With victories in the $180,000 American National and the $130,000 Abe Lincoln Stakes, OK Commander opened enough eyes to command the USTA staff to name him the November Horse of the Month.

After tough trips against very tough company in major stakes races in Canada, including the $700,000 Breeders’ Crown, OK Commander has revved up his engine, breaking his maiden in dramatic longshot fashion in American National on November 14 at Balmoral Park, followed by another smashing run on November 20 in the Abe Lincoln at Maywood.

“He’s a big horse already and if he develops even more over the winter I think we’re going to have a very nice 3-year-old on our hands,” trainer James McNair said after OK Commander’s big victory in the in the Abe Lincoln.

OK Commander is surely one of the horses RoadtotheJug will be watching going into 2010…

I love boxes of bolts–of fabric that is.  Luna from Maywood Studios  just came in and we have bolts and bolts of bright, fun, contemporary fabric.  Two young ladies were in the shop as I opened the boxes and were so drawn to this fabric they helped me unpack it!  Take a look and I’m sure you’ll agree–

Here is the description from Maywood:

Designed by: Gail Fountain
Cool modern prints in hot new colors that contrast against the whitest white, this group pairs bold graphics with fresh florals for a hip, fun-in the-sun summertime feel. Use it to brighten and update any type of project.

As always, you can come by the shop to pick yours up, or give us a call at 801 621-2202 and we will ship it out to you right away.

Article courtesy of chicagobreakingnews.com on September 23, 2009. Photos courtesy of pioneerlocal.com.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart with some of the pit bulls rescued from a Maywood day care center. At right is Linda Estrada, head of Animal Welfare League, which is sheltering the dogs. (Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune)

Cook County sheriff’s police raided a dog-fighting operation run out of a Maywood day care home, arresting three people and seizing nine dogs that required surgery, authorities said.

Sheriff Tom Dart said his officers found a dog with its eye ripped out, a dog with a leg twisted backward and a dog with its lower extremities nearly ripped off its body in their raid Tuesday.

“Kids were playing on a swing set just 10 feet away from a vicious fighting dog and blood-stained floors,” Dart said. “The very equipment used to train these dogs to kill was being kept in the garage right behind the house. To be engaged in this sort of activity is disturbing enough, but to take a chance with anybody’s children is reprehensible.”

The daycare operator insisted she was not involved in dog fighting and maintained children were never near the dogs or dog fighting equipment, according to the sheriff’s office.

When police arrived at the home, 2101 S. Third Ave. in the western suburb, there were 10 children being watched at the house. In a garage behind the house, police said they found “a very aggressive” pit bull, with blood on the floor and along the sides of a car.

“Also in the garage were syringes, medication, bite sticks and harnesses used in dog fights,” the sheriff’s office said in a release. “The chest of the dog found in that garage was shredded from a recent fight and its penis was bitten almost completely off.”

Investigators learned the dogs were housed nearby at 2025 S. Sixth Ave., home to an ex-con who charged $60 a month for dogs to be kept there. Martez Anderson, 38, was released from prison on a drug conviction in 2006 and was cited Tuesday for being a felon in possession of an unneutered or unspayed dog.

A supplied photo from Animal Welfare League that shows the condition of a dog when it was brought in Tuesday night after the raid.

In the garage at Anderson’s home, police said they found an 18-month-old pit bull with three 4-week old puppies. They were all kept in a wire cage soaked in feces and urine, with no signs of food or water for them, Dart said.

“All were severely emaciated,” his office said in a release. Police said they believe the puppies were already being used in fights, possibly as “bait dogs.” One puppy had its left eye ripped out and had several puncture wounds to its face.

In a shed behind that garage, a 1-year-old pit bull was found “extremely scarred” with its leg turned completely backward. In a crate behind that shed, police said they found another pit bull that could barely stand.

Injuries to a rescued dog include bite marks and a broken leg that healed improperly.

As police searched the property Tuesday, they noticed a large opening in a fence separating Anderson’s yard from a neighbor’s. In that yard, they saw a badly injured pit bull tied to a logging chain. The dog had fresh fighting wounds, possibly from a fight this week, Dart’s office said.

