Mission San Juan Capistrano
Past Irvine we went through about a five-mile stretch of agricultural land, with fields just plowed and ready for planting. This is apparently all owned by the same company, the Irvine Ranch Company. While they were originally ranchers, the company has diversified and gotten rich many times over. They first sold drilling rights to oil companies and then subdivided the city of Irvine and sold it off for development. More recently they've sold off land to build a network of expensive privately-funded toll roads that the rich people around here use to commute.
A mother and her daughter boarded at Irvine and had asked the conductor if they could have a seats on the right-hand side of the train, so they could look out at the ocean on the way down to San Diego. There was nowhere on the train with two ocean-veiw seats together. My seat, though, was on the correct side of the train, and no one was sitting next to me. I would be getting off before any real scenery began, so I agreed to trade seats with them. They were most grateful, and so was the conductor.
Trading seats also gave me the opportunity to experience a fascinating fellow passenger. The elegant young woman siting directly in front of me kept switching languages as she spoke with various people on her cell phone. She was fluent in at least three languages: English, French, and Russian. In English she sounded like Natasha from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, and her French had nearly as dramatic an accent. I'd assume she spoke Russian natively, and what she was doing taking the train from L.A. to San Diego I don't know. Apparently she had a boyfriend, relative, or acquaintance who lived in the San Diego suburbs. Her ticket was to San Diego, but apparently it was more convenient for her contact to pick her up in Solana Beach, a suburb somewhat north of there. It was fascinating to hear her rattling off a mouthful of mostly unintelligible Russian, with place names like "Solana Beach", "Irvine", and "Oceanside" thrown in the middle of it.. I understood everything the woman said in English (though parts of it were quite personal-things I probably shouldn't have been overhearing), and the French was also surprisingly easy to understand (which probably comes from it being a second language for both her and me). While I've studied the equivalent of three years of Russian, though, I must confess that I only caught words-and most of them were the words Russian had borrowed from French. I have no idea who all the people she was phoning from the train were; I can't imagine constantly switching languages like that.
It was around 10am when I arrived in the place tourists call "Capistrano" and Californians call "San Juan". If ever there were a tourist trap, its San Juan Capistrano. While the small-town feel (the place has about 30,000 people) was refreshing after all that endless suburbia, it's just not my kind of town. The place is a lot like Pella, one of those towns that requires everything to look old, even if it's new construction. That means you see mission-style fast food joints and the mission-style convenience stores and mission-style supermarkets and a mission-style outlet mall. It frankly struck me as overkill.
The point of going here, of course, is the "mission-style" mission. Often called "the jewel of the missions", Mission San Juan Capistrano is one of the oldest and by far the most famous of the string of churches Fr. Junipero Serrá established along the California coast in the late 1700s. Fr. Serrá was born in Majorca in the Balearic Islands. He came from Spain as a Franciscan missionary and could easily be given personal credit for the fact that the Catholic church is to this day the primary religious influence in California. While the original old stone church that was the heart of the Capistrano mission was destroyed by multiple earthquakes (it looks like the bombed-out shells of churches you see in pictures from World War II), the compound houses a lovely old chapel that dates to 1776-the oldest standing building in California and the only remaining church outside Spain where Fr. Serrá said mass. Also historic are dormitory-style buildings that housed not only the priests, but also Indians who lived here while they did industrial work. The residences now house a variety of mostly rather dull museums and a dusty gift shop filled with uninspired religious sundries. There are also an active "modern" (1920s) church, a school, a parish center, and a cemetery at the far end of the complex.
Aside from the age of the place (as old as some of the churches I saw in Boston), the most striking feature of the mission is its gardens. About two weeks from now they'd be hosting their annual Flower Festival at the mission, and I certainly got a lovely sneak preview. The mission buildings are centered on a vast courtyard-larger than a city block-filled with all types of vegetation. While it is very formally designed, it really doesn't come across as pretentious. That's probably because in addition to geometric displays of flowers and carefully pruned hedges, there are towering shade trees left to grow as they will and vegetable gardens that are well-tended but not really designed for show. The flowers make quite a show, though, not to mention quite a smell. Their scent perfumed the air quite heavily, becoming almost overpowering at times. It definitely was beautiful, though.
... Oh yeah, I almost forgot the swallows. I don't know if I saw any or not. The gift shops lining the streets of San Juan are full of swallow souvenirs, and if the clay and metal facsimiles are any way to judge, swallows look a lot like pigeons. I certainly saw pigeons at the mission, and perhaps there were some swallows mixed among them. Whether the legend of the swallows returning each year on the same day is true or not depends on who you ask (which means, of course, it isn't). They certainly return at approximately the same time of year each year (but then, so do all birds everywhere), and unbiased locals will tell you that they're always back by St. Joseph's Day when they hold the swallow festival. Apparently there's some song about the swallows that goes back way before my time. I don't recall ever hearing such a song, but there were tapes and CDs of it everywhere.
