About a million years ago, back during my first year in community college, I worked at CalTech as a custodian. It was actually a pretty great place to work although the wages for temporary employees like me were lousy and work started at 5:00 A.M. The trade-off was that the people I worked with were terrific and quite bright albeit a tad eccentric. I met another sub-par wage earner like me named Guy Richardson there back in 1972 or 1973.
Over the next couple years, there were many changes in our lives and we pretty much lost contact. A death of one of our former cronies compelled Guy to get ahold of me a few months back even though we had not seen each other for about 40 years or so. During our rambling subsequent conversations, Guy told us about a museum in Sylmar, CA, called the Nethercutt Collection. The Nethercutt is actually two separate collections installed in two separate buildings located across the street from each other in Sylmar.
After much recent tomfoolery with my smarter-than-me phone, we agreed to meet at the Nethercutt today. One of the two facilities was closed for renovations today but, fortunately, the massive automobile collection was open. We had been ambling around in the fabulous collection of vintage automobiles (all of which are not only meticulously maintained but also fully functional) when Guy strolled in, fresh from a bit of business he had accomplished this morning. Disappointingly for me, he looks quite healthy and is an affable guy but our reunion was very nice. We spent the next couple hours checking out the fabulous automobiles and hobnobbing about nearly everything before departing to go eat.
Yesterday I had checked Sylmar for good restaurants and had suggested we go to Buffalo Bill’s Mercantile, a barbecue joint. Once we got there, however, it was a grubby-looking little hovel and nobody seemed to be home although it was tough to tell because there is no parking nearby. We then consulted the internet and headed to nearby Taqueria Mi Ranchita which now seems to be a child dentistry place. Foiled again, we drove down the street to a little place called Los Tres Hermanos Express, a combination tiny dining place with a drive-up window. The food was pretty good and the cute waitress was very nice.
After some more hobnobbing, Guy went back toward his place in the San Fernando Valley and we headed back to Acton. The usual L.A. traffic reared its ugly head and we had a slow passage going home but were able to turn off crowded CA-14 onto Soledad Canyon Road which had blissfully sparse automobile activity. It is about a 10 mile drive from CA-14 to the campground but recent rains have greened everything up and it is a gorgeous drive.
We got a few photos and you can see them by clicking the link at the end of this sentence https://photos.app.goo.gl/YU8EdK8QJ4546GkV9