Now that I've had a chance to rest a bit, I can share about the last few days. It has been a GREAT weekend!!

It got off to an exciting start when my sister, Amy, surprised me by flying in for the weekend from St. Louis, MO to support me and the walk. Yea!

Saturday was my rest day. Highlights of the day were a 75 mile motorcycle ride (My walking has severely cut into my recreational motorcycle riding. It was great to get back out!!), a massage at Burbank Spa and Garden and then going with Carol and Amy to see Mission: Impossible III, a nice relaxing movie. Or not. Then it was early to bed to get lots of sleep for the big walk.

I was successful in getting to bed early. I was not, however, successful in getting lots of sleep. My nerves woke me up at 1:30AM and I never really got back to sleep. Oh well. I got up at 4AM, took a soak in the spa and was ready to go just after 5AM. I got another great surprise when Todd showed up to walk the first 2 hours with me. Remember this is 5AM! Now THAT'S a good friend! Below is a picture of me all suited up and ready to go. Just in case you are wondering, I AM wearing pants. They're camouflage which is why you may not be able to see them.



And then we were off! We saw the sunrise as we were leaving Burbank on our way to Glendale. The weather cooperated yesterday. It was perfect.




I said goodbye to Todd once we got to Colorado Boulevard. Further down Colorado, I crossed the Arroyo Seco on the beautiful and historic Colorado Street Bridge.




In East Los Angeles, I came across this carpet store. They are doing a great job of communicating what they are selling by putting those rolls of carpet up on the roof. They do, however, need to work a little on the, for lack of a better term, sex appeal of the presentation!




Amy got this classic paparazzi shot as I approached our lunch spot.




We had made previous arrangments to have lunch in Lincoln Park which is almost exactly at mile 20. Elise, Todd, Amy and Carol brought a feast from the Corner Bakery which hit the spot.




Going into it, I was honestly worried about being able to pull off this 40 mile walk. As it turned out, I was in better shape at the end of the day than I had been at the end some of my training walks. I attribute it to two factors. One was this lunch stop. In addition to the excellent food, I took my shoes off, iced my feet...




...changed my socks and was off of my feet for a full hour. My feet actually felt better during the second 20 miles than the first. Go figure. The other factor that really helped out was resting last weekend. I could really feel the difference. Little aches and pains that I had been living with for the last month disappeared. The only downside to lunch was I did get slightly too comfortable. The lack of sleep from the previous night caught up with me. Going home and hopping in bed sounded mighty fine. But don't worry, I didn't. And, interestingly enough, I didn't really feel sleepy again until late into the evening.

Another surprise from my sister were T-shirts that she had made up for the whole support team!




Elise and Todd did a great job of documenting the day - Elise with her still camera and Todd with the video. Elise shot this as I was heading into Downtown L.A. on one of their drive-by stalking passes. :-)




The building in the center of this shot with the pyramid on top is Los Angeles City Hall. From 1928 when it was built to 1964, it was the tallest building in L.A. Looks like times have changed!




Getting ready to cross the scenic Los Angeles River.




Well, maybe scenic isn't the best way to describe it or maybe it's just a different kind of scenic.



Soon I was at historic (and touristy) Olvera Street, the oldest part of Downtown. If you're interested, you can read more about it here.




There is a lot of glass downtown these days.



Soon I picked up Wilshire Boulevard at One Wilshire, its beginning. I would be on it all the way to the ocean. Near downtown, Wilshire bisects MacArthur Park. Yesterday, they blocked off Wilshire in the park for some sort of well attended festival.



One of the attractions was pony rides. This guy had a dose of personality. He was quite interested in my camera.



Once I got to Museum Row in Mid-Wilshire, I had company for the rest of my walk!! First to join me was my sister. She started near the La Brea Tar Pits. Since she hadn't seen them before, we walked through the grounds.



After an hour or so, Carol drove up. Amy took over driving duties so Carol could walk with me for a stretch. Then a few minutes later, Judy and Eric joined the party. Eric would walk with me for the entire rest of my walk!

I was told that Boy Scouts had placed these flags at every grave in the Veteran's Cemetery in Westwood for Memorial Day. It was quite a sight.




This is the four of us walking in Brentwood.




And then, finally, the finish line was in sight.




Next to the pier was another Memorial Day memorial.




And then I was at the end of the pier. It was done. They even had a little finish line for me to cross! It took a little bit for it all to sink in...




These guys were very enthusiastic when they heard what I had just done.




I want to take a little time out for a special thank you to my wife and best friend Carol. Not only did she do a spectacular job leading the support team this weekend, she was a tremendous support during the last six months as this idea became a reality. She walked on some of my training walks, gave me loads of encouragement and was understanding when I disappeared for hours on end every Sunday for the last couple of months. (She even hooked me up with a hour and a half massage today!!!) Thanks Carol.




Here is the full finish line support team except for Elise who took the picture. Thank you guys so much!!