The owner of that house, 2027 S. Sixth Ave., consented to a search of his home, he said. In a dilapidated garage there, police found a treadmill which had been altered specifically to train dogs to fight. Police also found another malnourished puppy locked in that garage, police said.

“What was done to these dogs is inexcusable,” Dart said. “This was done in the name of gambling and greed and no area seems to be immune from its influence – we see it in rural farm areas and inner cities. Unfortunately, we’re also seeing more and more kids exposed to this kind of lifestyle.”

All dogs rescued in the raid are at the Animal Welfare League in Chicago Ridge.

“They would take the dogs in the garage during the day and you could hear them fighting,” said Guadalupe Castro, 40, who lives down the block from the disbanded dog-fighting operation. “We would hear dogs barking and making fighting sounds.” She said she suspects two or three people attended the fights at a time. She noticed this all started by the beginning of the summer. “I was scared because sometimes the dogs would get loose and run down the street,” Castro said. “I’m glad they got them [dogs] out of here.”

Another neighbor, who declined to identify herself for fear of retribution from anyone involved in the dog-fighting operation, said she would call the village of Maywood often about the dogs. She said the dogs would be tied up to a pole and would bark and try to attack one another.

Charles Sutton, 42, of Maywood — whose wife operated the day care — was charged with felony dogfighting.

Lance Webb, 27, of Maywood, was charged with felony dogfighting. The injured dogs and puppies at 2025 S. Sixth Ave. were his, according to the sheriff’s office.

Martez Anderson, 38, of Maywood, was charged with being a felon in possession of an unspayed or unneutered dog, a misdemeanor. He kept the fighting dogs at his house, the sheriff’s office said.

Terri Sparks, with Animal Welfare League, kisses one of the confiscated American Staffordshire terrier puppies.

There are 2 other men who are targets of the investigation, but who have not yet been charged or apprehended.

I just hope they make these sadistic men better poster children for dog fighting than they did with Vick.

Where else are children going to learn about gambling and dog fighting these days?

From the Chicago Tribune / Chicago Breaking News:  http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/09/dog-fighting-operation-in-suburban-day-care-home.html?track=email-alert-breakingnews

Sheriff’s police raid dog-fighting ring at day care home

Are you in these communities, then the Making Home Affordable Act and the mortgage rates being at all time lows is the plan to help you:

Agoura Hills, Alhambra, Altadena,Arcadia, Compton, Covina, Culver City, Diamond Bar,Downey, Duarte, East Los Angeles, El Monte, Gardena, Glendale, Glendora,Hacienda Heights, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Park, Inglewood,Lakewood, Lancaster, Lawndale, La Mirada, La Puente, La Verne, Lennox, Long
Beach, Los Angeles, Lynwood, Manhattan Beach, Azusa, Baldwin Park, Bell, Bellflower, Bell Gardens, Beverly Hills,Burbank, Carson, Cerritos, Claremont, Maywood, Monrovia, Montebello,Monterey Park, Norwalk, Palmdale, Paramount, Pasadena, Pico Rivera, Pomona,Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, Rosemead, Rowland Heights, Santa Clarita,Santa Monica, San Dimas, San Fernando, San Gabriel, South El Monte, South Gate,South Pasadena, Temple City, Torrance, Walnut, West Covina, West Hollywood,Whittier

We are seeing some stability in last few MBS sessions. The mortgage rates have seem to settle 4.625-4.875 depending on your treshold of points. There is an increase of activity due to Making Home Affordable Act. Here is a quick video on it

Here is my informational website on this product.

Juan Cepeda’s Personal website for the mortgage world

Maywood Park Sunset (078/365 03-19-09)

Originally uploaded by CarusoPhoto

Just outside of Chicago, at the corner of 1st Avenue and North Avenue, you’ll find a couple of aging institutions: KiddieLand and the harness racing track, Maywood Park. I’ve tried forever to get a photo I like of the iconic KiddieLand sign, but I never even gave a thought of photographic Maywood Park…until today when I was in the Menard’s parking lot across the street. The sun was setting, and just before I got into my car I pulled out my camera and made three exposures. This was the one I liked best. Hopefully I’ll have the same luck with KiddieLand in the very near future.

