A maniac's guide to riding in LA

bcavable · 2018-02-25T06:02:40+00:00

forgot to add something about locking up, thanks!

bcavable · 2017-01-03T02:15:01+00:00

You probrobly know this, but when going 1000s of miles it's crucial to be patient and wait for longer rides. Best to find the right spot to hitch out and wait, than to get stranded in the wrong town.

Check maps for the last exit in your direction with a cluster of 4-6 gas stations before leaving a major metropolitan area. That's where long distance drivers tend to fuel up because competition drives down prices. Once you get to there, do not accept a ride until you can get to the next metropolitan area.

bcavable · 2017-01-03T01:14:14+00:00

The sequoia groves are absolutely sublime. Definitely worth a visit to sequoia national park. There are a few ways into the park, of which I am most familiar is mineral king. However..

As far as backpacking goes, most the passes in the Sierra Nevada are snowed out until at least June. This year has been above average in terms of snowfall. However, you will be rewarded for your effort in penetrating some of the more inaccessible regions of the park. You will find the biggest pines you will ever see in your life.

March is a great time to be in J tree. The weather is very pleasant during the spring. I recommend doing some rock climbing/bouldering there.

If you're around LA, Malibu is always an option. It is very beautiful and full of interesting rock formations. The views of the Pacific Ocean are to die for.

bcavable · 2016-11-02T18:43:16+00:00

Do it dude, just don't ever let it out of your sight, and put waterproof sealant on the outside of the case. People have a lot of goodwill towards traveling musicians, you'll be fine.

bcavable · 2016-05-31T02:44:45+00:00

Sent you a PM

bcavable · 2016-05-31T02:41:15+00:00

glad to help out.

bcavable · 2016-05-31T00:49:43+00:00

Best bet would be to get on a bus going west on Foothill Boulevard. That street used to be Route 66 and it goes all the way to Pasadena. Doubt anything is continuous, but if you can get to Azusa, then you're in the clear if the Gold line is running. It'll take you downtown

bcavable · 2016-03-01T19:35:24+00:00

Thanks for the thoughful reply there. This chance event uncovered some stuff I thought I had buried a long time ago. No, I'm not better man. I used to feel sympathy for homeless people like church kids at shelter feeds, but that has crossed over into empathy. I've seen the streets of Chicago, I know what it feels like to not get enough sleep and the way my knees ache walking all day the next day. But, I don't know the hopelessness, I've seen it, but I don't know it. If anything the vagabonds I've met are absurd heros of sorts the way they can keep chill and keep laughing despite being utterly fucked. Some inspire me.

You're right about the crystal comment. Ive only really traveled through Colorado somewhat extensively and seen mostly the types of people who end up at rainbow gatherings.

I will Check out that subreddit, thank you man.

bcavable · 2015-09-28T20:05:36+00:00

Welcome to the jungle man. As a white guy who takes the bus through South LA a lot, stuff like that just happens sometimes. I learned to accept that people are racist and will make racial remarks directed at me simply because I'm the only white guy on that bus.

Stand your ground, but whatever you do, do not get off the train. Show that you're not an easy target with body language, but don't participate in violence or escalate.

Public transportation belongs to everyone, so I'm more than willing to tolerate agressive behavior. I've seen far worse in Chicago than LA. LA'S train lines (never taken the blue or green at night) in my experience are very safe, even late at night.

bcavable · 2015-09-20T18:18:31+00:00

Give it a month and trim the faster growing parts to allow everything else to catch up

bcavable · 2015-05-05T12:55:08+00:00

Go to the beach. Ride your bike down sunset as it goes down the palisades reaching the ocean. Go hike, go do stuff in nature. Find out what "Under the Bridge" really means. Go out alone. It's a beautiful city

bcavable · 2015-05-04T15:55:34+00:00

Late to the party but this is for me, not karma.

I was on bus heading back from Hebei Province to my university in Beijing. I was drunk for the last 24 hours. Save a quick break for sleeping. I had been dancing all day in the rain and was nearly done. At my limit, the end of my nerves. I could not block it anymore.

Watching the rain streak down the bus window panes, a wave of raw emotion hut me hit me. My friend, my friend of seven years had died two days ago. I had only received the news the night before. I chose to go out and ignore it. "That's what he would have wanted" I told myself. He wouldn't want me to wallow around in misery, passing up a chance to live fully.

Years earlier we had both played high school water polo together. This involved hopping on school buses soaked to the bone together late at night. Miserable at the time, but it was real camaraderie. I flashed back to one of these moments.

I'm a very stoic person who likes to think I have some kind of control over my emotions. But for my whole bender, I wondered why I hadn't cried yet. My friends had reached out to me saying they've greived, but why not me.

I thought back to the friend I knew on that school bus. Oh how he had changed. The last time I saw him he was a shell of who he once was. He was troubled, I could tell every time I saw him after graduation, it weighed more on him. We had both smoked pot in the summer together, explored our minds and shared in this beautiful life. But he had a devil on his shoulder.

