The Rock

Southern California has been all abuzz about a giant rock. A 340 ton boulder has been making its way to  the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) in downtown LA from Riverside county. Because the rock is so huge and heavy, they had to build a special 300 ft long conveyance and plan a route that avoids any underpasses less than 25+ feet tall. Why should we care? Because the rock came through Long Beach tonight.

Naturally, I had to drag everyone out to see the rock. It can only move at night from 10 pm to 5 am so as not to disturb traffic during the day. This is important because the conveyance is also two lanes wide. Tomu and I brought the girls out to the corner of Atlantic and Ocean where it was supposed to make a turn, which is exciting when you are talking about something 300 feet long. We estimated it would take the rock less than an hour to get the 2.5 miles to downtown from where it parked on Atlantic during the day (it moves about 5 mph).  We were wrong. We hung out with a bunch of people on the corner for a while until a cop came by around midnight and said it was still pretty far away. The girls (and Tomu) were reaching their limit so we decided to get in the car and go find the rock.

 We drove north on Atlantic and finally found it, only a few blocks from where it started. In this photo you can see the lead truck all the way to the left with a worker standing near the rear axle. That truck is pulling. The rock is shrink wrapped in white and is suspended in the middle. The two trucks you see all the way to the right are pushing at the rear.

 This is why the rock kept getting hung up. Many of the street light arms are too low. There is a whole entourage of utility workers leading and following the rock. Sometimes they have to stop it so they can detach the arms until the rock passes. You can see they hang the arm from a nearby streetlight until it can be reattached. Makes for slow going. It's a good thing we left downtown when we did or we might have been there all night.

We did find a great spot to watch the rock go by. Once the procession started up, it took 5 minutes to pass the spot I was standing in this video. My favorite part of the entourage is the pickup truck pulling a port-a-potty bringing up the rear. All those workers must need a break now and then!

The rock is making a turn only a few blocks from our house tonight, but since it was 1 am by the time we saw it, it will probably take hours to get here. I can't see it reaching its destination on time this morning. It has 6 turns to make and each one can take half an hour.

If you are interested in learning more about the rock and the sculpture it's going to be a part of, check out this link: http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/levitated-mass