Long Bike Ride

In an attempt to fill up my days with hours sold to other folks doing stuff, I found myself chasing down some leads. Those turned out to be at Cal State U. at Dominguez Hills. CSUDH has one of the best teacher credentialing programs in the nation, and I've been doing some things with them, but on this particular day, I had a meeting up at campus.

CSU Dominguez Hills, in Carson, could be the only college campus with a professional team's field onsite. The LA Galaxy and Chivas USA soccer teams both play at the Home Depot Center, which is on campus.

In any case, with campus in Carson being close by, mostly, to Long Beach, I decided to ride the subway and take my bike and ride from the stop. Then, when I saw which stop I needed to get off at, I looked up the sheer miles: our apartment to DH campus.

Only ten miles.

That's when I decided to just go for it, and ride the whole way there. My knee needs the work, right?

If you start at the ocean, put your back to it, and then head away from it, it makes a certain sense that you'll be heading uphill.

That's how it worked out on paper. Ten miles. Five straight up the LA River bikeway, maybe one or one and a half from our house to the bikeway entrance. Two or three more from the river bikeway to Central Ave, and three or two up Central to campus.

That last stretch up Central is literally up Central.

Later on, talking with Vic (Tux's babysitter while we went to Europe), telling him about it he stopped and kinda yelled at me. Then, when Corrie got home, he asked her how she could let me do that, and told her she has to put her foot down on my crazy ideas. We all had a good laugh at that.

On the way home I took the train. Del Amo Blvd isn't really bike friendly (go figure), and I rode the sidewalk (when it was there) back to the train station and rode it home. I iced my knee afterwards, and the next day when I got back on the bike, my knee felt fine and maybe even a little stronger.

Carson and Long Beach and Southgate and Norwalk and Lynwood and Compton are all little "cities" that seem to snuggle altogether in South Central Los Angeles County, and they all look pretty much the same, and they're divided by invisible lines on maps. What Vic remembers the area being like (one that's certainly unsafe for a shaggy whitey like myself) and what it is today aren't congruent anymore..