Bike Lanes in Lancaster: Some Thoughts

I'm planning on racing with this
thing in April, look out for that.

Last month I decided to buy a pretty nice road bike off Facebook Marketplace. It's a Trek Domane 2, and it came with front and rear lights, a seat post bag, along with a few other extras, and for an entry level road bike it is a hell of a get. Although I already had a bike-- an REI branded mountain bike outfitted with a rack and panniers that I love dearly-- I wanted something a little lighter and faster, so now I have the bike I can take to the grocery store and one I can take to charity rides and use as an excuse to wear Lycra shorts and wraparound sunglasses. 

I still go running more than I go cycling, though, and part of that is because of where I live. The first time I took my REI mountain bike for a spin I hit a pothole in the bike lane and scraped my leg pretty badly (I finished that damn ride, even though the tumble took off some of my tattoo). Often, when driving to work, I see people using the bike lane as their own personal expressway, which doesn't offer much confidence when it's my fleshy body and 20 pounds of aluminum versus a half-ton of Nissan Maxima with a driver on their cell phone going 65 miles per hour. Running isn't much better since I've nearly been splatted by drivers who forget pedestrians get the right of way, but at least I'm not going as fast as I would be on a bike and I'm able to stop a lot faster. 

I was thinking about all this because of a post on Facebook I saw from the mayor talking about the benefits of bike lanes, with a link to a Fast Company article that-- hilariously-- can't be found. 

"I am normal and can be trusted with
running a city of 174,000 people."

He talked about how, while traffic might be a little slower, bike lanes are important from a safety standpoint, then offered no elaboration as to how they make roads safer. Granted, I'm just some guy who uses bike lanes and sidewalks throughout the city, but I think he's half right in this case. 

The BLVD, the downtown area of Lancaster, California, is his pride and joy, and is an attempt in urban design that almost works. It offers walkable shops and restaurants, a farmers market every Thursday during the warmer months, mixed use buildings with upper floor apartments and lower floor store fronts, and-- most importantly for the purposes of this post-- mixed use streets for bikes and cars. The infrastructure for being less car-centered is cool in theory, but it's only a quarter mile strip of street in the city, and car parking takes up a lot of space in that quarter mile.  

Essentially, my point is this: R. Rex Parris is almost right. Bike lanes, and by extension pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, is good for public safety, but primarily because it reduces the likelihood of being in a car accident. Fewer cars means fewer accidents, and fewer accidents means fewer injuries and deaths as a result of driving. However, the east side of the city-- the poorer side, where I live-- is in desperate need of infrastructure repair. Sure, I can ride my bike to Aldi pretty easily if I need some milk and whatever insane limited-run shit they have (I really hope they re-release the Aldi branded shoes), but the bike lanes shoulder up to car traffic going a mile a minute, and the state of the pavement makes for a rough ride whether you're on a bike or in a car. Riding a bike to The BLVD is doable from the east side, but is often a hair-raising experience. 

Having goods and services accessible without the need of a car would do a lot for the well-being of the community, which means more mixed-use neighborhoods, pedestrian-friendly infrastructure like protected bike lanes and sidewalks with actual shade during the triple-digit heat of the summer, fixing rutted and potholed streets beyond the gentrified strip in the center, and incentivizing biking, walking, and public transit in general. It's a lot to ask of a city built up by suburban sprawl but, if the mayor wants to talk about bike lanes and safety, he should consider making the streets actually safe to use. 

I know the city has a lot of issues to address, but hopefully infrastructure improves so bike lanes can actually make things safer. 

A Brief Dive Into The Monster Mash

It's that time of year again for horror movies, pumpkin carving, and novelty songs about skeletons-- spooky, scary, and otherwise-- among other spooky subject matter, like the 1960s classic "The Monster Mash." Recently there has been some contention with the song, with some people claiming it's a song about the Monster Mash, and that we don't really know what it sounds like, in much the same vein as The Greatest Song In The World in Tenacious D's "Tribute."

