Going to Murphy's Ranch

I have successfully done one of the things I wanted to do this summer/ year.

I went to Murphy's Ranch!

I wanted to find some older photos of the area but I couldn't find them, but this is my experience to the wreck.

For those that haven't read the THOUSANDS of blog posts based on the history of Murphy's Ranch, nor seen the thousands of television segments based on the site, I will give you a small rundown.

Murphy's Ranch was built in 1930 in Rustic Canyon. It was owned by Winona and Norman Stephens, who were Nazi sympathizers. It was designed to be a base for the Nazi regime but it was raided on December 7th 1941 after Pearl Harbor. Afterwards, it was occupied by various other groups, hippies, homeless, whatever, and eventually it became abandoned in 1990. 

I've read about this, and I've seen a lot of the segments, but I never knew it was so easy to get to. I literally put it on my Apple maps and I found it. 

One of the first things I found was an abandoned car at the bottom of the cliff.

The initial journey starts off with a long hiking pathway. Being in Los Angeles hiking is a main component of life, so generally going to Murphy's Ranch wasn't a solo journey. 

Then, after a short walk, I found a gate with an opening. I went through the opening and walked down the stairs. 

Truthfully, the stairs were the best part about Murphy's Ranch. I found the stairs had so much to tell.

The stairs were our history. They were the path to evil comfortably placed in the center of nature. These stairs were covered completely with graffiti. The mixture of the urban and natural environments make a strong contrast that have to be seen. Walking down those stairs and seeing the last remnants of man made construction, you can see how weak we truly are compared to our planet. 

The other great thing that has to be seen is the graffiti art. Everywhere you look there is something awesome.

It is quite easy to break into the gates that are blocking the structures. However I didn't really want to see it. It didn't really bother me. I was more focused on the stairs.

Sometimes the clearest things are right in front of you. Los Angeles is a land of things that might seem boring, but with a deeper look, there is so much fun to do. I managed to do Murphy's Ranch in the morning and I really enjoyed it. Maybe next time I will check more inside the compound.

Flashback Fridays #3

So here is another Flashback Friday, and this one will involve a very interesting item. It seems that I have written so far about a person, a place, and now I find it appropriate to write about a thing. Categorizing things by types of nouns is quite fun.

So here is the next historical fact...

#3 The Cobb Salad

The Brown Derby was a chain of restaurants that ruled Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s. Hollywood elite constructed and formed their major scandals and stories within these four restaurants. However I am not here to talk about that. What I am here for, are the Cobb salad stories.

The Brown Derby at Hollywood and Vine had a lot of historical rumors attached to it. It is supposedly where Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons ate at, and where Clark Gable proposed to Carole Lombard. It is also where the Cobb salad originated from.

I've read different stories based on how to Cobb came to be. The first one was that it was late and the restaurant was closing up. A regular, and a good friend of the owner Robert Cobb, walked in and asked for something to fill him up. There wasn't a lot of food left, since it was the end of the day and they were packing up, so the chef, Chuck Wilson, simply used what was left. When the friend asked what the salad was, the chef replied, "a Cobb salad".

Another story was that the famous Sid Grauman,  founder of the Pantages, Grauman's Chinese theater, as well as others, came in and asked for something that didn't require a lot of chewing due to the fact he had dental surgery.  The result was the Cobb Salad. 

It is disputed whether chef, Chuck Wilson, or owner, Robert Cobb were the founders or creators of the salad, but whatever the answer is, it came from the fantastic building. Sadly the building experienced fire damage in 1987, riot damage in 1992, and overall the complete wreckage in the late 2010s. The building is completely gone now, and all that is left is a parking lot (on the bottom of this article). The Cobb Salad is an item owned by Hollywood history, and, it takes its place as third flashback friday.

What I Didn't Realize...

Coming back home there was something I realized that I really didn't understand before...

We live in paradise.

Growing up in this city, I've always heard the same thing about Los Angeles being a haven for not exhibiting the extremes of weather. As I got older, I understood that. I understood others flocked here to get away from the cold, I understood that the temperature in LA has always remained consistent throughout the year (except for August and September), and I understood that here, the sun always shines. However, I always wondered why people didn't want to experience the seasons. 

I thought that until I dealt with it myself. Then I finally got it. However, that is not why I think LA is paradise.

Traveling last year and seeing LA in the past couple of weeks, I realized Los Angeles is a paradise because it is a city that didn't accept its role as a concrete jungle. 

I have always considered my town a city, but I never realized that it took a different role to that. I don't know why, or I don't know how, but Los Angeles deliberately took the role of sustaining nature as a essential aspect of its image. 

I didn't see how nature or foliage was so abundant in this town. I always figured that other towns and cities were like my own. I assumed that during the 1970s the government decided to destroy the real natural beauty of LA like it did with Jimmy Carter's reputation, but it didn't, it used it as a source of energy. 

LA is a safe haven of vegetation. Wildlife roam free, and food is abundant. Each morning there is a cool breeze omitted from the dew drops formed on the leaves, and walking around you free clean and refreshed. This was something that I did not experience last year.

Last year I was sick most of the year. I was dealing with various forms of depression based on health. Going outside was tearing away at my insides. Getting off the plane I would walk around with massive headaches. Every night, when I would wash my face, I would have a residue of black gunk. The issues of pollution in asia were endless.

However above all, I felt a large portion of Asia didn't let nature naturally run its course in the city. It never integrated itself comfortably in the city's individual atmospheres. It became two separate entities. With LA, nature and modernity, go hand in hand.  

What I didn't realize was that LA has always taken the initiative to keep the true beauty of the world alive. The city might be a growing metropolis, but it's a land that still wants Mother Earth to be apart of it.

And I am now grateful for that.