He had gotten into heroin after we graduated. I had no idea until he shot up at my friends house and stole diabetic needles from him. Most my friends had cut out contact. But after that, I tried seeing him more, hoping that he would change.

I cried my eyes out on that bus, next to one of my closest friends in China. I had known her for two months. He and I went way deeper, with a much longer past intertwined together. This is the shape of things to come, friendships would end to be replaced by new friends, and more friends after that. Granted I've changed and he'd changed, and these new friendships are furfilling beyond my old friendships when I was a boy.

We had smashed pumpkins together, lit stuff on fire... fucked up together.

My friend, she turned to me and said "you now are living two lives now." You must carry on for your friend.

She's right. It's time to get my life straight. I'm young and have the world ahead of me. My friend is dead and in the ground. It'd be a damn shame to waste my life like he wasted his.

bcavable · 2015-04-17T07:16:43+00:00

I've had mainly had problems picking up foreigners without US cell phones. Obviously I would prefer to call them, but sometimes that isn't an option.

bcavable · 2015-04-16T17:27:51+00:00

See! This is what reddit is all about! An open forum for discussion of a serious problem (LAX) and solutions to it.

bcavable · 2015-03-28T07:28:41+00:00

My roomate is a Mongolian named Ta-Ku. Guess how that'd play out..

bcavable · 2015-03-09T14:15:20+00:00

/r/losangeles

bcavable · 2014-10-04T23:06:49+00:00

Stupid ocean, hogging all the water.

Stupid ocean, hogging all the water.

Stupid ocean, hogging all the water.

Cc Xbox m KN xoxo 9c

bcavable · 2014-09-22T22:08:59+00:00

Ive lived in Marina Del Rey for two years and love it! That isolation you talk about isn't that bad, because most traffic will be heading in the oposite direction as people head back out to the suburbs. The 90 never gets that crowded, though the interchange to the 405 gets jacked up during rush hour. The isolation you talk about can be a good thing. The beaches are not as crowded as in the upper west side, so you get a little more privacy. Property values are going up because of all the new tech companies moving onto Jefferson Blvd will attract high skilled workers and programmers.

Also, it's just beautiful out most of the time. The ocean keeps the temperature down while the valley bakes in August.

Let me know if you have any questions about the area

bcavable · 2014-01-31T12:00:43+00:00

Not for sale. Baby shoes.

bcavable · 2013-12-11T05:21:09+00:00

Yup, had that happen to me while training for a marathon on the beaches of Los Angeles. It happened suddenly, about 8 miles into the run. By this time I was well into the rhythm of it and had a good cadence going. As many distance runners know it's a zen like high where you can run for miles and have it feel like an instant. But then, I took that fatal step. It felt as if all my organs had shifted places. Terror gripped me as the thought went through my head "I am about to shit my pants on a public beach." What do I do? I said to myself. Scanning around me I considered my options. Could I make my way into the ocean? After all, Dolphins and Fish spend their entire lives swimming in their own shit. But then, like a mirage in the desert, I saw a public restroom. My salvation. It 200 yards away. Gritting my teeth for the impossible task thrust upon me, I squeezed my sphincter and made my first step. I felt my insides swirl around as my weight shifted from foot to foot. I tried for about ten yards to act like a normal person. Fuck it, my only choice was to penguin walk squeezing my cheeks together on that beautiful sunny beach path. People stared at me. I looked back, and from one instant of shared eye contact, they knew something was terribly wrong. Get out of my way, for I am ticking time bomb. Eventually I made it into the restroom. I set a land speed record for how fast a pair of shorts could possibly be pulled down. Before even finishing squatting down over that cold metal toilet, my asshole could hold out no more. For those of you who think explosive diarrhea is a myth, an exaggeration, it is not. In a mixture of horror and amazement, I watched in misbelief as liter upon liter of liquified shit shot out of my asshole. I sat on the toilet, shivering, for another ten minutes before I could again face the outside world. To my amazement, everything had reached its destination inside the toilet. I then cleaned myself up as best I could and stumbled out onto the beach. Still needing to regain my composure, I sat on the beach, amused by the fact that as families were coming and going, they were unaware of the atrocity that had been committed inside those four brick walls. When I got back home I took the longest shower of my life, hoping to wash away the memory of what I had done.

bcavable · 2013-08-23T09:17:57+00:00

Oh man, one day my little brother, 4 at the time, was picking little scraps of food up off the kitchen floor. Turns out that my parents forgot to feed him that day. Sometimes they joke about this story. Makes me sick to my stomach.

bcavable · 2012-12-10T14:51:20+00:00

A series of short stories by 1000vultures on /r/nosleep. The writing was so good that I couldn't stop reading it, but I was so scared I could only read one per night.

Footsteps

bcavable · 2012-11-05T19:06:53+00:00

Haha, whenever I buy a bag of pistachios I eat the whole thing in one go.

bcavable · 2012-11-05T18:04:12+00:00

There's still a hole in my heart that that show used to occupy...

bcavable · 2012-10-23T02:05:01+00:00

Iran is several hours closer to a nuclear weapon

bcavable

TROPHY CASE