While interesting, I had a thought in the shower that sent me down a really, really pointless rabbit hole that prompted me to dust off my blog and hammer out a theory nobody cares about nor asked for.

The Monster Mash was initially a dance: the monster from his slab began to rise and did the Mash. The ghouls came from their humble abodes to get a jolt from an electrode and did the Mash. It's easy enough to believe that it's just a dance and not a song they're talking about in The Monster Mash.

The song, however, later says they played the Mash, which throws a wrench into the assumption that it's only a dance. Dracula shakes his fists and says, "Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?" which, in reply, is stated that it's now the Mash, it's now The Monster Mash, et cetera. Final nail in the coffin (pun intended) for knowing what the song is.

Except it's not. 

The 1962 album The Original Monster Mash by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers does, in fact, have a track called "The Transylvania Twist." It can be inferred that, if they said The Transylvania Twist is now The Monster Mash, that the song played in "The Monster Mash" sounds like "The Transylvania Twist" which solves the mystery of what they played in "The Monster Mash" sounds like.

This, however, leaves the mystery of what the dance might look like. I don't have a definitive answer to what the dance of The Monster Mash might look like, but considering ghouls got a jolt from an electrode, the monster-- who I'm guessing is like Frankenstein's monster-- also got a jolt, and that The Transylvania Twist could be a variation of the original dance, I'd imagine the dance being a jerking type movement like a zombie getting electrocuted while doing The Twist.

That, of course, is all conjecture, but it's something to think about if you want a topic to talk about at the next Halloween party to ensure you're not invited next time. 

Creep it real and have a happy Halloween. 

In Memoriam: My Shorts

It is with a heavy heart that I have decided to retire my favorite pair of running shorts. 

I bought a pair of Patagonia Strider 5 inch shorts (I think) in 2017 (I think) at my local outdoor gear shop (Elevation Sierra Adventure Essentials, that I'm sure of), not realizing that the shorts I'd run in previously were two inches longer. I was self-conscious about wearing them when I ran because my legs were ghostly white. It was bad enough running in longer shorts, but showing more thigh was not something I was used to. However, having only a couple other pairs of shorts meant I had no other choice but to wear them eventually if I wanted to go for a run before laundry day. Besides, I ran in the desert outside of town so no prying eyes would be blinded by my pasty gams. 

I grew to love those shorts. They taught me how to not give a shit about how my legs looked and to embrace the lightness and freedom of movement short shorts provide. I tried to get another pair of Strider shorts but, of course, the new versions of them weren't as good as the original. The rest of my shorts-- all 5 inch inseams now, of course-- have been fine, but not quite as good as those green Patagonia ones. 

I ran my first marathon in them. I tackled mountain trails, desert scrambles, city streets, and suburban sidewalks in them. They were in my rotation just about every week, even as other pairs of shorts blew out and fell apart. 

Last week, after my Wednesday morning run, I was hurting. It wasn't soreness from the run, and I didn't pull anything; it was from chafing. The hundreds of miles of thigh rubbing, sweaty unmentionables, and farts finally took their toll on my thin polyester butt-cover. The holes in the inner thigh no longer keep my legs from rubbing, the inner liner no longer supports like it used to, the elastic in the side pockets is going bad, and for the sake of my skin, the contents of my pockets, and my modesty, it's time for them to retire. It has happened with other shorts before, and assuredly it will happen again with others, but I can't help but feel a little bummed that my favorite pair of running shorts has finally run its course. 

I plan to mail them to Patagonia to have them recycled, so maybe the blood, sweat, and tears I've put in these shorts will live on in other well-loved gear in the future. 

Maybe some of the farts, too. 

One can only hope.

