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August 16, 2017
Westwood & Wilshire Boulevard
At 5:00 a.m. in the morning I wake up and ride the Honda Africa Twin to the airport in the cool summer morning air. Park and catch a flight to Phoenix. I'm going back to Los Angeles, but my KTM is in Ontario because that's where I flew out of when my grandmother passed away and then I was in Colorado last week and so it goes.
My ticket was to fly to LAX this week, but then I realized that my KTM was in Ontario, so I bought a one-way ticket to ONT from DEN, but couldn't get a non-stop flight, so I'm going through Sky Harbor in Phoenix. This is my life.
I preboard the flight to Phoenix and then the pilot takes us to a place out on the tarmac I've never seen before in 30 years of flying and the pilot announces that we will be delayed due to air traffic control.
Great. The flight is delayed leaving Denver. Now, I'll miss my connection in Phoenix and I'll be royally screwed getting into work. This is why you take non-stop flights.
But instead, we're only delayed a short time and then we take off an I watch the mountains and then the deserts scroll by with little interest.
When you never fly, it's all very exciting but when you fly every week, everything fades.
I land at Sky Harbor and change terminals without having to reclear securtiy and now I'm at the gate and I preboard again. Now, a short flight into ONT, but this isn't really familiar country. I don't normally fly over this portion of the Great American Desert.
"Is that Lake Havasu City?" I ask the guy beside me.
"No. That's the Salton Sea."
Very cool. Now, we're landing in ONT, but the pilot does a go-around because a helicopter is in the way. Now, we land and I walk outside and this is the part where you pray the bike is where you left it nearly 2 weeks ago. And the bright orange KTM is there. Huge rush of adrenaline. Now, I'm not really sure where I'm going, so I put in the address of the last place we were when we worked at UCLA. It has to be close to that, I figure.
Everything shows to take I-10 west, and now that it's noon, I don't think that traffic will be all that bad, and I hop on I-10 heading west. Traffic isn't all that bad, though it does stop occasionally, and when it does, I lane split and I keep going west. I-10 joins I-5 for a little bit just east of downtown LA and I manage to get a little lost, but then I'm back on track, south on I-5, to I-10 west again. And traffic is bad, and then better.
When I get to 10920 Wilshire Blvd, I park the KTM in the same place I parked the last time we were here. Now, I see that Sapna has texted me a new address less than a mile from here, and now I'm off to the races. Like, first, get to the right side of Los Angeles. Now, go up Westwood to UCLA's main campus.
Some question about whether the building name is Ackerman Hall or Ackerman Student Union. Just ask for the bookstore. It's at the center of campus.
I park in a parking garage at the edge of campus and start walking looking for "the building with stripes". Find it and there's an information window. Apparently, UC Path is on the 2nd floor. I walk up to the second floor and I'm home.
On Monday morning, we don't have any food provided, but on Tuesday morning, the bring us coffee. Fresh fruit. Danishes. Muffins.
The chairs are stiff, so I sit on a couch, with my feet on the coffee table.
We are here for the week. May as well make the best of it.
Suresh and I walk to starbucks for coffee, down in Westwood by the Fox Theatre.
There is a tree here with yellow flowers that I can't identify and it bothers me. I take a photo to send to the horticulturist that I met in Rockridge. But I don't have his contact information any more.
Cassia Leptophylia. Gold Medallion Tree. Foot long seed pods. Native to Brazil.
http://www.geographylists.com/cassia_leptophylla_closeup.jpg
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 16, 2017 at 10:39 AM
Comments
Sounds like hard work.... Shame all the work is in lala town.
Love the photo - I think its a daffodil tree :P
Posted by: Nevada Joe on August 17, 2017 at 9:20 AM