I broke out of my biking commute doldrums today by hopping onto The Phoenix and pedaling 20 miles from Silver Lake north around the horn of Griffith Park across the valley to Encino for a noon dentist appointment, which I arrived for about 10 minutes late. Would’ve been there on time, but I got ambushed on Riverside in Glendale coming past the Equestrian Center by an at-times stiff headwind that never really let up for the remainder of the ride.
I had been planning on extensive blogifications of the journey (the return trip of which included a hop aboard the MTA’s vaunted Orange Line), but most of the pictures I snapped along the way are crap and the only incident of note happened up on Ventura Boulevard just west of the 405 overpass when this machotard in an old topless Scout with a modified noisefucker muffler and a bumper plastered with Marines stickers cut in front of me as if to make a right to get onto the southbound freeway. But instead it turns out he was just trying to thread his way through traffic because when things stacked up in front of him, the asshat wrenched back left to go around it. Trouble was since the quality of the curbside street was questionable and I didn’t really want to be passing all these right turners on their right, I had already done the same thins and was coming around him to pass on his left, forcing him to stop with a jerk lest I become hoodputty.
Well of course this miffed the bastid something good and when he finally got around the hold up and caught roaringly up to me he queried me with “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” To which I yelled “No, I’m just trying to get where I’m going but idiots keep getting in my way!” And then he came back with “Well you oughta be more careful!” And that made me laugh and say “Dude I’ve had far better drivers than you try run me under so you just don’t worry about me and go on and get now why don’tcha!” Then I made some shooing gestures and he gave me this weird look like he as just now realizing I called him an idiot and he raced off deafeningly only to get caught in traffic at the next light whereupon I shot by him and yelled “Semper fi!” He soon passed me again and saluted me back with the standard military-issue middle finger and I just waved.
After the dentist I cruised down Balboa south of the lake and picked up the Orange Line back to the North Hollywood Red Line station. Though I had been intent on heading downtown and dining at Cole’s, when my baby read yesterday my plans to solo to that landmark she said she wanted to go too and so I figured we’d check it out together the following weekend. Instead I exited the subway at Sunset and Vermont and just came home to finish up charging camera batteries and pack get our camping trip groceries.
We leave tomorrow for Death Valley around 9 a.m. so if I don’t have time to post before we go try to make our Memorial Day weekend a truly memorable one, then have a good safe one yourself.
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