I hurried through most of the mission, though really not by choice. I saw everything, but I didn't dawdle anywhere. That's because the whole grounds were crawling with group after group of school children who had come here on field trips. There were at least six different school buses, and other groups had come in by train. The kids were polite, but they did make it hard to spend much time seeing things.
I left the mission and walked back to the station, whose authentic old west architecture fights a bit with its fake mission-style neighbors. I had just a short wait before catching the next southbound train, which arrived right on schedule. This Surfliner was nearly packed, mostly with leisure travelers getting a head start on the holiday weekend. I found a seat on the "boring" left-hand side of the train, and we made our way out. For about five minutes we headed through the fake adobe condos that make up residential San Juan Capistrano. Then we got our first sight of the Pacific at San Clemente.
In San Clemente I couldn't help but think of President Nixon. Among my childhood memories are news reports of his escaping Watergate at the "Western White House" here. I may have seen "Casa Pacifica" from the train; there are any number of pretentious mansions lining the top of the cliff. What I mostly saw in San Clemente, though, would be best described as "white trash"--large women with big scarf-covered hair-dos who shouldn't be dressed in swimwear paired with bald, pasty-legged men with bear guts hanging out under NASCAR T-shirts. It was as if the same people I had seen in Las Vegas last month had followed me down here. Whether they lived in the countless mobile home parks that make up San Clemente or whether they were just "summer people", I don't know. I do know they were there for Memorial Day, waddling from their trailers down to the beach. It's a little unfair to describe all the people here as white trash. Some of them were, in fact, black. They pretty much all fit the redneck stereotype, though.
San Clemente marks the county line between Orange and San Diego Counties. There's a little park right on the county line, a major surfing center. Then we entered the big military base at Camp Pendelton. A huge flag be-decked billboard at the entrance to the facility said "Welcome Home, Sailors and Marines! Thanks for serving our country." While you'd find few people more solidly against the war in Iraq than me, I would certainly share the sentiment of the sign. Our soldiers should be thanked for the job they've done, whether we agree with the reason they were sent in harm's way or not.
The trip past Camp Pendelton is why people want to sit on the right side of the train. For most of the way the railroad runs right along the beach, with ugly military buildings to the east and a fabulous view of the Pacific to the west. Toward the south we cut inland just slightly and played tag with Interstate 5-trading places with which was closer to the ocean as both they and we crossed a coastal swamp.
When Camp Pendelton ends, urban sprawl abruptly begins again. The military base is really the only reason that Los Angeles and San Diego are separate metropolitan areas. If it weren't there, there would almost certainly be no break in the coastal development all the way to Mexico. Past the base we left the ocean behind, and we headed past warehouses and trailer parks into central Oceanside. As they called the stop and prepared to exit I realized no conductor had been by to collect my ticket. No one ever did take it, and in theory it's still valid until 2004. So if anyone plans to be in the area, you can see me about a free trip from San Juan to Oceanside.
There's a sign by the platform at the Oceanside Transportation Center that looks like this:
"Beach" leads through a rather creepy tunnel under the tracks with cameras monitoring everything you do. (Somehow cameras like that always make me feel less secure; I can't help but wonder just why they felt the need to install them.) There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. To the west of the tracks is a pleasant neighborhood of tiny, but well kept stucco bungalows. Then go on for about three blocks, before ending abruptly at a cliff. There steps lead down to one of the most gorgeous beaches I've ever seen. It was very cold (upper 60s) and a bit foggy in Oceanside, but even so it was pleasant at Taylor Street Beach. The white sand is dotted with shells, and the view of the ocean is magnificent. The waves are rough here, which makes it very popular with surfers. I spent about half an hour just watching the surfers walk out from the water's edge until they caught a wave. Most of them weren't the spectacular waves you see on TV, but it still looked like it would be fun.
I went back to the station and followed the "Downtown" arrow, which almost immediately leads to Ocean Avenue the main drag that decades ago was U.S. 101. Downtown Oceanside was really quite dead. I'd imagine much of that is because of the war. This is a military town (which barely tolerates the surfers on its fringe), and downtown is where the Marines go for a good time. It was downright boring in the afternoon, though I'd imagine it really gets hopping at night-particularly when the troops are home. There were more seedy bars than I'd ever care to see, plus a vast collection of adult book stores. I'd swear there was a liquor store and a pawn shop for every guy in the Marines, and don't get me started on the gun shops and sleazy motels or the endless adds for escort services. Much of downtown is filled with stately art deco buildings. It's a shame that so many of these architectural beauties are being used for less than socially uplifting purposes.
