The CLUI has been working on a
self-guided audio tour for a remarkable stretch of roadway
in Southern California, along Route 126 between Valencia and
Ventura, and the organization was able to try out some of
its research on a group of students recently. The Center was
invited to conduct a tour for nearly 160 students from the
California Institute of the Arts, to examine the region around
the school, which includes a portion of Route 126.
Four tour buses were hired for
the four hour tour. Given space and time constraints at the
stops, each bus followed the same route but in a different
order, so as not to overwhelm the local hosts. Each bus was
led by one of four CLUI guides: Melinda Stone, Erik Knutzen,
Lize Mogel, and Matthew Coolidge.
The tour examined the many
fictions layered on this landscape. To represent the early
fables, the group toured the Rancho Camulos, known as the
"Home of Ramona," after the character in the 19th
Century novel Ramona which became a popular tool of the boosters
and developers of southern California, and where tourists
of the Victorian era made pilgrimages.
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Training props and
structures at the Del Valle training center.
CLUI photo |
Passing through the film-location town of Piru, and past the
postal-carrier training route at the US Post Office Sorting
Center, the tour buses each made a stop at the Del Valle Training
Center, where mock industrial sites and accident props help
train emergency response personnel in how to prepare for the
disasters of the future that will someday come to Los Angeles
and beyond.