Click here to go to our main web site:

www.LakelandCom.com

Call: 847 245-4800

-

Need your communications equipment repaired or maintained ?

Well your in the right place Lakeland Communications repairs all types of two way radio communications equipment. Servicing Wisconsin Milwaukee Chicago Illinois Northwest Indiana areas.

Malfunction and down/time, how many times have you heard these words? As you know, it adds up to one thing… dollars lost because your personnel can’t function efficiently. Pick up and delivery is available in most areas Loaner radios are available for most frequencies too.

We dont’t just repair communications equipment, after the repair process, our experienced staff checks each function of the receiver and transmitter to prevent possible problems for the future. We have current diagnostic equipment, and we train our staff on the latest service techniques by Motorola, Kenwood, Vertex, ICOM, Yeasu, Maxon, Midland, Nextel, Sprint, Verizon, Cingular and many others… By the way if you didn’t notice above we repair Cellular phones too !! Scheduled maintenance plans are available for your Radio Systems. Repair and Scheduled (PM) “Preventative Maintenance” Checks maximize your UP TIME for our Radio System Customers.

Chicago Illinois Euro Bungy Euro Bungee Eurobungy Eurobungy Trampoline Rental

 

If you are looking for eXtreme fun and something unique, the Euro Bungy is it.   A super trampoline system, that enables the participant to jump over two stories high accomplishing gravity defying maneuvers.  Multiple bungee cords are attached to a harness (in which the jumper is safely secured) which super boost the traditional trampoline experience, giving a gravity defying ride that has all the adrenaline of bungee jumping, but none of the risk.  Anyone from 30 pounds to 200 pounds can Bungy jump and bounce.  Each person is safely in a harness that allows them to bounce over 20 feet high!!!  If you are daring, you can do front flips and back flips.  The Eurobungy accommodates up to four bungy jumpers at once.  We can also setup half the jumping stations for events with limited space.  

Chicago Illinois Euro Bungy Euro Bungee Eurobungee Eurobungy Rental Trampoline

Medicare Supplement policies cover costs not paid by Medicare, such as co-pays and deductibles for doctor visits and hospitalization. Plans offer comprehensive coverage so you can see any doctor and there are usually few if any out-of-pocket expenses.

For more information on these plans, please call our office at 800-828-4819

Medicare Advantage plans are new health care options that are part of the Medicare program. Coverage may include Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage as well as hospital, doctor, skilled nursing, and other medical services. Premiums are often low and $0 premium plans are available in many areas.

Please contact our offices at 866-996-4141

Sydney was hit by a superb electrical storm last night, lightening that would illuminate the entire bedroom, even through the blinds. I love big rainy storms, but can’t deal with them once thunder and/or lightening starts, I eventually became freaked out enough that I got out of bed and came to sleep on the sofa so I could be in the same room as Dan, no joy, that just left me laying on the sofa wide awake whilst working out an escape route should lightening hit our home.

After calculating the risks involved of lightening hitting my sewing machine and frying me, verses the possibility of laying awake all night quietly panicking, I decided to take the bold decision and start sewing to take my mind off the activity going on outside, I needed something involved enough that it would completely absorb me, but small enough that I could finish it in a few hours because my time on the sewing machine is so limited at the moment… and probably will be until Declan and Connor are in their teens

And so the wonky log cabin mini quilt was born! Measuring 12×12 it only just comes under the “mini quilt” label (one size up and it’s a doll quilt), I’m not 100% sure whether I actually like it, this was me attempting to reach outside of my normal fabric and design preferences and although it was nice using different fabrics (repros of 1930s floral prints), it’s just not very “me”, but I am reserving my final decision for when it’s quilted and bound.

The back of the top is fab, I just love seeing all those seams, to me the front just looks so effortless and the back shows how much work went into it.

