Nicholas Thurkettle

It started when Roxie e-mailed me a list of discount tickets she could purchase through her job – markdowns on distractions all over Southern California. Is “Ambitious Cheapskate” an oxymoron? I’m sure striving to make it not so.

They had a sub-half-price offer for Six Flags Magic Mountain – the West Coast’s rollercoaster Mecca – and I had not paid my respects in far too long. So we started to plan a trip, and as we compared schedules it became obvious that the best time to do this was going to be Valentine’s Day Weekend. It’s the ideal time of year for a local to hit Six Flags – the summer weather up there is obscene, and the crowds even worse. A nice, temperate February weekend, without even Spring Break threatening the ride lines, drastically increased the likelihood of getting our money’s worth and avoiding heat stroke in one bang.

My plan was already to drive up to Santa Clarita on Saturday and get a hotel room, so as not to have to endure 90 miles of driving in the morning before we even reached the parking lot. And so – totally conveniently and naturally – a fabulous weekend getaway snapped into place on the calendar.

Before we checked into the hotel we detoured up the 14 Freeway to Vasquez Rocks – a place you’ve probably seen even though you didn’t know it. The jagged shapes formed by our San Andreas Fault have loomed in the background of countless films and TV shows. Perhaps most famously, it was the setting for Captain James T. Kirk’s mano-a-mano with the Gorn:

We spent about ninety minutes clambering up and down the rocks – tourists, dog-walkers, and horseback riders were going every which way. The whole park is only about three-square kilometers, and we tempered our exploration by remembering that we were going to need some strength left in our legs the next day. I’d love to come back closer to sunset, and see what the place looks like in the golden hours. Pictures are below the cut.

We checked into the Holiday Inn Express just at the foot of Magic Mountain, cleaned up and dressed for dinner. We went to a restaurant/pub called Mulligans, which was already decorated for Valentine’s Day but didn’t have the crowds or the menu markup that comes along with the day. She had the Shepherd’s Pie, and I had Filet Mignon, and we both got to appreciate that good Filet Mignon experience of having meat melt in your mouth. Dessert was fried ice cream, and we all but staggered back to the car, blissful.

We settled in for an early bedtime, and watched an absolutely amazingly effed-up sci-fi movie from the 70’s – A Boy and His Dog. Based on a novella by professional misanthrope Harlan Ellison, it stars a teenaged Don Johnson, wandering the post-apocalyptic desert with his telepathic dog, looking for canned food and rapeable women. Things proceed to get seriously strange from there, building up to an ending that is both evil and perfect. Whatever cult follows this movie, consider Roxie and I the two newest members.

Sunday started with the bounteous Holiday Inn Express breakfast, and then proceeded up the hill. What followed you will see in a separate entry.
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More substantial post about Valentine’s Day Weekend is in the works – but in the meantime, a brief taste of Pretty from a recent walk Roxie and I took in Upper Newport Bay after several days of rain.

Behind the cut you will find, taken on Saturday, my first-ever Multi-shot Panorama; which proves that:

1) Silver Lake is chock full of The Pretty
2) I am nowhere near good enough in Photoshop to blend out places where the sky failed to merge seamlessly.

Torture your browser window behind the jump:
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Busy weekend. Many very good experiences. Many projects unwritten. It’s almost midnight. Start the clock at Monday again and….go.

We’ll see if I manage to tell you any details, Jimmy. In the meantime, a lucky picture from Saturday:

Yesterday I enjoyed a brief, informal walking tour of Scripps College in Claremont. I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures, for those of you who are into that sort of thing:

All pictures copyright 2009 by Nicholas Thurkettle. All rights reserved.
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