Category Archives: USA

bikes, city, engineering, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Hot dam!

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Up at seven & off to go riding (why else?) before it got too hot. After sorting out breakfast, making my way the half hour or so east to Boulder City (town was constructed to house those building the Hoover Dam). Managed to find the well constructed trail head – ample shade, water, showers & toilets – and was riding shortly after nine. Unfortunately, the trail map on the board & the signposting wasn’t too great. I rode up a couple of nice rocky trails for about forty-five minutes, the grade was pretty good (middle ring the whole way again), but although it was still relatively early it was getting hot. Easily in to the nineties & then touching the low to mid-hundreds (around 35-40 degrees Celsius – rather warm), I carried on up & was rewarded with great views of the desert, Lake Mead, Boulder City & then Las Vegas.

Definitely time to turn around – the downhill of the same trails (I liked the look of them on the way up, so decided to go down the same way) was fantastic. Some nice rocky switchback, some bits that flowed well, & all the rocky steps that I had had to lift the front wheel over or attack at pace made great drop offs.

Half way I met a couple of local guys that had started the climb after me resting under the only shade I had seen – an overhanging rock. Happy to see some other people, I stopped & chatted for a while & they recommended a place for lunch in town before I headed to Hoover Dam for the afternoon. The next & last trail down was also fantastic & had big sweeping corners, berms that rose & lots of little jumps to pop off – & more rocks! A quick shower & it was off in to Boulder City to have a little poke around. A nice sleepy little town with bits of dam building history around. I had a great lunch at a cool little microbrewery – it turns out that any time anything is offered with a boysenberry flavour, I have to have it. This time is was a tripleberry beer, a few days ago it was boysenberry frozen yoghurt. Must be my way of dealing with being away from home.

It was on to see the Hoover Dam after lunch – I’ve long wanted to see this product of a lot of engineering & pure hard slog. It definitely didn’t disappoint. I was interested to see how much the building of the dam & the taming of the Colorado tied in to Imperial County’s irrigation & the All-American Canal (this is relevant as I spent the weekend in Imperial County ten days ago). By now the day was getting really hot (eventually it got to 111 degrees) & there were a lot of people at the dam. I was impressed enough by the parking building – it was pretty big & tucked in where a lot of rock used to be. I did the tour of the powerplant & got a look inside one of the diversion tunnels. As expected, the whole place was massive & photos may be better than me rabbiting on about it.

Intake towers

Lake Mead

To cope with all the traffic going down the road, this new bridge is being built – next year you will not be able to drive over the dam.

Back in to Vegas, a short nap – this morning’s early rise & early, hot ride had caught up with me.  I then went up the Stratosphere tower & admired the view – & saw my first wedding since I got in to town. Also went on one of the rides at the top – Insanity – apart from dangling a few hundred metres above the street, it wasn’t particularly thrilling.

I took the monorail to the far end of the Strip & got off at MGM Grand & proceeded to walk the length of the Strip looking around.  In the end it was masses of people, many casinos.  It was better & more interesting than the previous night & I could see how it could be fun – but all I managed to get was a blister on the ball of my foot from walking about four miles on concrete.  Bed at the respectable hour of midnight – big day of driving ahead.

city, roadtrip, travel, USA

Road trip!

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Most of Monday was spent packing & organising & waiting. With the car loaded up & a vague idea where I was heading for the next ten day, it was off to the fateful corner (Felspar & Bayard) to meet with all sorts of people. There was the detective investigating our case & a police photographer, two or three people who are prosecuting the juveniles & adults, another victim (he got attacked just down the road from us – I was even more glad to have given up my $100 after seeing his seventeen stitches, the bat may have had nails in it), Andrea & me. We spent the next hour & a bit talking about the evening, having our photo taken from various angles & so on. Finally it was over, Andrea & I delayed my road trip by going back to where it all began for some food & a beer. Eventually I hit the road after five for the two hundred miles to Las Vegas. Apart from a few rush hour snarl ups, driving was a breeze & I arrived safely to check in to the conveniently cheap Stratosphere.

I had a nice high (not in the tower though) & quiet room with a decent view of the north end of the Strip. After settling in, it was out for a quick explore.

Beverley asked me last week what I thought of the States or how I was enjoying it or something similar. I said that it was pretty much what I had in mind – everything was bigger, it was warmer, Californians love the sun & are pretty active, the scenery I had seen was quite different & there is just more of everything; consequently, I was loving it (mugging excepted). Las Vegas was similar in some ways – it was bright, it didn’t sleep, the casinos were huge, it was hot (hottest day so far this year – 104 in LV, 110 a bit out of town), there were people everywhere, it was slightly sleazy. But walking around, I found I didn’t really like all that & walking around parts of it by myself even felt slightly vulnerable (that may have just been all the bums or the mugging experience putting me on edge). Turned in nice & early at midnight to get up early for a ride before it got too hot.