Jenny Price and Jared Orsi at the Dominguez Gap in North Long Beach

Today was a nice unseasonally warm November day, perfect for some scouting along the Lower Los Angeles River with some great authors.  The expedition was organized by Jenny Price who will be leading Friends of the Los Angeles River’s upcoming bus tour of the lower river on December 7th.  Creek freak afficionados will remember Jenny price as the author of Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A. which is one of the best articles to introduce people to the river and to environmental issues and conundrums in Los Angeles. She also wrote Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America and the LA Weekly’s guide to the Los Angeles River in 2001.  At the steering wheel was Jared Orsi, author of Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles another excellent book that covers the history of flooding and flood control on the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers.  Jared has been teaching in Colorado for a few years; this year he’s back in town as a visiting professor at Occidental College.

We made visits to the Cornfields, the 6th Street Bridge, Maywood Riverfront Park, Cudahy Park, river wall murals in Paramount, lower Compton Creek, Dominguez Gap, the estuary at Willow Street, and the Golden Shore Wetlands. 

Bulldozer sitting amidst the barren half of the estuary in Long Beach

At a lot of the sites along the concrete sections of the river, we saw plenty of greenery and birds that were inhabiting temporary sandbars that settle in atop the concrete.  These areas are best viewed in the fall before big rains come and wash them out.  There were plenty of egrets, gulls, and stilts on the river in Maywood and Cudahy.  Unfortunately the earthen-bottom areas aren’t looking quite as good.  In anticipiation of winter storms, the county’s crews have been pretty active in bulldozing to clear vegetation that potentially impedes channels’ flood protection capacity.  I know that this activity is permitted, and that the county only does half the channel in many areas… and has left a few willow trees standing… but it’s still jarring to me to see the flattened earth where grasses and shrubs had been growing a couple months ago.  Jenny Price remarked at how much habitat was lost.  The soft-bottom areas of Lower Comton Creek looked as barren as I had ever seen them – though there were some herons and coots taking solace in the small creekside strip of vegetation left.  The blight of plastic and polystyrene trash their is even more visually apparent as there’s no vegetation to hide it.  The estuary at Willow Street was still very full of life, though one bank looks looked like a vacant lot with a few lonely willow trees.

Low tide at the mouth of the Los Angeles River (note the visible sandbars in lower left corner and middle right side of photo)

Today was the lowest tide that I’ve ever encountered at the mouth of the river.  Near the Queensway Bay Bridge, muddy earth at the bottom of the riprap walls showed.  Sandbar islands showed above the water’s surface along the Catalina Cruises Terminal and Shoreline Park.  The Golden Shore Wetlands were showing their tidal influence.  They were mostly wet earth, but had nearly no standing water – just a beautiful tree-shaped mass of small rivulets.  Nonetheless a great blue heron caught and devoured a small fish while we looked on.

Jared hadn’t visited most of these Los Angeles River sites since work on his book concluded in 2002.  I was happy to hear him express a lot of optimism in visiting parks today that had been barren then.  The Cornfield was a vacant railyard, now it’s Los Angeles State Historic Park.  The Dominguez Gap Wetlands are completed and open.  Maywood had a contaminated brownfield that’s now a riverfront park. Cudahy has a line of healthy sycamores and native shrubs along the South County Bike Trail where there had been only vacant right-of-way. Jenny remarked that it looks like Cudahy is the first city to green its entire riverfront (just under 3/4ths of a mile.)  In Cudahy we even encountered North East Trees’ crew working on another small linear park that’s slated to open next month.  Jared was glad to see that we creek freaks have kept at it and that our efforts are resulting in real change on the ground, bringing green public spaces to a region starved for it.

Kalo cuman diperintah boss di kantor mah ada aja cara ngelesnya, lah kalo disuruh madame TRB (The Real Boss) mo ikhlas kek, mo malas kek tetep aj wajib samina wa ato’na (saia dengar dan saia tunduk kehendak paduka). Apalagi macam saia yg ga lulus2 dari S2 TI, ITB (Suami-Suami Takut Istri, Insinyur Takut Bini) higs.. .

