Month: August 2007

One of the nearest getaways for Angelenos for a few days of peace and quiet is Catalina Island.

Surprisingly enough most Angelenos I know have never been there. They know about it, they always wanted to go there, but never got around to it. Might it be because Catalina is too easy to reach? After all, it takes only 45 minutes to drive to San Pedro (provided the hellhole on the 110, aka Downtown does not live up to its name) plus a bit more than one hour on a ferry or 15 minutes in a helicopter to get there. One can not milk that for stories of woe and strife getting to the desired destination. Unless the hellhole lives up to its name, which it does – occasionally – oh, the stories I could tell.

But I digress. Catalina Island is a small paradise some 20 miles off the coast, the largest of the Channel Islands. It is a rarity insofar as about 90 % of the island are a vast nature preserve, given over to flora and fauna. The Santa Catalina Island Conservancy does a good job here, a very, very good job. Thank you!

The best time to go and visit the island is outside of the main holiday season – until the beginning of May and after the end of September the crowds of visitors are comparatively small. During this off season even on a weekend one has the feeling to be far away from the pressures and demands of life on the mainland.

This is not a one-off moment:

It is a normal evening scene in Avalon (not during peak season, I have to admit).

Makes bracing the hellhole worthwhile, doesn’t it?

Sometimes a detail sums up the whole.

(Top of the Observatory in Griffith Park)

…this iron rule was brought back to mind sharply yesterday when once again a fire broke out in Griffith Park, near the Observatory. Thanks to the firefighters, who immediately set to work to battle the fire on the ground and with water from helicopters the fire was contained rather swiftly and the damage was minor, compared to the huge fire in May.

Even though they were in no immediate danger, all visitors at the Observatory (approx. 700) where evacuated and bussed to safety. It might even be that the odd tourist will forever entertain others at home with the story of  “how I escaped the raging fires in Los Angeles.”

But one should not joke about the current situation. The park, Los Angeles, the county, it is dry, dry, dry everywhere. So the danger of more fires is imminent and not always is this danger battled as swiftly as yesterday. None of us will forget the big fire in May – 820 acre (3.31 square kilometer) of Griffith Park were scorched, with the fires even threatening private residences, the Zoo, the Observatory and the Greek Theater.Thanks to the relentless work of the firefighters (not only from Los Angeles) none of these became a victim of the flames in the end, but it is heartbreaking to see large areas of the park with nothing left but ashes on the ground. Even today one can sniff the acrid smell in the air and the burned areas are still not open to the public.

One important lesson learned from all this is that it is imperative that residential areas surrounding the park have to be protected. The best way to do this is to clear a wide path between the brush areas and the houses, as can be seen in this photo:

The hills on the left side show part of the burned down area, on the right side one can see houses and adjacent to them a wide strip cleared from all brush – that is the fire protection strip, newly cleared and kept in shipshape order, because everybody knows that the next fire of this hot and dry summer will come.

Well, not quite, but the story is interesting enough.

This rather strange structure sits in the middle of the Mojave Desert, halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, just a few miles outside of Barstow. Considering the temperatures last weekend passing by this spot (109 degrees Fahrenheit), a short stop to take a dip in the large artificial lake would have been very welcome. But no, that was not to be.

This place used to be called ‘Lake Dolores’, after the original owners wife and it can rightly be attributed to be the world’s first water park. Even though Dolores was still alive when the water park was built, she is dead now. So in a way, “Taj Mahal” is not too far fetched.

More details about “Lake Dolores” can be found here. The story of the place is quite fascinating and makes an astonishing read of the rise and fall of an enterprise from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Maybe one day the structure will be brought back into life. It is certainly well kept even after years of being out of operation. It looks as if one would only need to open the gates and start charging entrance fees and it would be up and running again. Even though I do not really like water parks, should it ever open again, I might go there, because I like the impossible.

And the world’s first water park in the middle of the Mojave Desert – can one imagine anything more impossible?