We then walked up to Il Fornaio and joined a couple of other friends along with Carol's aunt and uncle for a fabulous meal. It was the perfect end to a perfect day!




I have been thrilled by the amount of donations that came in over the last week. The official total right now is $6853. And that doesn't include some of you who I know have donated. Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!!

I have to share with you one story. One of my buddies told me that he and his wife were getting ready to send off their donation to Outward Bound when their 6 year old daughter came into the room. She told them that she wanted to donate $2 from her allowance in support of my cause. Leyana, YOU ROCK!!!

I've also managed a mention on a couple of walking related web sites. Elizabeth over at Walktopia did a nice write up. You can find it here. I'm also mentioned in the Carnival of the Walkers #47 over at the About Walking site.

Even though the walk is over, feel free to check back in. I plan on updating the donation total over the next few weeks. I also plan on posting a short video from the footage that Todd shot.

Thank you EVERYONE for your interest, your support and for donating. This whole experience has been OUTSTANDING!!

Just a quick post to say that, yes, I actually walked the 40 miles today...with surprisingly little pain. I'll post the details tomorrow. Now I must s...l...e...e...p... ZZZZzzzzzzzzz...

Over the last 9 weeks, I've walked 55 hours and covered 175 miles. I've explored Alhambra, Burbank, City of Commerce, Culver City, Hollywood, Long Beach, Los Feliz, Mar Vista, Montebello, Monterey Park, North Hollywood, Pasadena, San Gabriel, San Marino, Santa Monica, Seal Beach, Signal Hill, Sun Valley, Venice and, of course, Los Angeles. I've had fun...actually, a lot of fun!!

Now that my training is done, I've taken a look back at my goals. Here's how I think I'm doing.

• To train in a healthy manner. (It is very important to me that I am still able to walk after this thing is over!!)

As far as I can tell, I'm doing just fine. Now, that's not to say I don't have some aches and pains - just that none of it seems beyond my body saying, "Dude, CHILL for a bit, why don't you!"

• To make my 40th year memorable.

Done!

• To raise money for Outward Bound. (In a perfect world, I'd LOVE to raise $40,000. For obvious reasons, it seems like the perfect number. It also feels a tad unreachable. But hey, no harm in trying!)

The fundraising is going great. My grand total to date is $4833 and, amazingly, that's with only 26 donors!! Now, obviously, the $40,000 seems a little out of reach, but I'm thrilled with the everyone's generosity! A great big thank you!!!! I've been asked by some how much to donate. Truthfully, I am grateful for ANY donation, no matter what the size! I've even managed to meet a couple of hidden goals. I've gotten donations from people who know my friends or family but not me directly and I even got a donation from a complete stranger!

• To walk 40 miles in one day.

We will see in a week! It won't be easy, but confidence is high.

• To explore and learn more about Los Angeles, from the up close and personal perspective of a walker.

Done! I have really enjoyed learning more about Greater Los Angeles. Those of us who live here, live in a great city. Now, I suppose you can argue that there is great stuff pretty much everywhere, you just need to focus on the positive. I agree with that. Well, with the possible exception of (no offense) Whittier, Alaska. Although the Prince William Sound is georgous, I found the town, well, hugely depressing. But I digress...

I've also learned a little about blogging and the Internet. What I've been most interested in is how much information I can easily find out about visitors to the blog. When I first set up the blog, I discovered I could track hits to it with various free tools. I chose Sitemeter. I was amazed at what I could track about each hit. It tracks the visitor's ISP, the location of the ISP, the operating system, the browser with version number, the screen resolution and the referring URL, among other more arcane statistics. If someone finds my blog by using a search engine, I can see what the search terms were. Apparently, people are interested in the Garden of Oz in Beachwood Canyon as I have gotten quite a few hits from that. The most hilarious hit was from someone who searched "drivers education on thursday and tuesday in Redondo Beach, CA" and found my blog. I don't think this is what they had in mind!

I've also been interested in where the hits come from. Of course I recognize many of the locations because I know who I've told about the blog. I was surprised, however, that strangers have visited from all over the world. I've gotten hits from Australia, Barbados, Brazil, England, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago...and that is just what I can remember. This map shows where the last 100 hits have come from. (The most recent 10 are in green and the last is in red.)

If any of you in the LA area are interested in walking with me or joining us at the end, email or call me. We're planning on having dinner at Il Fornaio since it is right there at the pier.

Thanks for checking in. Only one week to go!

Today was my final training walk!! Yahoo!!!

My plan was to follow the vampires in Tom Petty's Free Fallin' i.e. "move west down Ventura Blvd." In fact, I walked the entire length of it, from east to west. For those of you who don't know Ventura Blvd., it is an exceedingly commercial artery. Every city has one or a few. I walked among every conceivable kind of business.

I've heard the eastern end of Ventura referred to as Sushi Row. In the first couple of miles, I walked by all of these restaurants. (This is a collage, not one big sign!) Lots of sushi. Lots of good sushi!




