A the beginning of the year I decided to attend Anime LA for the first time in awhile at their new venue of the Ontario Convention Center and the next door Radisson Ontario Airport. What attracted me were the Pacific Electric Trail (petrail.weebly.com) and the numerous craft breweries in the area. Planes of Fame and Yanks air museums are also nearby, but I had visited them recently and didn’t yet need a refresher, although I highly recommend them. The Ontario Convention center turned out to be the right size for Anime LA and it was nice and clean and I was amazed at how polite all the attendees were. The Radisson had a room that was really well laid out for panels, as long as the attendance isn’t too high. I did learn not to buy coffee in the convention center. There was on street parking for free if you didn’t mind walking a little bit. Fast food was within walking distance and a nice selection of food trucks were also present.
I’m not really that interested in anime cons these days, so I didn’t mind taking time off to explore, although I really enjoyed the music panels given by a professor from a community college. I brought my Downtube folding bicycle along to ride part of the Pacific Electric Trail and find the Eitwanda Depot. My parents had always talked about the Red Cars, so of course I wanted to ride a bike trail dedicated to them. I probably did not find the optimum place to park my car but I go on the trail and headed east. I have to say that in places this is one of the most elaborate and well appointed bike and pedestrian trails I’ve ever seen. The bike and walking paths are usually separate, and street crossings are well marked and safe. I did find the depot, although it was fenced off and boarded up. It was intact and appeared to have promise. The Friends of the Pacific Electric Trail are talking about restoring it someday. Maybe next year I’ll ride to both ends of the current trail. The Claremont side would be nice since there is a brewery there. The weather was pretty nasty when I did my ride so I curtailed my ride. The trail does go through a small park at one point that has nice bathrooms. Maybe not that scenic in some places, but it is a part of history if you’re an Angeleno. Photos at:
http://ikemi.info/Graphics2016/Ontario2016/index.html
On February 27 I made it out to the Riverside Dickens Festival. My photos are at:
http://ikemi.info/Graphics2016/RiversideDickens2016/index.html
It’d been a few years since I had attended since I’ve been going up to the Dickens Fair in Daly City up north. Since the last time I’d been there, the venue had moved slightly to the park or plaza near the city hall. I mainly attended a series of lectures about the life in the Victorian era. American Civil War enthusiasts seemed to have replaced the Victorian Royal Army. No more gatling gun demonstrations. There was also a booth for the Orange Empire Railway Museum. This tied this trip into the Red Car theme.
On April 27 I decided to take my Suzuki GSX-650F for one last ride before I sold it. In spite of the bad weather, I took advantage of a slight break in the rain to head down to Perris for the railway museum for their open house. Photos at:
http://ikemi.info/Graphics2016/OrangeEmpire2016/index.html
I got to ride on a diesel powered train and a genuine Red Car! I also saw a streetcar of the type I remembered riding on with my mother on the tracks of Los Angeles. I didn’t get to see everything, so I’ll have to head back in the fall or spring.
Finally, although this trip is local, I went to the Huntington Gardens and Library and finally realized that it was Huntington who built the Red Car system, or at least increased his fortune from it. See:
http://ikemi.info/Graphics2016/HuntingtonJune2016/index_5.html
for a photo of a model of a Red Car model in the visitor center.
Finally, to be complete, I think I saw a Red Car in a museum in Lima, Peru, back in 2001:
http://ikemi.info/old2003/graphics/peru2001/pages/peru006_jpg.htm
Dkikemi's Blog 