where is the city of commerce and what is a “hondo”?

in case you missed it or don’t live in los angeles, it was hot yesterday. i didn’t check the forecast but i knew it was gonna be warm. i loaded up on water and hit the road.

my original plan was to go to home depot (aka deeps) in marina del ray to get a faucet for our bathroom cuz the one we have is severly lacking in the "not leaking all the goddamn time department"…does that even make sense? the faucet leaks okay? there.

anyway i was gonna ride down the beach trail and then hit the end, do a 180, and fly fly little starling back up to the deeps but what happened was i got down the beach and decided that i was so awesome that i would do a reverse ride of what i normally do when i take the la river trail and then hit o.s.h. on the way back to get a faucet.

well riding down torrence blvd and del amo was awesome cuz the wind was at my back and i was feelin’ all nina simone good even though i had ot admit that yes, it was hot as hooha out there.

i got the the entrance to the la river and turned north and started to cry almost instantly. why? because i literally got something in both my eyes. the wind was up and evil hot. but it was blowing from my left so it wasn’t horrible. it was just really gusty and dumb.

so i rode and rode and at some point on the la river trail on the way down you have to cut over a bridge because the trail essentially ends on the west side of the river but so i was kinda not looking and i guess i missed the bridge cuz i started seeing shit that didn’t look familiar and i chalked it up to facing a different direction than i normally do but after a few minutes i came upon a bridge that i had definitely never seen before and the river looked weird and everything was wrong.

i was soooo pumped! some how i had made it to somewhere i’d never been before with out even trying. i wasn’t exactly sure how but…i decided the best thing to do was to try to get as lost as possible and then try to find my way home.

i passed under slauson ave which is where i normally get on the river trail but it was definitely a different "river" (let’s keep in mind here that river means that the city took a real river and poured several million tons of concrete to keep it in its place). then there was a huge sign for "city of commerce". which to me means nothing. i’ve hear of it but i have no idea where it is in relation to anything else.

then there was the sign for the "rio hondo". i passed a golf course and the trail not only got weird and split off in numerous direction (none of which looked…well i didn’t want chickens near my head) but there was massive construction going on under one of the bridges making it impossible to go any further. so back to the streets i went.

beverly blvd. i’ve been there. east beverly blvd??? i passed the east la sheriff’s office and several of the nicest parks i’ve seen in los angeles filled with people sitting in the shade having picnics around little ponds with fountains in the middle. i followed what appeared to be a light rail system that was under construction. i ended up on 4th street coming into downtown and then went to o.s.h. on pico.

they didn’t have a faucet that would work. so now i really have to go to deeps.

got home, and found out it was 108 degrees. also read that the wind was blowing east at 20 mph which means those funny little gusts that were in my face once i got onto beverly and continued the whole way home were not a figment of my imagination.

chirp,

hillary