Well, I hoped the new server wouldn’t have problems, but it does seem to at times during periods of heavy traffic. It isn’t that big a deal except the site gets turned off during those periods. I cannot afford a dedicated server, so I must deal with the problem as is. As such, there may be outages in the future. The site will persevere as it has for the last 23 years. Thank you for continued support and interest in the site.
Fire in Grapevine Canyon, Kern County
It would seem that both ends of the Central Valley are having issues. Yesterday, a fire broke out along I-5 in Grapevine Canyon, known by Kern County Fire as the Water Fire, most likely named as it was near one of the watering holes along the grade. The cause may have been a truck fire which spread to vegetation. From photos and videos, it looks like the fire burned along the southbound side from near PM 7.0 to 7.5. This happens to by along my cleanup section. I will be doing a thorough investigation when time allows, most likely in October. This section includes a two sections with original wooden railing, albeit damaged from previous fires in the canyon. I will post photos on my Twitter account as well as this site when I get them.
For now, see the Kern County Fire twitter account for current details.
https://twitter.com/kerncountyfire/
Be safe out there and really be careful around the brush. Too many fires are being caused by carelessness, nevermind the fires that have been the result of arson.
A bit of historical trash
A while back, my husband and I went on a cleanup of my section of I-5 in Grapevine Canyon. While cleaning at the upper watering hole on the southbound side, I noticed a bit of newspaper. When I grabbed it, the first thing I noticed is that it looked rather old. Normally, when I find a newspaper out in the field, assuming it is not too dirty, I try to find a date on it. I’m always curious how long it may have been out there. This time, however, I saw an advertisement on it that told me it was older than normal. The ad was for Six Flags Magic Mountain and was for a ride that had been gone since 1986. Looking a little more at the paper, I found a date, Sunday, July 1, 1984. As the cleanup was in late July 2018, I was rather amazed at the find.
The ride in question was known as the Sarajevo Bobsled, a ride named after the location of the winter olympics in 1984 and was an Intamin bobsled type ride. The ride was closed in 1986 and moved to Six Flags Over Texas, where it continues to operate today.
Another time I found a Los Angeles Herald newspaper from the late 1950’s hanging onto a railroad switch near Holtville, CA in the Imperial Valley. You just never know what you might find out there.
SoCalRegion is moving
This site will be moving to a different host in the next week or so. Outages may occur during the move and pages may have errors. Hopefully, it goes smoothly.
Mt Wilson Observatory Geology Talk
On Saturday, June 16, at 5:30 pm Mount Wilson Observatory will be hosting a talk by Dr. Tanya Atwater, professor emeritus of geology at UC Santa Barbara. Dr. Atwater played a major role in piecing together the plate tectonic history of our part of the planet. She will talk about how the motions of the Earth’s crust created the current topography of southern California (including the perfect site for astronomers to explore the Universe). The talk will be followed by a rare chance to look look through Mount Wilson Observatory’s 60-inch Telescope, which revolutionized telescope design and allowed astronomer Harlow Shapley to find our place in the Milky Way Galaxy. Tickets are only $20 and proceeds will all go to the maintain the Observatory.