Speaking of turning in early, I must go to sleep as I’m exhausted from driving four hundred miles today, I’ve lost an hour to Utah’s decision to not go to daylight saving, & the JEM trail awaits tomorrow morning. The second day in LV was much better & today better again.

bikes, friends, MTB, travel, USA

Up early for a ride

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Somehow managed to wake up to hear the clock chiming five & suddenly remembered that I was to get up in five minutes for a big ride. Stumbled around the house – being the longest day, it was nice & light – getting ready & managed to force an extra piece of toast down & I was on the road before six. Met up at Chip’s house & we loaded our bikes on to the borrowed old Volvo (it has racks). Annoyingly burnt my tongue on the liquorice tea, & we arrived at the trail head (down the I8 again, towards where I rode at Big Laguna last week) fifteen minutes early & waited for the others to arrive. In the end, there were seven of us – me the youngest (easily having less than half the years accumulated as the most senior), a couple of guys on singlespeeds – one a very nice custom titanium 29er.

Started off at 8.00 & it was a little chilly as we cruised along some singletrack not too far from the road. After a while we started to climb a little & I was impressed to see the singlespeeds leading the way – usually the case, I remember having to just go at hills & not being able to cruise. Found a big rock for first rest stop.

The whole area we were riding in was destroyed by wildfires in 2003, so there weren’t a lot of sizeable trees around, but the scrub has had a few years to regenerate. It’s a bit of a blur, but we did a lot of climbing (middle-ring the whole way for me, so not too difficult) on some nice singletrack – quite dusty, but otherwise fine.

I think we started at about 3000 ft & eventually we crossed the Sunrise Highway (~5000 ft) & continued climbing on the singletrack. Stopped a couple of times for a rest & for the tourist to take photos:

By now we were looking out towards the edge of the desert (further north of the one we drove through to go camping last week).

Some of us felt that we should leave the Perfect Cycling Trail & hike-a-bike up to the road. Unfortunately, this was twenty minutes of clambering, pushing, carrying through scrub getting very scratched legs. Probably the hardest part of the day for & somewhat draining. We rode up the Sunrise Highway for a few miles, down a bit & back on to singletrack. What followed was pure bliss – we must have had two or three miles of downhill & it started out nice & dusty (of course) & twisty & then proceeded to get rockier & rockier – it was great fun barrelling down there. The closest I came to riding off the side of the hill was looking up & seeing Billy two or three hundred yards down the trail & trying to work out if I could catch him. I put my head down after that & concentrated on staying on the trail a bit more – the rocks got bigger & combined in some nice chutes, where having suspension soak up the occasional poor line was comforting. Pleasingly, I managed to catch Billy right at the end of the downhill & we sat & waited under a tree for the others to turn up. Those few miles were fantastic & the riding (& perhaps, the) highlight of my trip so far.

Having regrouped & rested we begun the climb out of the valley on singletrack & eventually were riding up & down a meadow. The dust turned quite slippery here – I’m used to dry surfaces being grippy in NZ, but here I’d hit a switchback too fast (as it turned out) & my front wheel would just slide as if on slippery clay – I managed to turn front wheel inside out once or twice, but somehow stayed upright. One final rest stop before we hit the fire road down all the way to the car – it was quick. I’m still not a big fan of the High Rollers, there were quite a few instances during the day when I think the Nevegals would have helped me out a lot more. First puncture of the day for Cliff about ten minutes from the cars; once that was repaired we easily finished the six hour epic – 27 miles all up. That was about the limit of my endurance, up the last little rise (which was nothing compared to what we had already done) I found myself chopping back to easier gears & struggling up the hill. Got home & realised I was covered in dust – a great glove mark:

& it was just as well I didn’t get talked in to having a pedicure the day before – this is through MTB shoes & socks.

Big nap & watched Master & Commander – as I had been on the HMS Surprise a couple of days before. Must pack & plan & organise a few things (rather, everything) for my road trip today.

city, engineering, history, travel, USA, vehicles

Ships – of various shapes, sizes & uses

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With no bike rides planned, it was off to the San Diego Maritime Museum yesterday. The museum has eight historic vessels – the oldest being laid down in 1863. The main part of the museum (displays relating to the US Navy in SD, passenger ferries between SD & Coronado, fishing industry, navigation & so on) is housed in an old steam ferry. I easily spent a couple of hours looking at the displays & the upper deck, which was the main passenger seating area – for a twenty minute trip to Coronado, it was quite spacious & bordering on ornate. The next couple of hours were spent cruising around the harbour on a small pilot vessel (named Pilot, strangely enough) with a very informative talk from an ex-Navy guy. The much-mentioned “June Gloom” was in full force & for the first time since I arrived in SD the morning cloud didn’t lift in to a brilliantly sunny & warm day – just as well I’m from NZ & I am in the habit of taking clothes along on trips on the off chance the weather may change. One of the highlights of the cruise was going past the USS Nimitz, at over 330 metres long it somewhat dwarfed our 52′ vessel. An impressive sight to say the least.

