I started at the junction where we normally part ways in Pasadena (I get out, J drives to get shrunk).
And within seconds I was enjoying the curved regularity of the Colorado Street bridge as first-time user rather than long-time freeway gawper.
Beyond the bridge is Eagle Rock, a broad grin of burger bar teeth.
But the teeth are unbrushed; a miscellany of food fragments is caught in between.
And the upper middle shines and glares with the tacky gold tooth of Tesco's first American incursion. Mission statement: Trampling on local retail with bright lights and a friendly smile. God has not blessed America.
Still shaking my head at the transatlantic arrival of this monstrous, predatory stowaway of a rat, still tutting at the bubonic plague it will now unleash, I crossed the 2 and followed Fletcher past the front of the boarded up bakery whose back J and I like glimpsing from the freeway.
The junction of Fletcher and San Fernando is an oxymoron of unpleasantness: busy desolation. Competing streams of tinted windows and dazzling alloys. Clustered cliques of desperate day labourers. The lights take an age and force you to look. And looking feels very lonely.
I needed the river to wash away the bitter taste and I stayed on the east bank which lets you run right alongside.
When you're this close to water, birds and stepping stones, you can almost pretend you're in the countryside.
I lost myself for a few minutes.
And then I found myself again for the last mile of the not enough miles.