An Overly Detailed How-To for Pretty Good Coffee

I am a self-professed recovering coffee snob. While I appreciate a finely crafted cup of coffee, my opinions on it are much the same as my views on pizza: Even a mediocre pizza is still pizza, and thus is still pretty good pizza. It's a good cup of coffee if you like what's in your cup, and I hold that as truth. 

However, on weekends I like to treat myself to a little meditation in a cup by making coffee with my French press. It's a process that I have practiced for years, and I have worked this practice to make an end product I thoroughly enjoy, so I'd like to share that with you.

First, I wake up earlier than I'd like. As I've gotten older (and no longer work until 11pm since I left the hotel industry), I've found my body likes to start the day before 6:30am, and generally likes to get going by 5:30am. So, silently, as to not wake up my spouse, I make my way to the kitchen and gather my tools for a good batch of coffee.  

I like a good whole bean coffee when making coffee in a press. Caster's Coffee is a local roaster in Lancaster, California, who trains and employs unhoused people in the community to help elevate them from homelessness. They roast beans from small, independent farms from Central America and Africa in their facility not too far from my house. I like their Poppy Blend; it's bright, mildly floral, and even-bodied, though their Challenger Blend dark roast is great too. 

I have found that grinding beans by hand in a burr grinder produces better results than with an electric blade grinder; a burr grinder gives a more consistent grind than a blade grinder so there isn't so much sludge on the bottom of the cup, though a blade grinder is fine for drip coffee in my opinion. Grinding by hand is a slow process but one that allows me to appreciate the aroma of the coffee and the feel of the grounds, and grinding whole beans allows the oils inside them to be released as fresh as possible, making a more complex and delicious cup. 

I measure out about three tablespoons of beans per cup-- not like per 8 fluid ounces, but for each cup of coffee I plan to drink, which is more like 12 ounces or so I think. Generally, with a drip machine, I'll do one tablespoon of ground coffee to 6 ounces of water, but I like a more robust batch of pressed coffee. Plus, I find a coarser grind can make a batch of coffee weaker, so I err on the bolder side. 

I fill my kettle with two coffee cups of water, plus another third or so to compensate for the water absorbed by the grounds. The kettle itself is an Optimus Terra that I got from Elevation Sierra Adventure Essentials years ago after using it to transfer eggnog to my first world-renowned Independence Fruitcake Festival. Over the years-- and many cups of coffee and tea-- I've come to learn the sounds it makes when the water is the temperature I want. The recommended temperature to brew coffee is 200F, and most hot water dispensers and electric kettles will get to about that, but as long as the water is just below boiling you're good. 

After my kettle gives a low pitched rumbling and wisps of steam start flitting out of its little spout, I slowly pour the water onto the grounds in the press in a circular motion, being mindful to not dump in all the water at once. A nice frothy bloom is produced, and even though some people think it's sacrilegious I like to stir the grounds and water to better incorporate the whole mix. 

The press itself is one I found in Ikea some years ago, but before that I used a stainless steel one my brother found in the lost and found of the hotel we worked at back in 2009. The mesh strainer of the steel one was pretty ratty by the time I got the Swedish mass-market replacement, but it still worked fine, and I use the old metal press whenever I go camping. For home use-- and the sake of easier cleanup-- the little glass one with the melted base from that time I set it on a hot burner does the job quite well. 

I let it sit and steep for about 15 to 20 minutes after pouring the water. Theoretically it's good to go after 7 to 10, but I like to give it an opportunity to rest and really let the water extract all the goodness it can. During that time I occasionally tidy up around the house, open up the doors and windows during the warmer months to let in fresh air, open the blinds and curtains during the cooler months to bring in sunshine, or take a quick shower to help start my day, but generally just appreciate the stillness of the early morning and the little sounds of life outside. 

After that time has passed and the coffee has cooled to a drinkable temperature, I slowly depress the plunger of the press, and with that it's ready to serve. I slowly pour myself a cup to ensure as little mud as possible from the bottom of the press gets out, and with the first sip take time appreciate the warmth, aromas, and flavors I worked to produce. 

