Day 37

We slept hard... but we always do. Lluc got the couch the night before so I got it this time. Sam treated us to some hardy oatmeal, which was a nice change. We talked around the table about the road ahead, and discussed the best way to get back to the ocean and move south. We could go back towards Venice and ride the beach bike trail from there, though there was also the option of working our way Southeast through the city directly to Long Beach. After riding some of the LA River bike trail yesterday, and remembering how nutty the beach had been, we decided to go that route, through the city to the river, and ride it all the way to where it empties into the ocean at Long Beach.

Goodbyes were said, and we remarked on how our lives as friends cross in new and interesting ways over the years. You can almost see the speed of the world more clearly though the phases that we move through while we know each other. Somehow, our persons grow with experience while our cores remain, and a well-built bond that is rooted there holds fast. Here's hoping we flourish in parallel.

Back on the street, we began our long escape from LA. We worked our way out of Beverly Hills through side streets, then through Mid-Wilshire and Pico Union, South of Downton Los Angeles. The skyline began as a mass of hazy giants in the distance, but we drew upon them slowly until they disappeared behind the buildings around us.  The neighborhoods continued their uncertain transitions between one another in a drawn out parade of urban development, neglect, and renewal.

By midmorning, we had worked our way through Compton and entered Vernon, which we observed to be entirely devoted to food distribution and processing. A huge grid of arterials populated by semi-trucks and bordered by powerlines divided the warehouses, sporting food and Ag brands from localized corporations like Culver City Meat Company, to national companies like Farmer John and ProPortion, to multinational monsters like Cargill. It was like we had let ourselves in the backdoor of Food Inc. There was a real stench of warm meat and plastic packaging, and the warehouses each had brutally plain exteriors, like fortresses hiding secret processes. But perhaps that was my imagination running away with me...

Finally, we found the river. What a sight. It appeared before us like a a giant bathtub drain for the city. A train passed on the left side, ringing its bells and trucks idled on the bridge waiting for it to pass. A man crawled out of the shade beneath the bridge and walked along the open concrete slope.  Quite the scene.

We rode the bike path on its side on a tour of LA's homeless: the tents were very established, piles of accumulated items trailing off in every direction. Often they sat in the outflows of tributaries, dry as a bone now, but one can only imagine their capacity during a flash flood.

We rode along it for more than 10 miles when the monotony of it started to get to us. We need to see some life other than multicolored algae at the bottom of this oversized trench, we thought.

We got off and found a market overtly oriented for spanish-speakers, and got some odds and ends. We were a short ways from Long Beach proper and I had arranged to meet someone pursuing an exciting aquaculture venture there. We passed a cheap-looking barber shop and Lluc decided to make a stop, so I went on alone.

I met Steve Sutton of TransparentSea by the aquarium and we talked under a tree in the nearby park for over an hour. I had been interested to speak with him because fish farming is often a taboo in the sustainable fisheries world, and I wanted to hear it from his perspective. He had a down-to- earth outlook and a palpable drive to make a difference. You can find a devoted blog post on or conversation shortly (after I have a chance to go over my notes and collect my thoughts) but you can check out what they're up to here: www.transparentseafarm.com

Lluc met me and we rode South in view of the Queen Mary, looking an awful lot like the Titanic in its retirement mooring.

The beach was long, they were right about that. Quiet on a monday afternoon. Long Beach turned into Seal Beach, turned into Sunset Beach... the highway/beach strip continued without break until a large wetland area around the Anaheim bay, which looked like it had some naval presence of some kind. Offshore, tankers waited patiently for port, and oil rigs pumped silently. Lluc was enjoying his newly-freed scalp. Did you know that any cheese can in fact be eaten like a push-pop if it's warm enough? We have no refrigerators on board...

Soon, we were in Huntington Beach and our destination was in striking distance: Newport Beach. Bailey's folks have so kindly offered to host us, so we made haste.

I had been here once before later this very Summer, so I began to recognize some landmarks: Balboa peninsula, the Newport bay and the hills above, Fashion Island... (it's not an island, in case you were wondering, but it is very fashionable). Now with much more context, I can see how Newport stands out from the other Orange County beach communities. It has some focusing geography around the bay, peninsula and islands that harbors some more interesting developments than simply the highway strip and beach of the previous towns. It also is clearly more affluent and built-up, and feels somewhat more autonomous from LA than the others, though it certainly is still a suburb; there is no way it would exist here without LA. Still, it felt like we had finally escaped LA and moved into a new region of So Cal.

We rode up into the San Joaquin hills (a nice cherry on top for a 60 mile day) and found the place neatly tucked in a gated community, amidst the other gated communities that occupy this area, supposedly forming a community between then. But enough of that-- I withhold any further judgements. We accept the graciousness of our hosts and all their customs.

It was a soft landing coming into a relatively familiar place. We were just in time for the sunset over Catalina Island.

We had halibut for dinner and talked of our journey so far and what lays ahead. We realized this may be a good pace to take stock and make plans for the next chapter. In just a few short days we'll be crossing the border and things will change,  perhaps drastically. Maybe we've earned a rest day. Even if we haven't, this seems like a good place to do it.