The one thing I had wanted to see in downtown Oceanside was the California Surfing Museum. I had read about this on the Internet, and it sounded interesting. Unfortunately they, too, were suffering from lack of business because of the war. As I walked past two surfer dudes were stationed in front of the place, and they would have been only too happy to give me an "up close and personal" tour. I wasn't really in the mood for such an in-depth treatment, though, so I just checked out their window displays and then made my way back to the beach.
I couldn't help but notice as I wandered around Oceanside that the place is an incredibly masculine city. I don't think I saw more than a dozen women the whole time I was there, compared with literally hundreds of men. The surfers here were all men, and I'd guess that virtually all the Marines are men as well. The place has a "get drunk and get laid" attitude ... [which] certainly gave it an unforgettable personality.
* * * * *
I took the Surfliner back north to San Juan Capistrano. ... The most entertaining thing on this leg of the trip was a video producer who was making some film about the environment. There were two people sitting a couple rows back from me who happened to be from France, and the producer conned them into saying, for the benefit of the camera, in both French and English: "There is nothing more important than the environment, and the most important part of the environment is you." He also had them say a few words praising Jacques Cousteau, again rehearsed and recited line for line. From here on out, each time I watch a documentary, I'll have a major degree of skepticism about any remarks I hear "real" people coming up with allegedly off the top of their heads.
I almost thought I would get to make the round-trip from S.J.C. to Oceanside with my tickets intact, but just as we turned in from the ocean the conductor came by and took my return ticket. I exited the train and spent about half an hour walking around San Juan Capistrano, which was honestly probably the dullest thing I did today. One thing that was immediately apparent was that this fake adobe tourist trap was every bit as feminine as Oceanside was masculine. The tourists are both men and women, but the tourist trade is definitely geared to the ladies. There's gift shop after gift shop after gift shop, all filled with things no man in his right mind would ever want to set eyes on. Most of it was hardly original-things like those fabric kites people hang from their porches--and I felt the majority was frankly ugly. Even the coffee mugs and the "all I got was this lousy T-shirt"s were over-priced, too.
Also creating negative memories of San Juan were annoying spoiled brat children who were tearing up and down the sidewalks. Their mothers wandered along behind, window shopping, oblivious to what jerks their children were. Periodically the children would run back to their mamas demanding that they buy them something or announcing that they had to go potty or just exclaiming some fact that was obvious to all around. The women indulged everything their children wanted and in the process annoyed me and most of the other people on the street.
I had to "go potty" too, and I wandered around a bit looking for a place to do so. I eventually happened on a nice little park south of the downtown area. It had mission-style toilets beside its mission-style picnic covered picnic tables. Fortunately the plumbing was not mission-style (it dated from the 20th rather than the 18th Century), and I was able to do my duty appropriately.
There was still quite a bit of time before the next train would arrive, so I decided to have a very late lunch at the mission-style International House of Pancakes across the street from the real mission. ... My waitress was one of the most indifferent service people I've ever met. A sixty-ish woman with Miss Clairol blonde hair, she looked like she couldn't wait to go outside and have a smoke. She managed to efficiently serve my omelet without really saying much of anything, and she even refilled my iced tea. I got the feeling, though, that she'd rather I hadn't intruded on her afternoon. I had a twenty dollar bill and a bunch of quarters on my person, but no one dollar bills. I decided to tip [her] in quarters (she hadn't really done anything not to deserve a tip; she was just sort of there). I went to the register to pay my bill, which was just over $9 after tax (a heftier rate than they have in L.A.) was added. It turned out they were out of quarters there, and the hostess didn't want to give me a pocket full of dimes. The hostess asked [the waitress] if she had any quarters, and I ended up getting back as change much of what I left as a tip.
There was a crowd of kids at the train platform waiting to return from their field trip. I avoided them by going clear to the end of the platform. I sat down there and read through a guide to apartments in the San Juan/Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo area. I couldn't dream of affording to live here. The humblest places are in the $1,000 a month range, and some landlords saw fit to advertise prices up to $3,500 a month. That's more than ten times the monthly rent I pay here in Algona, not to mention well over my monthly salary. I'm sure the apartments I was reading about are very nice, but I can't imagine they have any features that would actually justify being worth so much.