I reserve this for my weekends because, admittedly, it's time consuming. During the week I program a drip machine with pre-ground coffee to have a pot ready as soon as I roll out of bed, and as a functional beverage it's a great thing. After all, I don't always have two hours to dedicate to making and drinking a couple cups of coffee, and a convenient way to access caffeine before a 6:30am work shift is a beautiful thing I wouldn't want to give up any time soon.

However, I think it's important to set a day aside, or at least a morning-- any time of day, really-- every now and again to dedicate to a methodical and meditative process. It's easy to feel detached from things, and making things by hand is a way to connect with those little joys we sometimes take for granted. Making a quilt and pouring love and attention to its construction helps you appreciate it even more when you're snuggled up on a cool evening. Building a birdhouse gives you a place for the wildlife to hang out and something nice to look at. Growing your own tomato gives a sense of pride along with a third of your BLT. Cooking a meal from scratch helps you appreciate the nourishment it provides, and allows you to practice making something you like if you're not so talented in the kitchen (like me). Brewing coffee in a slower, low-tech way helps you appreciate the stillness of the morning and the quality of a good cup of coffee. 

Make something nice for yourself. You'll enjoy it. 

The Vegan Chicken Nugget Reviews Nobody Wanted or Asked For, pt. 1

One question people bring up when complaining about non-meat meats is, "Why don't they just eat real meat if they have to make it look and taste like meat?" as if seasoned ground beef looks and tastes like a cow. Granted, a lot of plant-based meat substitutes have binders and fillers that don't make them particularly good for you, but I'm not going to say the Beyond Famous Star from Carl's Jr. is in any way a health food item. It's more environmentally friendly, sure, but it's still junk food at the end of the day. 

That said, I like chicken nuggets. They are a meat product that is so thoroughly process and reliant on artificial flavoring that I could at least spare some birds lives and carbon emissions and get down on some equally mysterious plant-based varieties. Living in the 21st century has made finding these options pretty easy, and I have been trying a number of them over the last few months when I leave work and feel too lazy to actually cook something or go through a fast food drive-thru. All the plant-based nuggets I've tried look like a chicken nugget, but where do they stand flavor-wise?

Let me share some of what I've found with you:

Gardein Chicken Nuggets

Being a big name in the faux-meat game, I expected a lot from Gardein, but they only got it kind of right with their standard issue nug. The texture was soft, but a little too soft, even after cooking them at the manufacturer's recommended specifications. The breading was inoffensive, like a standard nugget, and the flavor was actually pretty alright, akin with mechanically separated chicken. If you're looking for an easily accessible and relatively cheap nugget to keep in your freezer this would be a good start. 7/10

Rebellyous Plant Based Nuggets

The company Rebellyous prides themselves in making products that look and taste like chicken, and they did well to deliver on that with their nuggets. They're soft, but not too soft, and the breading is pretty good. The thing that impressed me was how they managed to accurately recreate the flavor of actual frozen chicken nuggets-- not exactly chicken, but not exactly not chicken. They taste a lot like the kind I used to microwave when I was in high school, so I would get them again if I was looking for a not-meat meaty snack throwback. 8.5/10

Simulate Nuggs, Spicy

The packaging is extremely unassuming, but Simulate Nuggs are super good-- especially the spicy variety. The texture is as close to a 1-to-1 as I have found to the real deal, and the breading is crisp and dense like a spicy nugget should be. It actually tastes like chicken, and the spicy kick elevates the experience even more by leaving a little heat behind after each bite. Plus, Simulate also has Dino-shaped Nuggs, so the brand overall gets high marks. I'd easily get them again, not just because they're good as a meatless nugget but because they're a good nugget in general. 9.5/10

The fact that this is part one of a series speaks to how many plant based options for foods there are and how much I enjoy junk food. I'm kind of surprised there aren't more plant-based nugget options in fast food restaurants besides KFC (which I haven't tried yet since the KFC nearest to me doesn't even have chicken half the time, like how are you going to have a chicken restaurant without chicken? C'mon. Get your shit together.) but I get the feeling that, with faux meat options offered at more places across the country, vegan nuggets will come to a drive-thru near you sometime in the near future. Until then, I'll keep looking at the freezer section and report back with what I discover. 

