Lake Hughes Road, leaving me little choice.

The ride home was pretty awful.  It was 110 degrees at Castaic, and the smoke from the Sand Canyon fire, while not exactly over the road, was just off to the east.  I was in the left lane driving down the 5.  I could not help looking at the smoke.  I was amazed at the amount of smoke in the sky.  I was amazed at how dark it was at 3 pm in the afternoon.  I was amazed that fire fighters would venture deep into the fire and risk their lives to save lives and property of others.  I knew I needed to memorialize this.  So I turned on my camera, lowered my window, aimed my camera out the window, and without looking snapped a few pcitures of the scene playing out to my left.  I could not believe just how hot the cabin got in just a few seconds.  Despite the heat, I felt a chill as I headed home.

7/24/16

Yesterday was heavenly.  Or at least the drive was.  I participated in the GPX Region of PCA drive from Ventura to Frazier Park.  I prefer to refer to it as the Highway to Heaven.  In this case the gate to heaven is found at the top of Highway 33 at the scenic point looking east at the rolling hills out towards Maricopa, Taft and, far into the distance, Buttonwillow, with its legendary racetrack.

There is no doubt about it.  The drive up Highway 33 from Ojai to the scenic point at Pine Mountain is heavenly.  The road is nicely paved; it has nice radius turns; it climbs slowly; and, it is lightly travelled.  This makes for an incredible opportunity to let the Cayman GTS, or any Porsche, stretch its legs and rev its engine.  I have driven Highway 33 a handful of times.  Each time I revel in the experience.  Until yesterday, I have always driven it myself, usually after I have dropped Pam off at the Ojai Valley Inn where she can luxuriate by the pool while I luxuriate  in the feeling I get negotiating the turns on the highway.  Yesterday was the first time I drove it in a group, which enhanced the experience.

When I learned that the GPX Region was going up Highway 33, I knew I had to go, and I knew it would be at least a 250 mile drive.  I love driving my Cayman and it is for the most part my daily driver as well as weekend playmate, but I do like to minimize the number of miles I put on it.  So for several weeks before the drive, I prayed for cool weather which would enable me to leave my Cayman in the driveway and drive my 912, which does not have air conditioning, to work and back in relative comfort and without the rubber on its Targa top melting onto my hands as I took it off and put it on.  My prayers were answered for the most part, and I put several hundred miles on the 912 instead of the Cayman.

The GPX route was magnificent.  Not only did it include Highway 33, but it included breakfast in Ventura, Lockwood Valley Road, lunch in Mt. Pinos, and an optional drive down on even more exotic roads, including Gorman Post Road, Old Ridge Road and Lake Hughes Road.  In all about 120 twisty miles.  A great drive to say the least.  More than enough for any single day of driving, but, but, but…to get to Ventura  I had to drive by the start of Mulholland Highway, another of my favorite roads.  I knew I would have to leave early enough to drive Mulholland Highway on the way to breakfast in Ventura.  My only dilemma was whether to take Mulholland all the way to PCH and then go up PCH to Ventura or just get back on the 101 North at Kanan Dume.  After much internal debate, I opted to exit Muholland at Kanan Dume.

With my route set, I was ready to go.  Well almost.  On Friday, the day before the drive, I got my car washed and waxed.  The unwritten rule of driving with others is that you just cannot show up with a dirty car, even though the car will get filthy on the drive.  It’s sort of akin to cleaning the house before the housekeeper gets there.  Not logical, but necessary.  I also reformatted the route instructions to make sure I could read them while driving without a navigator and while staying on the road.  This is not as simple as it sounds.  Over time I have settled on using 36 point font in a three column format to make it easy to read.  Column one is used for the turn direction.  Column two is used for the street name.  Column 3 is used to mark cumulative miles to the point at which the turn is needed, though recently I have been debating moving the third column to the first column.  The last thing I took care of was packing my backpack with essentials, including camera, walkie talkie, water, sun block, visor or hat.

Then I was really ready to go.  Well almost.  Saturday morning dawned with off shore winds emanating from the desert.  On Friday a serious brush fire started in the Agua Dulce area off the 14.  The off shore wind was driving the fire down Big and Little Tajunga Canyons and was driving the soot and ash right out to the coast.  A whole lot of it landed on the Cayman.  Obviously, a little ash on my car pales in comparison to the hardships the people in the path of the fire were facing and it was by no means a big deal, but I was a bit irked that I had to rewash all the windows and had to set out with a fine layer of ash coating my freshly washed car.

6/18/16

I am a native Los Angelino.  That in and of itself is not all that surprising.  A lot of baby boomers were born in Los Angeles.  What is surprising is just how little I know about the history of Los Angeles and its surrounding areas.  Take Vasquez Rocks, for example.  Until the GPX Region of PCA announced a drive to Vasquez Rocks, I had no idea they existed, though I had seen them many times in films and television shows.  Planet of the Apes, Blazing Saddles, One Million B.C., Star Trek, and the Flinstones among many others were shot there.  Rin Tin Tin, Rifleman, Bonanza, Six Million Dollar Man, and The Fugitive were shot there.  Apparently I knew the area quite well.  I just did not know its name.

The rocks were named for a very controversial Mexican outlaw named Tiburcio Vasquez, who, depending on which side of history you were on, was either a hero or a villain.  Some say the well educated, poetry writing bandit who was born to an aristocratic Mexican family was the prototype for the Zoro character.  While I have no opinion as to that, I do see why he used the various nooks and crannies in the rocks to evade countless posses in the 1870s, thus giving the rocks their name.

