What a way to wake up!!!
Choppity choppity.... I thought I was back in old
Saigon!!!
Such things as this should not happen on a weekend morning. Shocking that the rest of the family was sleeping through it. Oh well, since I wasn't getting any more rest, figured I'd step outside and see if I could see what all was up there. Only one chopper, and instead of the regular circling, it was hovering, being blown up a ways, and returning to where it started. Strange. I could hear emergency vehicles' sirens approaching. Two thoughts of what could have happened, one being that the constant drizzle had
destabilized the hillside and a house or two had slid down. The other thought was that someone had attempted to race a
Gold Line train at one of the crossings. Since I was up (and none of the local news broadcasts were showing a thing about it) I decided I'd throw on some clothes, grab my camera and see if I could find the source and get some shots in.
By the time I did this, though, Tooth boy woke up. I told him what I was thinking of doing, and before I took off I flipped through the broadcast news again, and there it was.
The third option turned out to be what had happened, though. One of the world famous
110 Freeway exit had claimed another victim. (Image of the car being lifted out courtesy of Fox 11's website)
I stopped by later in the day to survey the damage. Hard to tell exactly what happened, but I think that someone tried to exit without heeding the 5 MPH sign, overshot the exit and fell the thirty or so feet into the Arroyo
Seco.
Every so often that happens.
While I was there taking pictures, I heard the brakes of another car locking up, and I was able to get a couple of shots,
Ala Mad Max.
He was able to keep from going all the way over, but he was very lucky that there was no one heading onto the freeway!!!
Arroyo Seco translates to "dry stream", which it almost never is, but usually there's not much along this portion. Whenever we're by there, the younger boy wants to go for a hike along the stream.
A couple of posts back, I'd made mention of my latest technology purchase, but never said what it actually was!!! Ipod Touch 4th generation, same as my older picked up, but I got mine as a refurb rather than used with a corner of the screen cracked already. I've been kind of keeping an eye out for a decent but tiny camera at a reasonable price. Most weren't much cheaper than this, and only would take pictures!!! Found out afterwards that the generation 5 has a WAY better camera, and experience a tad of buyers' remorse. My younger boy has been saving for one of his own, and I've agreed to sell him mine at a nice discount when I get myself a gen 5, probably around gravy time. Did I mention that my wife got me a nice case for it for my birthday???
All the pictures here are from my Ipod. The only edit I preformed on them was to use the clarify function in Paint Shop Pro. First shot is by where we entered, he declared it to be dead hobo swag.
Second shot is looking upstream. If I'd had my Pentax with me, you would probably be able to make out the antennas of Mount Wilson!!! That was the shot I was going for. Picture #3 is straddling the stream, and #4 is one of the inlet pipes, probably from the local street drains. I know I've got a shot from a while ago of the stencil they have near storm drains that have the "empties to the ocean" legend on them!!!