The train back to Los Angeles was almost totally full. I sat next to a twenty-something blonde woman who spent the entire trip reading a single chapter of the book Who Moved My Cheese? This is an allegory about change that was the darling of the business world a few years back. Iowa Lakes suggested that all their faculty find a way to incorporate the book into their classes, and I read through it at that point (and proceeded to make no change whatsoever to my classes). I'm no speed reader, but I think I finished the book in the time it took her to get through that chapter. The book was printed in large type (I think all editions of it are, not just hers), so there's not much more than a paragraph per page. It's not exactly tough reading, either, and while those enamored with it find numerous hidden meanings, the basic point (you need to adapt to change) is pretty darned obvious.
Across the aisle from me was a Hispanic man who was carefully balancing a flowering plant on the floor between his legs. I'm sure it was a gift for some important person in his life. In front of him was a college-aged white boy who looked like the rap star Eminem but spent most of the trip listening to Johnny Cash on headphones. His grandfather was sitting next to him. The boy was apparently in the ROTC program at San Diego State University (the same school ... one of my quiz bowl players will be attending next year), and the grandfather was a Korean War veteran. They had a fascinating discussion about some of the changes the military has seen in the past fifty years ...
Behind me was a terminally happy couple made up of a dark-haired middle-aged man and his high-heeled, peroxide-topped, breast-enhanced companion--he was definitely robbing the cradle with this bimbo. He and she spent the trip sharing their cell phone, calling all their friends and acquaintances to tell them they were taking the train to Los Angeles to go out for dinner. They were apparently eating at a place called A.O.C., which is on West 3rd Street, near Fairfax (it would be near the LaBrea tar pits, and I suppose they took a cab there from Union Station). While writing this I decided to look up information about the place on the internet. It sounds nice, though well beyond my price range ($50 or so a plate). I'm sure this unusual twosome had a lovely and romantic dinner there.
* * * * *
The concrete Los Angeles River had gone down quite a bit since April. Much more of the graffiti was visible on this trip, for better or worse. While the river itself is hideous to look at, I must say that it alone seems to be where the graffiti goes. You don't see "tags" on the sides of buildings in downtown L.A., so it may actually be a good thing to have a place where people can get that out of their system. The most interesting graffiti I saw was a simple directional message painted on west wall of the river just south of Union Station:
I got back to Union Station and just walked down to another platform where almost immediately a Metrolink train was leaving for San Bernardino. I had to sit backwards, but no one sat next to me the whole way. The trip was uneventful, with even a few less cell phones going off than we had yesterday.
Motel 6 had the correct towels today--two sets of bath towels, hand towels, and wash cloths. There was soap, too. Strangely, though, it was not Motel 6 soap, but just a generic bath soap (in fact I saw the exact same soap on sale yesterday at the 99˘ store). A lot of the "characters" from earlier in the week were gone now, replaced with tourists....
I decided to have supper tonight at a fast food place called Wienerschnitzel (they sell hot dogs, not German cuisine) that was kitty-corner across from the hotel. While it was just a few steps away, getting there was a major journey. Sierra Avenue was packed with traffic, probably more so than usual because of the holiday weekend. Cars were backed up at least two stoplights north of the interstate, and there was nearly as much congestion on the cross-street, Valley Boulevard. The lights here go through a complex series of settings, with the pedestrian "WALK" light getting about the lowest priority of anything. I waited quite a while next to a "smog check" station beside the hotel. These are everywhere in California. I'm not sure, but I'd bet you have to have a check to sell your car, and perhaps to renew the license plates. There was plenty of smog in the air this evening, so the "checks" obviously haven't cut things down to nothing.
A quick word of advice: don't eat at Wienerschnitzel. There's not really anything wrong with the place, but I can't imagine why I'd ever want to go back there. They have literally the most flavorless food I've ever tasted. I had a value meal that consisted of two chilidogs, French fries, and lemonade. None of the items had any flavor at all. You'd think there might be some sort of spice in chili, perhaps chili if nothing else. No this was just a red paste over finely ground meat, neither of which tasted like any different than the steamed wiener or the bun. I've never had fries quite like the ones here before. They were tiny juliennes of potato, far thinner than normal fast food fries. The thinness meant that they absorbed quite a bit more oil than regular fries, though in the process they didn't manage to taste like anything other than vegetable oil. They were salted, but not so you'd notice. The lemonade tasted watered down, with a hint of sweetness but no tartness whatsoever. The only condiment they serve is ketchup (how can you not have mustard at a hot dog place???), and it too had no flavor. People can talk about the plastic food at McDonalds, but it's haute cuisine compared to Wienerschnitzel.
