Griffith Park

It was much more crowded on top than I had expected, but we managed to find parking without having to hoof it up the road from below. On the other hand the view was exactly the sort of hazy view that I expected.  You could imagine that there was an ocean out there beyond the fuzzy outlines of the Beverley Hills to the west and if you looked carefully, you could see the higher peaks of the San Gabriels on the skyline to the northeast.  I'd love to see this on a really clear day - I assume that happens sometimes?

Disney Concert Hall

Walking up through Grand Park, I wasn't sure we were going to go all the way to the Concert Hall or not, but I'm very glad we did.  Despite all the headaches with its construction and financing, and I suppose some strong opinions about its design, we thought it was pretty neat.

It's a visually stunning building and I loved the juxtaposition of the outdoor spaces and gardens with the complex curves and metallic surfaces you'd expect of Frank Gehry. We did the self-guided tour which got us to much of the building, although not to the actual main concert hall itself.

Los Angeles

I do not know LA well, and that includes the downtown area. I don't know the basic lay of the land, I don't know how and where the city developed, and I didn't realize that downtown actually had hills. Or at least some hills. Probably stuff pushed up along the many faults that crisscross the basin. I should do some homework on the natural history and early development of the LA basin before I visit the next time.

We mainly drove around downtown - seems an appropriate way to explore LA - but eventually found a place to park at the north end between City Hall and Union Station and did some walking. Walking seemed an appropriate way to offset our vacation eating habits.

We walked up through Grand Park to the Concert Hall, then back down to Olivera Street for a churro and a respado (my foreign language skills often are limited to food). As with the rest of the trip, we enjoyed the clear weather and the moderate temperatures.

Monterey Park

More food pictures! Is that a problem?

I guess we could have gone back to Blu Jam again (and again and again) - or any of a dozen other breakfast places that I had seen recommended - but I knew M would enjoy Dim Sum, so we drove east from LA to Monterey Park. Keeping with the point of the trip, she had no clue where we were going, but the fact that all the signs on Atlantic Boulevard were in Chinese may have given her some hints.

The Elite is actually a menu-based Dim Sum place - a little unusual, but I found it more helpful than dealing with a line of carts coming by the table loaded with dumplings in unknown categories.  I actually knew what we were eating.  M would have been happy either way.

Silver Lake

We were staying on Sunset between Silver Lake and Echo Park. I had heard the nearby neighborhoods might be interesting places to check out and that there were a lot of good places to eat. Our visit was too short to really spend much time exploring, but we did have a great dinner at Barbrix on Hyperion. It was a cool evening on the patio, but heat lamps kept it comfortable.


The next morning (Friday), I went out early as I often do and drove back up Sunset to Intelligentsia Coffee, where I sacrificed a chocolate croissant. It had to hold me over until what I knew would be a late brunch.

Venice Beach

After Santa Monica, we drove south to Venice.  Each of these beach communities has a different flavor. The hotels and condos and amusement park rides gave way to t-shirt shops and buskers and spray painted murals.

We wandered north along the Boardwalk (not really boards) and then back along the beach - assuring that despite the inland nature of most of this adventure, I'd have something to blog about on Gravel Beach.

I filled up with coffee at Menotti's - a very good latte from a very nice machine in a very uncluttered shop right on Windward Ave - before we turned away from the ocean and headed back towards the rest of LA.

Santa Monica

Having been fed well, we headed to the beach and the west end of Route 66 (which we would intersect several more times farther east in the days to come). We parked along Palisades Park and walked to the pier, where we enjoyed the sunny, but not too hot, weather and rode on both the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster.

Note: the song Palisades Park, the one about stopping "on the top of the Ferris Wheel" is written about the one in New Jersey, not this one, even if the Beach Boys covered it later.

Melrose Avenue

Thursday morning, with M still sleeping, I caught the 704 Rapid Ride back to Union Station where I picked up our car at Hertz and returned to the hotel. Once we were really awake, we headed west through Hollywood to the Blu Jam Cafe, where we kicked off the trip with a great breakfast.

Seattle

This whole thing started with the idea of a surprise trip for M in anticipation of a big upcoming birthday, but it evolved into more of a magical mystery tour.  Fortunately, she seemed perfectly content to let it unfold and even more fortunately, I managed to avoid any significant slips and somehow the whole thing worked.

It was both a diverse and a packed week, which means it will spread out across two dozen posts.

We left a week ago Wednesday at 4 in the afternoon. A Car2Go appeared in the driveway and we spent several minutes (at 41 cents each) trying to figure out how to open the tailgate. It got us to the LINK light rail station in Columbia City and LINK got us to the airport. M didn't even look at her boarding pass going through security and didn't have any idea where we were going until they announced it at the gate.

We got into LAX and waited for a long time for the bus into downtown. Our final leg was a cab to our hotel, a pretty generic Comfort Inn in Silver Lake, right on Sunset Boulevard.  We got in well after midnight. I had told M that this would be latest night of the trip, but that she would be able to sleep in. I guess I also told her that we would be here for two nights.