Also neat to go around the other naval & commercial vessels (not as many in port as in Portsmouth last year) & under the Coronado bridge – this bridge was the death of the commuter ferries & is really quite tall to let the war ships pass underneath.

The guide also pointed out the San Diego Toolbox – sky scrapers that resemble common tools if you use your imagination a bit. There were two flat-screwdrivers/chisels (depending on which way one’s imagination went), a Phillips screwdriver & a set of hex wrenches. I was impressed that such an effort managed to be coordinated.

Back to land for a brief moment before checking out HMS Surprise which was a replica & was used in the film “Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World” – this was OK, but nowhere as impressive as HMS Victory. I was however impressed by going on B-39, an ex-Soviet submarine. As far as I remember, I have never been on a submarine – this one was 300 feet long, diesel powered & commissioned in 1974. Naturally, it was all very cramped & the watertight doorways were difficult to get through with a backpack on. I was suitably baffled by all the controls as they were in Russian & thought it must have been quite difficult to cope with only three toilets on board when there was a crew of seventy. Apparently vodka was banned on board (is this really a Russian sub?), but the crew was given white wine instead – when the museum took possession of the sub, about three-hundred bottles of vodka were found secreted in various places around the sub.

Torpedo tubes

Making my way out of the sub (it’s a lot harder to get lost in a submarine than parts of SD Zoo it turns out), it was off to the Star of India:

This 1863 ship is the oldest vessel that is still sailed – & was one of the first iron hulled ships. She started life as a cargo ship sailing from Britain to India, then spent over twenty years transporting emigrants from Britain to NZ (21 circumnavigations), at the end of the 19th century it was off to bring salmon down from the Bering Sea to California until 1923 – she has been in San Diego since then. Of course, it was of most interest to me that she had carried thousands of Britons to a new life in NZ. I was fascinated & somewhat humbled to see & read about the small cabins & life on such a voyage that Pheasants, Montgomeries, Wallaces (& others of which I forget the surnames) must have endured as they made their way to NZ. That concluded the maritime museum, & it was quite a walk to go & find some lunch. But well rewarded, with my first bagel in the States – delicious. After that very late lunch, there was just enough time for a very rushed tour of the USS Midway.

So after the confines of the Russian sub, the USS Midway seems even larger than it normally would appear – that is, it seems bigger than huge. Commissioned at the end of WWII, it went on to serve until 1992 (was flagship of Persian Gulf air operations in Desert Storm – I thought that quite impressive for a WWII era ship). Unfortunately, I only had the two hours before closing to get a quick glimpse at most everything – but it was fascinating. Just a few numbers to try & convey the vastness of it & because that’s the kind of guy I am:

  • 220000 hp
  • 69000 tons total weight
  • 2000 electric motors
  • 1500 telephones
  • 20 ton anchors
  • 4 acre flight deck (three inches thick)
  • 3400000 million gallon fuel capacity, 100000 gallons used daily, 260 mpg
  • Crew of 4500
  • 10 tons of food a day – 225 cooks & so on

But of course, all that doesn’t really compare to walking around the hangar & flight deck, up to the bridge & then down a bit the galley, wardrooms (officers’ facilities), laundry, sick bay & ICU. Pleasingly, there were also 25 historic aircraft on board – fighters, bombers, choppers, fixed-wing radar. I’m still amused every time I see a Skyhawk here that they are described as being very useful in the 1960s, yet NZ used them until the combat air wing was discontinued in the last ten years & still has some sitting in an glofiried garage somewhere.

Out for dinner Friday night as Anna-Marie is shortly off to Norway & England & other parts of Europe for four weeks. Italian fare was great – almost a year since Tuscany (which must mean my bike turned two a couple of weeks ago). Nice big sleep in Saturday & then chilled out, finished reading Tom Sawyer, due to the “June Gloom” setting in – I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that phrase in the last two weeks – just as well I missed “May Gray” weather. Five of us drove up to Orange County, Google Maps has been blamed for getting us lost, four came back – Anna-Marie should be well on her way to Norway by now, it’s a little quieter around here.  Back home & in bed by midnight, eager to get up again in five hours for a big ride.