The help here consisted of a black girl, a white girl, and a Hispanic boy-all of high school age. The black girl took my order without incident, but after that the three of them spent the entire time I was there complaining about the place and its owner (a Middle Eastern man named Mohammed whose smiling photo welcomed me to the place). It's certainly nothing new for kids to complain about their jobs (nothing new for adults either, for that matter), but you'd think they'd have the sense to wait until there were no customers around to trash the place. Obviously I didn't care for Wienerschnitzel either, but I didn't need them influencing my opinion. If I were Mohammed, I'd probably fire them or at least give them a good lecture.
* * * * *
I made my way back to Motel 6 and packed up all my stuff. Then I changed into nicer clothes (a sweater and khakis) for the final excursion of the evening. In checking what there was to do in California while I was here, I noticed that Miss Saigon was playing in San Bernardino. ... I reserved what had to be just about the last available ticket, and I was off to see the show tonight.
The drive up Sierra Avenue was very slow. I could only console myself with the fact that traffic was backed up far more southbound than north. I was stuck behind a young Hispanic boy in an old clunker of a car that was desperately in need of one of those smog checks. Even with my air conditioning on "re-circ", I felt like I would be asphyxiated. Fortunately he continued straight on Sierra when I turned east on Foothill Boulevard. I followed this east down the Old 66 strip, past the Wigwam Village Motel I had seen in April, and on into San Bernardino. I turned south on "E" Street and parked in ramp for the Carousel Mall. This is one of those downtown malls that was a wonderful urban renewal project when it was built, but that has dwindled to almost nothing. ... Penney's was the last big store remaining here, and they just announced their going out of business sale. The one good thing about a mall with no business is that it makes for free downtown parking. The ramp was cramped and confusing, but at least it was free.
The play was at the California Theatre, which is just about the only thing of historic interest in San Bernardino. (The only challenge it might get is the site of the world's first McDonalds, which is now a parking lot.) Pretty much every city worth its salt has restored an old movie palace, but the California Theater is more than just that. Being a convenient distance from Hollywood but made up of "normal" people, San Bernardino was frequently used as a premiere site for motion pictures. Even though the official premieres were in New York or at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, the first showing of almost all the big shows from the Golden Age of Hollywood were right here in San Bernardino. They'd run new films un-announced, before or after a scheduled feature, to see how they played before a "real" crowd. If they bombed, they'd make changes before the film debuted for real. I saw a documentary on the making of Gone with the Wind that talked about its premier at the California Theatre, and it was fascinating to see the place in person.
Compared to many old theaters the California is really quite simple. It's pleasant, though, full of red velvet and gilding, with an enormous chandelier hanging from the center. My cheap seat ($35) was in what would best be described as an oversized box (not unlike where Paul and I saw the ballet in Russia), clear at the top and back of the theater. It was a perfectly good seat, though, affording a full view of everything.
This crowd was very multi-ethnic, ... and just like the crowd I'd seen at The Lion King in Los Angeles, this one was very mobile. People were up and down and in and out all through the play. You'd certainly get a scolding from the ushers if you tried that in Chicago or Des Moines, and you'd likely not be allowed to return until intermission.
With only a handful of exceptions the crowd was very well dressed. My sweater and khakis put me toward the low end of the men in attendance, and I'd probably have been laughed at if I were a woman wearing equivalent clothes. All of the women were at least in "Sunday best", and some of them wore floor-length dresses and furs....
It intrigued me that while this was the main national touring company of Miss Saigon, they didn't hand out the standard Playbill that you'd normally get at the theatre. In retrospect, I bet they couldn't sell enough advertising in San Ber'do to make Playbill profitable. Instead we got the sort of offset-program you'd expect at a community theatre show. Actually that's quite a bit easier to read than Playbill, and I find it a positive thing not to have advertising.
The play was excellent, one of the best Broadway shows I've seen. ... The show is apparently loosely based on the opera Madame Butterfly. Having never seen that, I'll have to take other people's word for it. It tells of a girl from the Vietnamese countryside who comes to Saigon as a refugee. The only work she can find is as a prostitute. She falls in love with a G.I. who agrees to marry her, but is separated from her in the confusion at the end of the war. Many years later the G.I., who since married an American woman, finds out that he has fathered a child through "Miss Saigon". Much of the plot deals with their bittersweet reunion. The plot was captivating, the sets and costumes interesting, and the music fascinating and widely varied. It really was a wonderful show.
It intrigued me that a play about the Vietnam included no one Vietnamese in the cast-nor anyone Laotian or Cambodian or Thai. The Asian characters were mostly played by Filipinos (a few were Chinese), and the ensemble was largely Hispanic people with no Asian connection whatsoever.