Ntah kemaren dari mana aj n ketemu siapa aj, tiba2 pagi ini madame TRB nyuruh dicariin lagu jadulnya Alice May & Caren Wood dari Belanda tahun 1980 ini. Siaaaap…. Boss! Konon sih mo buat latihan nyanyi bareng ultahan mamah & budenya (eeh, maap… maksud saia: kami, hi[3x] ) ntar ama lagu Bunda. Ok lah, meski rada2 personal, gua posting aj klipnya disini sekalian yee…

Artist (Band): MayWood / Alice May

Mother, how are you today?
Here is a note from your daughter
With me everything is ok
Mother, how are you today?

~^^~

Mother, don’t worry, I’m fine
Promise to see you this summer
This time there will be no delay
Mother, how are you today?

I found the man of my dreams
Next time you will get to know him
Many things happened while I was away
Mother, how are you today?

~{}~

Mother, how are you today?
Here is a note from your daughter
With me everything is ok
Mother, how are you today?

aa… aaa~ aa… aaa~

Many things happened while I was away
Mother, how are you today?

Mother, how are you today?

Compton Creek

These maps are based on 62,500 scale 1896-1906 USGS maps, 1888 Detail Irrigation Maps, and slightly informed by later 24,000 scale USGS maps.  The overlay maps are not definitive:  the 24,000 scale maps, circa 1919-1930s, show streams not indicated on the earlier, larger scale maps, while showing at the same time considerable stream and wetland losses to development.  In other words, I have a lot more drawing to do.

But this is about you, dear Creekfreak.  If you live in the following areas, you may find a creek or wetland on one of these maps in your neighborhood:

Eagle Rock     Glassell Park     Highland Park     Lincoln Heights     

Cypress Park     Pasadena     South Pasadena     Alhambra

Boyle Heights     East Los Angeles     Downtown     Echo Park     

Silverlake     East Hollywood     Hollywood Hills     Koreatown

Mid-City     West Adams     Culver City     Baldwin Hills

Cheviot Hills     Mar Vista     West Los Angeles     West Hollywood

Beverly Hills     Bel Air     Brentwood     Santa Monica

Venice     Marina del Rey     Inglewood     Hawthorne

Gardena  West Athens     Willowbrook     Watts    

Compton     South Gate     Lynwood     Vernon    

Maywood     Torrance     Carson     Lomita     Wilmington

Long Beach     San Pedro     Palos Verdes     

Happy searching!  And let us know what you think!

1980:

Maywood (LP)

Sleeve Design: Henk Leffers

Photography: Fred Kosters

Day three was exhausting. We put in at Marsh Park in Elysian Valley and paddled our way to the river’s mouth in Long Beach. This is about 25 miles, more than 20 of which are three-sides concrete. A quick apology – I didn’t take any cell phone photos that day. It seemed like there were lots of photographers all over much of the time taking photos – see links at the end of the blog below for excellent photos – especially LAist and Ted Soqui. I did paint one watercolor of the river at Marsh Park, while we were running late on the put in.

Los Angeles River at Marsh Park

Marsh Park is located in the Glendale Narrows, pretty much the nicest stretch of the whole river. Due to groundwater coming up in this area, the bottom of the river is unpaved, so there are lots of tall willows, turtles, ducks, heron, egret, and more. It’s where people who visit for the first time gasp and say “wow – it is a river!” Also at Marsh Park are the best rapids of the whole river. It’s a short chute that has plenty of slope and plenty of flow. Very fun, but it also can capsize folks like me who haven’t had much kayaking experience. On a test run, a week in advance of the trip, I did flip my kayak, though on a second try and on the official expedition, I was able to shoot through it unscathed. A few of crew flipped and received a river baptism that morning. The trick is not to lean upstream, so the river doesn’t catch the lip of your boat.

The next two miles were very nice, despite a few spots where we’d get stuck among rocks and have to portage a bit. It’s plenty navigable, and very beautiful. I kayaked up at to two older Latina women and a man whom I chatted with a bit with. They said, in Spanish, that they were harvesting “yerba mora” and another plant, which they used to make soups.