Happy snacking! 

A Brief History of Lancaster, California (and My Visit to The Western Hotel Museum)

When I was in high school I wasn't very focused, and I struggled with a lot of subjects. While I did well enough in English class my real interest was in history, so I spent a good chunk of my teen years studying local events by reading old books in the library under the court house in Independence, California, and spending a summer working at Manzanar National Historic Site. Throughout my 20s I continued to bone up on the history of the area, the town I lived in, and the nearly century-old hotel I worked at for over a decade. You could say I'm something of a history buff, but specifically for wherever I happen to be.

In 2020 I moved to the Antelope Valley for the... fourth time, I think. It's an area notable for being the place Afroman came from and where they tested a lot of supersonic aircraft, but I feel the Lancaster-Palmdale area doesn't get a lot of notoriety otherwise. That's part of why I started looking into the origins of how the town came to be and why it exists in the first place. After reading through "Images of America: Lancaster" from Arcadia Press and visiting the Western Hotel Museum on The BLVD in Lancaster, I've been able to piece together a quick-and-dirty history of how the city came to be.

The area was inhabited by the Kitanimuk, Serrano, and Kawaiisu people for many generations before white settlement, hunting the antelope that gave the valley its name. Though they moved a fair bit, the peoples who lived in the area did establish regular camps in the valley floor, a few of which have been found in recent decades. A great resource to utilize if you're looking to learn more about the people of this area is the Antelope Valley Indian Museum, located east of Lancaster (though be sure to check your colonizer mindset at the door if you want to get the best experience possible). 

Nobody is entirely sure why Lancaster is even called Lancaster. The collection of shacks where workers lived along a slow spot of the Southern Pacific Railroad would eventually become a town, but nobody is certain if the name came from the workers that possibly immigrated from Pennsylvania, a guy with the last name of Lancaster, or the birthplace of the guy who founded the town, Moses Langley Wicks (though he apparently wasn't even born there). Whatever the origin of the name might be, it started as a place to pass through but soon became a site for agriculture after Wicks bought up 60 acres of land and sold off parcels to folks looking to farm. The city center, which is essentially the area around The BLVD and Sierra Highway, became a true community with a post office, general stores, and a lodging facility that would eventually be called The Western Hotel. 

The oldest remaining building in the Antelope Valley-- and one of the oldest in Los Angeles County, from what I've heard-- The Western Hotel, originally called The Antelope Hotel, was built in 1888 as the sole hotel in Lancaster. In 1908 the hotel was sold to George Webber, a German immigrant who tried and failed to manufacture paper out of Joshua Trees (not only do Joshua Trees take 100 or more years to fully mature, the paper itself would degrade extremely fast). In 1910 he married Myrtle “Myrtie” Eveline Gibson Sullivan, a woman who moved to the area to help her lung issues with dry, desert air. During the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918, because there were few other options, the hotel acted as a makeshift hospital, and during the Depression it served as refuge for people who oftentimes couldn't pay their bill for their room or meals. When George died in 1934, Myrtie took up operations of the hotel until she was sent to a convalescent hospital when she was 103 years old in 1971 (she passed away in 1978 at 110, which is nuts to me, but apparently testament to how well dry, desert air works for a persons health). 

Soon after Myrtie died the hotel fell into disrepair, and was condemned and set for demolition by Los Angeles County. However, the community wanted to see the building preserved, so the Western Hotel Historical Society was founded. Volunteers worked to clear overgrowth from the lawn and to restore the building, and through the 80s the Lancaster City Council worked to restore the structure to become the museum that exists today. It now showcases original pieces of furniture and antiques from when the hotel was first in operation, along with artifacts from the areas Indigenous populations and local wildlife, the mining history of the area, and prominent historical celebrities like Judy Garland and John Wayne.

