Sunday, April 04, 2004

Mt. Wilson Day Trip

originally part of an email to Kevin...

We conducted a science experiment yesterday to see if Lori's sickness that cancelled our Sacramento trip part way through the Grapevine was altitude sickness or good old food poisoning. We're supposed to go to a wedding in Arrowhead next weekend and we didn't want to have a repeat, so we did what any wondering mind would do... we set out for the nearest, highest point, winding our way up to Mt. Wilson, watching the altitude markers as we went. It is an amazing and bizarre drive. You drive through neighborhood and start to see signs advising you to turn on your headlights. You pass three houses on a gated street and immediately the rocks leap up on both sides of you. The houses still nearly in view, you're in the Angeles national forest. (As you pass under the sign welcoming you, you pass under many high-voltage wires span.) It becomes cliffs and trees very quickly and you realize why many sexual predators bring stupid women out there to kill them; it is so remote. Sort of. You pass a ranger station, then it's quiet for awhile again, then another ranger station and you're out of the forest already. Then a side road that's really narrow and really windy for five miles. And then you begin to see them. Many, many, many radio and TV towers begin to rise into view. Then you're at an intersection. Two one way roads and two two-lane roads in your direction face you. One, "Video Dr." has a tiny plastic barricade across it. The other is your path. Video drive is apparently a loop around what can almost be described as an island where one assumes the most exclusive of towers live, our road in and out of the park as the river around the island. You pass many other towers on your drive until you get to a large parking lot and a skyline picnic area -- a large structure built to cantilever over the paths around it and give you amazing views. We assume, since all we could see was fog. All in all, a very nice day.

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