Just upstream of the Riverside/Figueroa Bridge the soft-bottom stretch ends and the all-concrete canyon begins. We gathered the troops and spoke a bit about the historic confluence with the Arroyo Seco and a bit about safety, then started down the concrete low-flow channel.

We cruised under the great historic City Beautiful bridges. The North Broadway Bridge (originally and formally the Buena Vista Viaduct) located along the Cornfields is the great early progenitor of the series. It features some of the earliest compound arches made of concrete – a technological advance that made the understructure of the bridges lighter, though still majestic. As we went under each of the historic spans, I was noticing that as time progressed (ie: the later date that the bridges were built), the understructures become lighter and more airy. Unfortunately, as time progressed, these become so light that they skip the arch and just put the straight flat girder across.

There was a construction site at the First Street Bridge, where crews are widening the bridge to make space for more cars… er… I mean to make space for the eastside extension of the Metro Gold Line, while allowing for lots of cars. I am cynical about this because nearly all these bridges had streetcars running down them originally, and now when we want to run the trains down them again, the experts tell us that we have to tear out the original structures. The First Street Bridge widening isn’t as bad as some others proposed. I will write more about the threatened bridge demolitions in other posts later. We portaged around the low temporary construction bridges and continued downstream.

I was surprised at how shallow the low flow channel is. When I’ve led tours of the river, I get questions about how deep it is, and I’ve always responded that it’s 3-4 feet deep, based on seeing folks in it occasionally… but actually being in it, paddling a kayak, I now realize that it’s quite shallow. My paddle was frequently scraping bottom. It’s really only 1-2 feet deep. That doesn’t sound like a lot of water, but it’s enough to float a kayak – without much scraping – yay! It can still be a bit treacherous to cross on foot – the water is moving fairly fast and the sloped sides can be pretty slippery.

Near the Washington Boulevard Bridge and the start of the city of Vernon, the walls of the channel go from sloped (trapezoidal channel) to vertical (box channel.) The river makes a left turn. The smells get bad and the low flow channel splits and gets shallower. I had expected that we’d have to portage this area, but were able to float and scrape and get by. The walls go trapezoidal again and the central low-flow channel resumes where the river flows under Bandini Boulevard in Vernon.

I have to say that I was somewhat impressed with the stark featurelessness of the river below Bandini. Seems like nearly everywhere in nature there are differences and variety, but, here on the river in southeast Los Angeles, there is surprisingly little variation in slope – for miles. The engineers and the construction crews did a great job of creating a nearly entirely continuous smooth unrelenting gradual drop all the way from downtown to the ocean. There are a very few places where the slope increases slightly – very short drops, often after bridges, and one small chute around Southern Avenue in South Gate. If the slope were more uneven, perhaps there would be more problems with sediment settling out of the water. It’s an impressive feat of engineering.

I was also impressed with how nature is reclaiming the river. In many places, from the mouth of the Arroyo Verdugo, to just upstream of Willow Street in Long Beach, there’s a fair amount of vegetation growing either through the cracks or on a layer of silt atop a concrete bottom. Most of the vegetation is opportunistic weedy, but there are occasional cattails and even willows. Even in middle of Vernon (at a location I don’t want to disclose for fear of alerting the flood control bulldozer crews), I saw a 10-foot tall willow tree growing out of the concrete along the low flow channel. This vegetation creates eddies, slowing down the water, causing it to deposit sediment, building up sandbars and making way for more vegetation. It’s nature’s cycle of reclaiming disturbed areas. Microorganisms move in, then bugs, then ducks. It’s great to see it starting to happen in the concrete moonscape areas downstream.

We stopped for lunch at Maywood Riverfront Park, located at Slauson Avenue. I checked out the now-open park; its opening had been delayed for years due to concerns over possible contamination from a chemical factory that occupied a portion of the site. There were lots of families enjoying their Sunday afternoon and the recently-very-pristine ball fields were showing signs of plenty of use – a good sign in my book. The adjacent mini-park built by North East Trees looked good too, though it’s clear that the battle against graffiti has resulted in a lot of beige paint coating the river rock retaining walls.

