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The last cowboys of Los Angeles
San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate.com ^ | Aug 5, 2024 | By Paula Mejía, Contributing LA Culture Editor

Posted on 08/20/2024 7:48:19 PM PDT by thecodont

While growing up around Burbank, one of many suburbs butting up against Los Angeles proper, Melissa Perez and her friends would spend their summers riding around their neighborhood on horseback. “We were like the little brats on our horses,” Perez laughs. From early morning until sundown, the pack of young equestrians would sneakily traipse through the hills and horse trails tucked into Griffith Park, where they technically weren’t allowed to go. Perez would have such a blast that she’d sometimes forget to eat lunch, snacking on her horse’s carrots whenever she got peckish.

The Burbank Rancho Equestrian District sits just across the freeway from Griffith Park and is one of the few areas zoned for equestrian activities in the near-center of LA. Clomping around on horseback is a way of life for residents — so much so that it’s not uncommon to see road signs cautioning drivers to keep an eye out for passing equestrians and kids on their way to school. A handful of tack stores and stables fleck the area around Riverside Drive, a major thoroughfare coursing through the neighborhood, and the nearby Los Angeles Equestrian Center boards horses as well.

While the neighborhood still bears hallmarks of its cowboy history, real-life cowboys have been leaving in droves.

“As time has gone on, people have sold out,” says Perez, who owns one of the few remaining tack stores on Riverside Drive, TriKee Tack, located right on the Burbank-Glendale border. As the years go by, more of her friends and neighbors have relocated to places more amenable to their day-to-day existence, such as Arizona, Idaho and Texas.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: horses; losangeles
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To: thecodont

Rolling Hills Estates, in LA County, is a suburb with equestrian trails.


21 posted on 08/20/2024 11:08:10 PM PDT by married21 (As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

We’ve visited Death Valley a couple of times. Beautiful scenery that is pretty unique from anywhere else on Planet Earth. And as inhospitable as the area is, you realize just how valuable borax was to make it economical to mine and transport.

This museum has some of the equipment from “back in the day.”

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g143021-d108685-Reviews-Borax_Museum-Death_Valley_National_Park_Inyo_County_California.html


22 posted on 08/20/2024 11:21:35 PM PDT by abb
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To: abb

Thanks. I’ve been in Northern Cal since 1978 and have never gotten to Death Valley! It’s a very long trip from here. I wanted to go this past spring, but couldn’t get away.


23 posted on 08/21/2024 2:56:42 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“When exposing a crime is treated like a crime, you are being ruled by criminals” – Edward Snowden)
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To: mac_truck

how is Norco Riverside, holmes?


24 posted on 08/21/2024 3:02:01 AM PDT by A strike ("Rise Peter, kill and eat.")
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Oh my gosh, I’m coming back into fashion and I didn’t even know it


25 posted on 08/21/2024 3:52:04 AM PDT by rdcbn1
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
Michelle Gass, the CEO of Levi Strauss & Co.

wouldn't buy them to set on fire in the winter..... Wranglers please....

26 posted on 08/21/2024 4:33:57 AM PDT by Dick Vomer ( (2 Timothy 4:7 "deo duce ferro comitantes" <p><b></B><P> <img src="">)
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To: oldplayer

Two of my grandsons went to a private high school in Ojai,CA. Every incoming freshman is given a horse that they have to care for and learn to ride for the year.
Their day starts early in the morning, before classes, where they have to groom the horses and then go for a ride. It’s amazing how proficient these kids become. The whole idea is to have them learn responsibility and care for something besides themselves.


27 posted on 08/21/2024 6:43:57 AM PDT by surrey
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To: thecodont

Nashville has decent equestrian in parks within the city

As does the Central Park as I recall from the 80s

And south Florida has Davie!

Percy Warner in Nashville has 3000 acres and stables on OHB

URBAN HORSEY is fun but you need a very calm steed

My thoroughbred who died two years ago

No way


28 posted on 08/21/2024 7:34:02 AM PDT by wardaddy (Thank you God for saving president Trump from murder)
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To: thecodont
One of my physics professors made a point of mentioning that particular Bonanza episode. As I recall, in it young Michelson ended up accidentally starting a fire with a parabolic lens.

Yes, I vaguely remember that. I don't know if it really happened that way for the teenage Michelson, but he did become one of the world's foremost experts on the accurate measurement of the speed of light, so we can give the writers a break for taking a bit of dramatic license.

Also, as a metaphor, the story is accurate. The Michelson-Morley results helped Einstein to formulate the theory of general relativity, which in turn led to his famous mass-energy formula, which in turn formed the theoretical basis for pursuing the atomic bomb. Which, in the context of the time in which the Bonanza episode was written, really did have the potential to "set the world on fire."

So the writers were perhaps being more than a little clever with that scene.

29 posted on 08/21/2024 8:16:06 AM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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To: surrey
Two of my grandsons went to a private high school in Ojai,CA. Every incoming freshman is given a horse that they have to care for and learn to ride for the year. Their day starts early in the morning, before classes, where they have to groom the horses and then go for a ride. It’s amazing how proficient these kids become. The whole idea is to have them learn responsibility and care for something besides themselves.

Sounds like a great idea.

30 posted on 08/21/2024 10:05:29 PM PDT by thecodont
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To: wardaddy
URBAN HORSEY is fun but you need a very calm steed

That's for sure. Some jokers on motorcycles think spooking horsey is fun.

31 posted on 08/21/2024 10:06:37 PM PDT by thecodont
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Fascinating!

More on this here:

https://lahha.org/pathways/


32 posted on 08/21/2024 10:09:47 PM PDT by thecodont
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To: Steely Tom
Yes, I vaguely remember that. I don't know if it really happened that way for the teenage Michelson, but he did become one of the world's foremost experts on the accurate measurement of the speed of light, so we can give the writers a break for taking a bit of dramatic license.

I had to check. Bonanza "Look to the Stars" - Season 3 Episode 26. Young Michelson was using his telescope and accidentally left it focused on a pile of excelsior in a market wagon. A bit of sun, a moment or two, and then there was a fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsa_SJC6jTQ

33 posted on 08/21/2024 10:29:58 PM PDT by thecodont
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To: thecodont
Thank you for that link.

The writers for Bonanza were men of good will, intelligent, and with excellent imaginations.

Writer's credit for this episode, Look To The Stars, is given to Robert M. Fresco, Paul Rink, David Dortort, and Fred Hamilton.

34 posted on 08/22/2024 10:22:49 AM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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