The City of Lancaster, and the Antelope Valley in general, was put on the map by the railroad, and after boom and bust years with agriculture there came Highway 6-- now Sierra Highway-- and the aerospace industry. Companies like Northrop-Grumman set up operation near Edwards Air Force Base, and people like Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time in the skies above the desert, but that's the part that most people know about. That, and Afroman, I guess. 

It's easy to write off some places as nothing more than strip malls and neighborhoods of McMansions. The Antelope Valley has its fair share of mini marts, Walmarts, and housing tracts of homes that look to be copy-pasted from the same set of three blueprints, but there is history to the place. While there are many more hotels in the area catering to all kinds of different clientele-- including a new one on The BLVD--  the oldest one in the oldest part of town has a lot of information on this humble desert city. They're open every second and fourth Friday and Saturday of the month from 11am until 4pm, so be sure to check them out if you're curious. 

A Look At 'Wild At Heart' Horse Sanctuary

Between having grandparents who lived on a dairy farm in the Central Valley and growing up in the middle of nowhere around horse and cattle pastures, I have had my fair share of experience around livestock. My experience mucking out corrals and tending to animals, along with having an open Saturday morning, were what lead me to the Wild At Heart horse sanctuary on the west side of Lancaster, California, after I saw a post on a local community page on Facebook asking for volunteers. 

I drove out to 70th Street West and Avenue H on a warm Saturday morning to an unassuming horse property in the desert. Walking down a short dirt road past the farmhouse I found a sign indicating I was at the right place, and I waved at the first person I saw. A volunteer (I'm sorry I forgot your name! I'm really bad at names!) directed me to one of the founders, Leslie, and after a brief introduction and signing off on a liability waiver I got a hose and a brush and started scrubbing down water troughs. 

A 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, Wild At Heart was established in 2015 to take in, rehabilitate, and adopt out horses in need in the Antelope Valley, and permanently board and care for horses that have special needs or high maintenance requirements. With over 30 years of experience with horses and their care, Leslie is well qualified to take on the role of a unique but much needed service in the area. 

I'm glad I spent so many of my childhood and teen years climbing the fences in the fields outside my home town, because I did a lot of that going from corral to corral, dumping water and scrubbing the gunk out of horse troughs. It's also good that I'm accustomed to manure because one horse-- I didn't get his name, but he was a good boy-- saw the mud puddle I had created with his dirty trough water and decided to cool off by splashing around in it. While I was also hot in the summer sun I wasn't really intending to be in the splash zone of mud and manure, but that's what to expect with working with livestock; you're going to get dirty.

Once all the troughs were clean and I pet as many horses as I could, I made my goodbyes with Leslie and told her I would be back. It was a pretty good workout, which would be enough for me to return, but it's more than that; I like being around horses. The opportunity to scratch their giant heads and pet their massive ears is something I don't often have these days, and knowing I can be a part of the welfare of animals in need is rewarding in its own right. Plus, with horses and cows, they poop. A lot. And they eat and drink. A lot. There's always a need for a helping hand at the sanctuary, and if I can give it I will. 

If you're not afraid to get a little dirty or break a sweat, they have opportunities to volunteer on Saturdays and (I think) Wednesdays. If you want to check out the horses, try horseback riding, or want to adopt, they're open from 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday. Plus, if you're looking for another fun way to support the organization, the 2nd Annual Cowboy Bash in Leona Valley will be held on September 25th and will have food, drinks, music, a silent auction, and pony rides, with proceeds going toward the sanctuary. Be sure to check them out on Facebook for more information.

It's a great organization and another hidden gem in the Antelope Valley, and I hope you take some time to check them out!