Because Ventura Blvd. is so commercial, I was inundated with signage! This sign for Studio City Hand Car Wash was particularly original.




I liked some of the signs, like this one for Antonio's Pizzeria. In fact, seeing all the neon made me wish I was doing this walk at night. (I was hoping to do a night training walk per the suggestion of my cousin. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fit it in.)




Some of the signs I liked less. I passed by a billion mini-malls and it seemed like each one of them had one of these highly unoriginal and unattractive sign boards.




I thought this was a pretty clever sculpture of the workmen.




And this was an impressive piece of mustache vandalism. Notice the marker choice is in perfect harmony with the color palette of the ad.




My completely anecdotal and unscientific observation is that people's driving habits haven't significantly changed with our new higher gas prices. I still hear plenty of full bore accelerations and an occasional tire peel. This was my first sighting of over $4 gas. Granted it is Full Serve but still... Yikes!




In Encino, I paid a visit to our good friends Isabella and Giuseppe in their wonderful restaurant, Café Carolina. If you happen to be in the area and want some excellent Italian food, please pay them a visit. You won't be disappointed!




This sign made me feel like I was in Kansas or Colorado or Nebraska...not Woodland Hills.




And this sign is just plain wacky!




At the end of Ventura Blvd., I still wanted to keep on walking, so I headed north on Valley Circle Blvd. After a few hours, I was worlds away from the commercialism of Ventura Blvd.

This probably seems obvious to most but every single walk I've done so far is an exercise in contrasts. I'll walk by the super rich and then an hour later the, um, super unrich. One moment I'll be in a quiet residential neighborhood, and next in a dense commercial district. It's a combination of the diversity of a very big city coupled with my long walks.




Ironically, the walking was better in the city than in the country. Notice how much space I had to walk! I did appreciate the peace...between the cars rushing by a couple of feet to my right!




Next week is a rest week and then, finally, I walk the 40. Tune in next week for my training wrap up.

Have a great week!

Labels: Training Walk, Ventura Boulevard

Today I explored Long Beach. I started, however, in the small community of Signal Hill, which is completely surrounded by Long Beach. Signal Hill is famous for being where oil was discovered in 1921. In fact, the Signal Hill oil field is one of the most productive per acre ever. Right in the middle of Greater LA! It used to be called "Porcupine Hill" because of the hundreds of wells dotting the landscape. If you want to read more about it, there is an interesting article here. The field is still producing. This oil well is in a car dealership!




This is one heck of a bougainvillea, about ready to swallow that Bug!!!




Looking back on Signal Hill. And a gang of pigeons.




I passed by an elementary school that had some really cool art. This was next to their playground. It's a great use for an old shipping container. And old bicycles.




As I was heading towards the Port of Long Beach, I walked over this red and white curb. It struck me as a little odd. Then it hit me. It was Turn 4 of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. You can still see the tire marks, almost a month after the race.




Whenever I see the Queen Mary, I always think of my grandmother. She did a transatlantic crossing in the mid 50s as part of a European holiday. That is a Soviet era Foxtrot submarine in the foreground, part of the attraction.




Then I boldly went where few walkers walk. I explored the Port of Long Beach. This is really the domain of trucks NOT of walkers!




These are trailers that they use to transport the shipping containers. The trailers were stacked sometimes four high. And every one of them had a license plate.




There were a LOT of containers.




And in the midst of all this industry, I found this amazing bird. I don't have the gumption to try to figure out what kind of bird it is (in spite of coming from ornithological parents and grandparents) but I sure can appreciate its grace.




This is looking back towards downtown Long Beach. That mound between the two rightmost buildings, is Signal Hill where my car was parked. And that is the Carnival Pride getting ready to sail.




After being in the pedestrian unfriendly Port of Long Beach, I appreciated the pedestrian friendly beach path.




And while walking along the pedestrian friendly beach path, I passed what is perhaps the safest part of the beach, due to the high concentration of life guards. Or not...




There is a path that follows the top of the bluff (where I took this picture) as well as the beach path.




This couple were flying their kites in sync with their music. It felt choreographed. Is there such a thing as kite dancing?




Since I had visited the Venice canals on an earlier walk, I though it would be fitting to visit the Naples community and their canals. The boats here are significantly fancier than up in Venice, since these canals are connected to the ocean.




Along one of the canals, I passed what has to be the tallest and skinniest door EVER. I wonder how many hinges it needs.



I walked through a little bit of Seal Beach (my first and probably only foray into The OC) where I found this sea of masts.



I've been on the bike path near Griffith Park that is literally right next to the 5 Freeway. It isn't the most pleasant place to exercise. But how about this scene. I wish I could say that the white on the water is ice but it is foam. Nasty.





Today was my longest training walk yet, 28.5 miles according to my trusty Forerunner. I was out for almost 9 hours. And my feet were tired by the end. In fact, they still are tired.

As always, thanks for checking in. Next week will be my last training walk!!

Labels: Long Beach, Training Walk