My 2-Day 20k
I had my first “runless weekend” since late September and still returned home Sunday night with sore feet, tender shins and, a day later, flu-like symptoms. Using a street map’s legend, it looks like we covered a little more than 9 miles on Saturday and at least 4 on Sunday in shoes not designed for that kind of distance. There would have been more mileage, but we finally opted for the Metro train Sunday afternoon.
Our first stop after arriving at Union Station was to find our hotel on the other side of town. This required us to walk through historic sections such as the touristy Olvera Street and the El Pueblo celebrated as the birthplace of the U.S.’s second largest city. From there we made our way through some sketchy sections of primarily empty shops, abandoned lots and makeshift homeless villages at that hour of the morning. Before long, though, the uneasy quiet of the unkempt gave way to a hive of activity: a colorful thoroughfare, where Latin music blared from open markets and creative building signage broke the bleakness. My husband commented that this mercantile strip lacked any tourist element, giving it an air of authenticity. Much of downtown turned out to be like this.
About a mile later, we dropped off our bag at the hotel's Guest Services and headed to the Skin + Bones exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The special event showed the ways that clothing designers and building architects employed similar techniques. The depth of the collection was deceptive, too. It took us a couple of hours to get through it. Along the way, I took in all the public art and parks among the skyscrapers. I'll have to put up more pictures from that portion of the day in the next post. For now, we've still got a lot of ground to cover.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, now the city’s architectural showpiece, is across from the MOCA, so we headed there next, noting that it was now raining lightly. MOCA has a satellite museum for its permanent exhibits, and we decided to head down to it. Along the way, we saw guys shooting video of an older skateboarder. I initially thought it was for a TV commercial, but when they filed in behind us on the sidewalk and I heard the guy speak, I knew it was this actor.
'Stop Mad Cowboy Disease'
Debating whether to pull a paparazzi move, we suddenly saw police en masse heading down the street. Lo and behold, we hit a street corner the same moment as thousands of war protesters (and one enterprising ice cream street vendor). I wished I’d thought to see who the news crews were interviewing in case it was someone famous.
The other museum was closed, so instead we toured Little Tokyo and then decided we’d had enough of the rain and eventually headed back to check into the hotel. The Italian restaurant around the corner had a purple sign and the tell-tale black window film that meant filming was in progress. In other words: don’t even think of entering. So we ended up walking ‘round and ‘round before settling on an Irish pub with some Hollywood history, where I’d hoped a couple glasses of Guinness would help me forget my soggy, aching feet for the evening.
Coming Up: I (kinda) steal some scenes on a movie set.