None of this really mattered to me when I saw that the drive was planned to visit the rocks.  What mattered was the route to the rocks and their location, which is near the 14 freeway by Agua Dulce and Soledad Canyon.  The route would be up Angeles Crest Highway and out Angeles Forest Highway, before dropping down onto Aliso Canyon Road and Soledad Canyon Road.  I had never been on the latter two, but I cherish every minute I spend on Angeles Crest and Angeles Forest.

The drive out was great.  We had 20+ Porsches driving in a group for most of the drive.  It was a quite a sight, not to mention quite a sound, as we wended our way to the rocks.  Thankfully, there were not too many bicycles heading up Angeles Crest, most likely due to the heat.  Angeles Forest is just a wonderful road.  It is recently paved and has a long series of nicely spaced curves.  The road was made for Porsches of any kind.  We exited Angeles Forest and continued down into the valley on Aliso Canyon and then Soledad Canyon.  These roads wind thru equestrian and ranch country, and they are pretty empty, making for long stretches of fun driving.  The route was crafted with care and it showed.

We arrived at the visitor center at the rocks and made quite an entrance., not to mention quite a cloud of dust, as we negotiated our way into and around the dirt parking area.  After a few minutes checking out the visitor center and learning a bit about the site, I walked out to the actual rock formations, which where very impressive.  I sat with a small group, and we ate our lunches and talked about the drive and how much we enjoyed it.

When it was time to leave, I had a serious decision to make.  Should I head home on the freeways or go back the way I came?  Logic said freeway, as I had already had driven miles of twisties.  As I headed back down Aqua Dulce, I was still debating which route to take.  As I passed the freeway onramp, I just could not get myself to turn on to it.  Decision made, I tried to recreate the route in my head.  Sounds easy, but I had been mid pack on the way out and really did not take much notice of the roads we were on, just following the car ahead of me.  So I wasn’t really sure where to go.

I did okay at first, finding my way back onto Soledad Canyon.  I either missed a turn or never got to the turn, but either way I found myself twisted around.  I pulled off the road and consulted my Nav system.  I told it to avoid freeways and get me home.  It responded by saying that it could not find a route that matched all my parameters.  Huh?  This made no sense to me, but it was adamant.  After I tried recalculating the route a few times with the same results, I told it to find the intersection of Ageles Crest and Angeles Forest.  This was a much better idea, as it could and would plot a route for me.

I went back up Soledad and then turned onto Angeles Forest.  On the way back, I opted to get onto Big Tajunga Canyon instead of going back to Angeles Crest.  Big Tajunga has tighter turns than Angeles Forest and it has not been paved in some time, but nevertheless, it was a fun ride down the mountain to Foothill Blvd.  From there I took the 210 to the 118 to the 405 to the 101, getting off at Van Nuys for the trip up Beverly Glen and down Benedict Canyon and then home.

All told 165 miles for the day, most of them twisty back roads.  I was beat, but It was awesome.

6/17/16

My wife is a saint.  Yeah, I know most people would think that was obvious because she has been married to me for 36 years.  And while there is truth to that,  they would not have a clue as to the real reason.  She is a saint because she knows how to buy me stuff.  Stuff I may think about once and then forget.  But not Pam.  She stuffs these tidbits away and saves them for occasions, like Father’s Day or birthdays.  Then she acts.  In this case it was a bottle of Extra Anejo Tequila.

I am by no means a serious drinker, but I like to sip the hard stuff once in a while.  Wine does not hold much fascination for me, as I can rarely discern the nuances in taste and smell that make a great wine worth drinking.  But Scotch, Bourbon and, more recently, Tequila?  Well that’s an entirely different story.

My friend Steve started me down the Tequila path a year or so ago.  Until then the only way I could drink the stuff was in other stuff.  Steve, on the other hand, had spent countless hours sipping Tequila, and he emphatically suggested I do the same.  He started my education by explaining that Tequila came in three grades, depending on how long it had been aged.  The first grade, Silver Tequila, is distilled and really not aged.  It is raw.  The next grade, Reposado, is used to classify Tequilas that have been rested or aged for two to eleven months.  The third grade, Anejo Tequila, is aged at least one year.

It turns out that Steve was being kind to me because he omitted telling me about the fourth grade, Extra Anejo.  Extra Anejo Tequila is aged at least three years, and Extra Anejo Tequilas possess taste profiles that are very smooth and complex.

As you go from grade to grade, the cost of these Tequilas rises dramatically.  I am not a fan of Silver Tequila, unless it is in a Margarita, and from a sipping perspective that does not count.  I do like some Reposado Tequilas, such as the Casa Noble Single Barrel.  And for quite some time, I was very content to sip Anejo Tequilas, such as Don Julio 1942.

Then my friend Jeff stuck a very sharp pin in my Anejo balloon when he twisted my arm to try his bottle of Asom Broso Extra Anejo, a true super Tequila.  Oh my, it was good.  Of course, it’s ridiculously expensive, well past any price point I could rationalize.

A month or so after Jeff obliterated my Anejo balloon, the LA Times ran an article about Extra Anejos.  Pam and I discussed the ones mentioned in the article and noted that they were not priced too ridiculously.  So we tried to buy one, but it was out of stock.  After which I just forgot about it, most likely because I was too busy dealing with the purchase and burial of the 1977 Targa.  Pam didn’t because a bottle of Tapatio Excelencia Extra Anejo showed up just in time to kick off my Father’s Day weekend, and it was really good.

So like I said earlier, my wife is a saint.