Trust me, San Bernardino after dark is not a place you want to be. I was thankful there were women in jewels and furs to draw attention away from me as we all made our way to the parking ramp. There's a movie cineplex next door to the California Theater, and its plaza seems to be a favorite gathering spot for thuggish-looking young men. Then again, as I'd find out driving back to Fontana, pretty much everywhere in San Ber'do seems to be a place for thuggish-looking young men to congregate at night. The place gave me the creeps, and I certainly don't plan to return any time soon.
I'd have to wait before I started my drive back to Fontana, though. First I needed to make it out of the parking ramp at the mall, and that was easier said than done. For no good reason they close two exits to the ramp at 9:30pm (it was round 11 when the play got out). I can't imagine any reason for doing that. Parking is free, so it's not like they need an employee to collect money. It also can't be for security reasons, since all they do is put a chain across the entrance blocking cars from exiting. There's a big open area with about a four-inch curb next to the entrance that anyone could walk around; some did while I waited ... and waited ... and waited ... and waited for the back-up of cars leaving both the play and the movies to get out of the one open exit. At one point an SUV behind me gunned his engine and jumped the curb out to "E" Street. If I hadn't been driving a rental car, I might have tried the same thing. As it was, I kept waiting in line for over half an hour before I finally left the ramp.
I made my way out of San Bernardino, saying a little prayer to be making it out alive. Once I got back to Foothill Boulevard, I found Friday night was cruising time in the 'burbs. I'd swear every high school kid in the Inland Empire was driving along Foothill, mostly at well less than the posted 50 mph speed limit. All through Rialto and Fontana, Foothill was packed with cars with their windows down. I was amused when at one point I was stopped at a light and the cute girls in the car next to me were rather obviously checking me out. I'm sure they were disappointed to see an overweight middle-aged guy instead of a dreamboat.
I made it back to Motel 6 right at midnight and pretty much just collapsed into bed. This had been a very long, but really quite enjoyable day.
For the first time on this trip I slept late enough that my cell phone alarm actually went off. I was up at 6am, and before long I showered, packed up the car, and checked out of the Motel 6. I drove up Sierra Avenue and stopped again at Baker's Drive Thru, just about the only thing that was open early Saturday morning. Baker's has a very strange breakfast menu. I had an egg sandwich, which consisted of a fried egg and a slice of American cheese (no meat) on a hamburger bun (complete with sesame seeds). I also had "hash browns", which were long, narrow sticks formed of shredded potatoes, then deep fried. They reminded me of the French toast sticks you can get at Burger King, and the thought occurred that these hash browns would probably be better with syrup. I also had some forgettable orange juice and a big cup of rich, flavorful coffee.
I parked again at Fontana station and prepared for one last trip into the city. The fare is less on weekends ($11.25), but they won't let you use a credit card to pay at the lower rate. The crowd waiting on the platform was different than it had been on weekdays. There were still a few working people (black and Hispanic women in maid or waitress uniforms and a few Hispanic men dressed for janitorial or factory work). Most of today's people, though, were day-trippers--leisure travelers doing much the same thing I'd been doing all along. It really was a less appealing group to wait with, particularly since they don't have any security at the station on weekends.
They seem to run the same trains (five cars) at all times. Early Saturday morning, that was about four more cars than they actually needed. The train seemed absolutely empty, and it didn't fill up much even at "important" stations like Rancho Cucamonga and Pomona. Chicago's Metra fills their weekend trains by offering unlimited rides for $5; here they just reduce the fare slightly, and the trains run empty.
When I left the train at Union Station a very perplexed Hispanic family was standing on the platform. We had a fascinating conversation, mostly in English with bits of Spanish thrown in here and there. In the process, I hope I was able to be helpful to them. The family had come from Riverside, and they wanted to go to the beach. They said so, though it would also have been obvious from the inflatables and boogie boards they were hauling. Someone had told that at Union Station they should get on the red line to go to the beach. Indeed, the mother in the family implied that the red line would take them to Oceanside, the place I'd gone to yesterday.