We continued downstream. The concrete gets pretty relentless. Though I am not a big fan of them, I was actually really glad to see the Adel Rakhshani murals in the city of Paramount, as they helped break up the unrelenting grayness of it all.

There were quite a few birds hanging out in the all-concrete channel, including black-necked stilts, gulls, ducks, killdeer, and occasional herons and egrets. Closer to the ocean we saw more shorebirds – a few different types that I am not too good at identifying. As Jeff Tipton and I kayaked under a bridge, one black-necked stilt, with three cute small stiltlings in tow, became very animated. She (I am assuming it was a female) shrieked and flew near us, keeping just ahead of us, seemingly trying to draw our attention to her and away from her kids. Small families of ducks would swim in the channel. When l saw them downstream in front of me, I would kayak faster to catch up with them. The mother duck would corral her youngsters getting them to do their wobbly half-runnning double-speed maneuver to evade their pursuer. The ducklings would pop underwater to get away as I passed them. My other trick to punctuate the monotony of the lower river would be to paddle strongly to each bridge, then to slow and coast and rest in the precious shade underneath.

The way was only slightly punctuated by passing landmarks that I was familiar with. In the city of South Gate, the river’s confluence with the Rio Hondo was very anonymous. I almost didn’t notice it. The broad channel hardly contributed any flow to the LA River. The historic 1937 concrete-railing Atlantic Boulevard Bridge marked our entry into Long Beach. I thought that, at least, now we could say that we’d made it to Long Beach… though we still had a good half-dozen miles to go. Soon thereafter we passed the mouth of Compton Creek.

The concrete bottom ends at Willow Street in Long Beach. The river widens a bit more there, so the engineers added features to create turbulence to make the river spread out to to it’s full width. Before the bridge are a series of concrete block baffles. Unfortunately this meant another short portage. Where the concrete ends and the estuary begins is a fairly good looking place when you’re walking and bird-watching above it… but when you’re down in the water, it’s kinda nasty. This is another thing I learned from this trip. At the very start of each of the three areas where the concrete ends (below the Orange Line Bridge in Sepulveda Basin in the San Fernando Valley, at Bette Davis Picnic Area, and at the estuary in Long Beach), there are nasty smelling areas with duckweed and small bubbles of foul-smelling gas surfacing. When I stepped in the sediments in these areas, my foot sunk down into the quicksand-like sediment sending up clouds of gunky black cloudy water.

We pushed on down a very nice short rapids and came into the tidal zone of the river. Signs on the bridges told us that all kinds of activities weren’t allowed here, but that if we did them, we’d have to keep within a 5 mph speed limit. We saw more cormorants, herons, pelicans, and occasional fish jumping out of the water.

The sun was beginning to set as we rounded the final bend and caught sight of the Queen Mary. Lots of families were fishing from the breakwater. We passed beneath the Queensway Bay Bridge, pulled up along the breakwater and pulled out at Shoreline Park. Families and friends were there to greet us. We began to tell our tales and to speculate on future trips down our very navigable local waterway.

Here are some links to trip photos/articles/blogs:

LAist Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Lala Times River Page

Paper Architecture Blog

Surviving L.A.

Ted Soqui’s Blog

Maywood is a great hidden (or maybe not so hidden) treasure in North Arlington. Walk up and down, and up and down, the streets and you’ll see what I mean. And I do mean up and down, it’s hilly! Lots of homes with birdfeeders, flags, and various adornments on the outside, all augmenting the total charm of the neighborhood. It really feels like Mayberry USA, with a bit of a twist. All of the homes are so unique. You can just feel the civic activists deciding the next issue they will take on. Maywood is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Homes don’t come up for sale very often in this neighborhood. Right now, there are 4 homes for sale, ranging in price from $949,000 to $1,529,000. The former was built in 1914, the latter in 1989. As this indicates, there’s lots of rehab work going in the neighborhood.

Where is Maywood? It’s zipcode 22201, bordered by Lee Highway and Lorcom Lane, with Pollard Street and Vacation Lane on the West side and Route 66 on the East. It’s easier to show you, so call me if you’re interested in checking out homes for sale in this ‘hood.

More Photos @ Great Lakes Exposure.com