Weekend adventure

Wow, what a great three day weekend! After work on Thursday, my best friend, her kid and I headed up to Lake Isabella. I had called for a hotel reservation a few weeks prior and since it was a small privately owned hotel, they said they went to bed around 10PM  so our room would be left unlocked and the key on the table. I called to confirm our late arrival and was informed of the room number. It sure is freaky to walk in our assigned hotel room at 1AM to find people in it! A call waking the owners up and perhaps she was sleepy or something but we were informed it was a mix up and got a different room... only to find people in there again! How many people do you know go to a hotel room and forget to lock their door? How crazy is that?! Anyway, the owner came downstairs still half asleep and unlocked an empty room for us. Thankfully it was empty and we had to hurry to sleep since we had an early morning.

Friday - July 23, 2010
White water rafting! The office was only a few miles away and my friend and her kid had never been rafting before. Usually, the first time you start out on a small rapid - perhaps a II-III class. But since I had gone several times prior (although not on this river) I booked us a class III-IV rapid called the Gusto on the Lower Kern River. Pretty exciting! It was an all day event and 12 miles of river... I think 8 rapids total.

There were a total of three rafts and about 20 people... Us three were put in another group of four so our raft was packed... seven of us plus the guide.

We ended taking the scenic way home and stopped by Lancaster. I had seen this video called a musical road and wanted to check it out in person. The road is designed by engineers to awaken a vehicle driver by listening to the road music. You know how you're driving down the shoulder on the road, you hear that strange noise to wake you up in case you fell asleep at the wheel or to just let you know you're driving off the main roadway. Anyway, this road was actually built for a Honda car commerical. You have to drive a certain speed and the noise the vehicle tires emit is the William Tell Overature - the finale. Or to most people, it would be called the theme song to "The Lone Ranger" television program. It's only about 40 seconds long and 1/4 mile so it's not too much of an attraction. We went over it three times!

(click to play - sorry my finger got in the way of the camera)

Then we went downtown Hollywood to Thai town to hangout a bit and went shopping. There's a Buddah shrine on the street and my friend wanted to pray alittle. She bought some packaged crackers as a food offering and prayed. I went back to the vehicle which was the next store over and by the time she returned to the car, pulled out of the parking lot and drove by the shrine - maybe 2 minutes - the food offering was gone! Homeless people are plenty in that area so we figured as soon as she left someone snagged the bag. Amazing...

Saturday - July 24, 2010
We arrived home last Friday night and I promised a friend of mine I'd go riding with her in the morning. Morning sure arrived early! This friend is a web design consultant who decided to help out a Canadian fund raising organization to raise money for breast cancer research. This was the third annual Women Who Ride Conga Line based out of Vancouver, BC. Conga lines throughout the United States met up in Cheyenne, Wyoming. http://www.gowitheflo.org/ After the event was over, Flo the organizer, her best friend nicknamed Fancy Pants and her brother Wilbur came to Los Angeles.

Eric, Eli, Carrie, Judy, Jayna, Brenda, Flo, Jack

So my friend and I were going to take these Canadians on some rides... not that they needed to ride more - they had already been on the road for 23 days and logged over 5,000 miles... yup, on motorcycles. We took them to biker hangouts and some really cool roads in Orange County.

Sunday - July 25, 2010
Another early morning! This time a ride around Los Angeles County. We took them to more biker hangouts and met some more biker folks that would help with next years Conga. They start their roadtrip home tomorrow and by the time they reach Vancouver Island, BC they would have been on the road for almost one month! What an adventure!!! I did feel bad for them - the LA fundraising wasn't what they had hoped but there is always next year. The meet location will again be in Wyoming but I think they said the new location would be Greybull. I'm hoping to join the Conga next year and ride from California to Wyoming... and that would be a great roadtrip!

There's a place called The Rock Store. It's a biker hangout near Mulholland - a lot of celebrities that ride stop by. We met up with Brenda Fox, who is a spokesperson for women in motorcycling, motorcycle test rider and journalist. She's also in the American Motorcyclist Association Hall of Fame.

Brenda Fox

Q-Tip... who is "The Beast" on TMZ.