The red line is the subway. It goes to Hollywood, Koreatown, and the San Fernando Valley. It goes absolutely nowhere near any beach. While I could have been misjudging them, a look at the family gave me the feeling they really could not afford the fare to take Amtrak to Oceanside (Metrolink doesn't go there on weekends). I tried to clarify where they wanted to go, and the father said "the beach ... any beach". I suggested they might want to go to Long Beach. Having been there in April, I knew it was easy to get to. It is also a multi-ethnic area where I was pretty certain they'd be comfortable. I knew that to get to Long Beach they could take the subway to 7th Street/Metro Center. They should then transfer to the blue line and stay on board to the end of the line. I led them to the subway and showed them the route they needed on the map in the car. They agreed that Long Beach seemed like where they wanted to go. As our train started off, I stressed to them that before they transferred to the blue line, they would have to go upstairs and buy a ticket. The Metrolink ticket works on the red line, but you have to buy an MTA ticket to ride the blue line-and the last thing I'd want is for people I'd try to help to get a citation for fare evasion. They got off at the correct stop, and I hope they made the transfer okay. I also hope they actually found the beach. It occurred to me as my train pulled away that I should have pointed out that they'd have to walk a couple blocks south from the station to actually get to the water in Long Beach-and a couple blocks west from there to get to the recreational beach. There are lots of Hispanic people in Long Beach, though, and I hope at least one of them was able to give them good directions.
I took the red line all the way to the end of the line: North Hollywood station. It's the only place I hadn't been on the train in L.A., and I figured I might as well see what was there. I'm glad I did.
North Hollywood station is under Lankershim Boulevard, one of the main strips of the San Fernando Valley-a street I always remember hearing about on Dragnet and Adam 12. On leaving the station, I first walked north up Lankershim. This is definitely not the way tourists are supposed to go. What's there is-well-an old strip. What's really fascinating about this strip is that it's built right up to the sidewalk with almost no parking. The side streets have cement block apartments and tiny bungalows, which today are home to a population of mostly Hispanics. Some of the residents have been here for generations (and speak fluent English), while others have only recently arrived in America.
Immediately north of the station is a series of car dealers. These differ from what you'd see at home, because most of them are built on small lots, with two levels of cars-almost like a parking ramp. At the Dodge dealer an employee was outside placing a balloon on the antenna of each car to advertise their current sale. He waved at me as I walked past.
As I walked up the strip I felt more and more of a need to dispense of that large coffee I'd had at Baker's. Strip though it was, though, there weren't many places I'd be comfortable using the toilet. Moreover, unlike much of L.A., there weren't public toilets or porta-poties anywhere around here. Eventually I walked into a doughnut shop (Winchell's, the same chain I had patronized in Victorville in April), hoping they might have a public restroom. The Victorville Winchell's did have a toilet, but the only door at this one said "employees only". I bought some coffee and a donut, though, and I got a fascinating lesson in "Spanglish" listening to the people at the counter. It amazes me how service people always seem to know the correct language in which to address their customers. The employees here were Hispanic, but they greeted me in perfect English. They greeted some of the Hispanic customers in English and others in Spanish. It fascinated me when one Spanish-speaking customer ordered a bagel that he was offered the choice of "plain or con cebolla". "Con cebolla" means "with onion", but it was fascinating that it should be contrasted with the English word "plain".
While I was sipping my coffee an disheveled elderly white woman walked in the shop. I don't think she was actually homeless, but she seemed just one step up from being a bag lady. She asked me if I had a cigarette, and before I could answer just grunted at me. She looked around at the rest of the customers and seemed to sense quickly that none of us smoked-or if we did, we wouldn't be giving a cigarette to her.
I was delighted to see that just up the street from Winchell's there was a Burger King, and I was perfectly willing to order yet more coffee in exchange for using their toilet. The menu at this Burger King was entirely bilingual. In English, though, almost everything had a common or trademark name while in Spanish the names were descriptions of the product. Those "French toast stix" I mentioned earlier, for instance, were "dulcitas de pan y huevos, con jarabe" (little sweets of bread and egg, with syrup). Nothing French about them in Spanish ... and, thank goodness, nothing "freedom" either.
I walked back to the subway station and then continued south on Lankershim from there. South is definitely the direction you're supposed to go as a visitor to North Hollywood. This is the so-called No-Ho Arts District, a mostly brick neighborhood (just about the only brick area in Los Angeles) filled with coffee and juice bars and karaoke joints. Not many people actually live here, and those who do would best be described as "Bohemian". The principal point of interest in the area is the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Basically it's just a big office building, but they have a pleasant plaza with a fountain centered on a gigantic Emmy statue.
Much more interesting to me was the El Portal Theatre, a couple blocks north of the Academy and just south of the subway station. I'm sure the theatre itself is interesting, but what caught my attention today was the line outside that stretched literally around the block. They were apparently having auditions for a Latin singer, and I'd swear every Hispanic boy in the city was lined up with a guitar. I'd heard about such lines for auditions, but I'd never really quite believed they actually existed.
I spent about an hour walking up and down Lankershim Boulevard. Finally I made my way back to the subway. There was a group of Mexican women handing out leaflets at the entrance. I figured they would be something from the Bus Riders Union, but when one of them smiled and said "God bless you" as she handed me a leaflet, I realized they were witnessing. The leaflet was a collection of Bible references. It didn't have any actual verses, just references you could look up in a Bible if you happened to have one handy at the same time you had the leaflet.
There was some entertainment on the subway ride south from North Hollywood. An old man played "Ode to Joy" on the harmonica. No one seemed to find fit to tip him, nor did he seem to want any handouts, so I just sat back and enjoyed the performance.
I went two stops south to Hollywood & Highland, near the hotel where Margaret and I stayed two years ago. The area above the station was under construction then, and I figured it might be interesting to see what it had become. Basically it's a big mall, and not a terribly interesting mall at that. Right next to the subway entrance is the Tommy Hilfiger store, and they also have a Gap and Banana Republic and Aeropostale and American Eagle. The kids could get a life supply of designer T-shirts here, but they could do the same thing at just about any upscale mall. Buried somewhere inside here is the Kodak Theatre where they now give out the Oscars. I didn't see it, and I doubt I'll be rushing back to find where it was.
I walked down Hollywood Boulevard to Hollywood & Vine. I'd never done that when I was here before, and I thought it might be interesting to do now. It was, and that's something I actually might come back and do again. Hollywood is a fascinating place-part sleazy, part tourist trap, with just a touch of actual elegance. Quite a lot more has been restored just in the past two years (there's a new Hollywood history museum, for example), and it might be interesting to spend a bit more time seeing it all.
The annoying part of walking down Hollywood boulevard was that it had been misting all morning. That wouldn't have been a problem at all except that whatever material the Walk of Fame is made of (some rubbery stone) is extremely slippery when it gets wet. I slipped and slid my way down the boulevard, at some points choosing to walk on the curb instead of the star-filled sidewalk.
I saw a number of people on Hollywood with numbers fastened to their backs, the sort of thing people wear for a marathon. The subway station at Hollywood & Vine was also filled with these people. I asked one woman what it was, and she explained "Urban Challenge" to me. This competition pits pairs of people (mostly married couples, but also parent/child combos, sisters, gay couples, co-workers, etc.) against each other. The thing is sort of like a big scavenger hunt. Each couple is given a set of cryptic clues describing a series of places around the city. Each team has to figure out what places are being described, learn how to get to those places by transit, and then check in at each one. The team that gets to all the checkpoints first wins a small collection of donated prizes, while everyone else gets a T-shirt and a book of fast food gift certificates. I've seen similar things on TV. I remember one show (on MTV I think) where sexy young people trounced around Europe in a race to get to checkpoints. This would be the same concept, but on a much more manageable scale. I think it would be great fun, and if I were near L.A. (or if they did the same thing in Chicago) I'd love to participate.
The competitors on the subway platform were all trading answers to clues with one another and trying to pump the non-competitors for information that would help them in the race. I was actually able to offer quite a bit of assistance; it helps to have just recently read travel guides to the city. For instance, one of the places they had to go was a restaurant near the La Brea Tar Pits. My first thought was that place the couple on the train went last night, but the clue was the name of the restaurant rhymed with some phrase. I forget the phrase, but after seeing it I knew immediately that the restaurant in question was the Stinking Rose, a place where everything on the menu-even the desserts-contains garlic. I also could give specific and accurate directions on how to get to Olvera Street (the historic site where the city was originally founded) from Union Station and where to find the Angel's Flight (a funicular railroad that closed down a year ago, it's just west of the Pershing Square station downtown). It amazed me that most of these people had lived in Los Angeles their whole life without ever going to Olvera Street, but I supposed the same thing happens everywhere. There's always the feeling that if it's close to home, you can get there any time. I, for instance, have never been to any of the attractions at Okoboji. The summer people there would probably be shocked to find a "local" who didn't know the area.
I realized while waiting for the train that there was only a single station left on the red line where I had not been above ground. I decided then and there to make my next destination Beverly & Vermont, so I could finish up that list. I've now gotten on or off L.A.'s subway at every single station...
* * * * *
I walked down Vermont Avenue from Beverly. I quickly got to the fringe of Koreatown. This neighborhood looked okay from the express bus I took in April, but it was really pitty up close. There are beggars everywhere here. It seemed an odd location for "skid row", several miles west of downtown, but the place was crawling with homeless people. I again needed to use the restroom (all that coffee kept cycling through me), and inside a pleasant-looking McDonalds there were two different men begging. I've seen beggars outside fast food places in Chicago (though only in the downtown area, never in "the neighborhoods"), but the management would kick them out instantly if they started begging inside. The beggars didn't get much response here either. An old black man went up to a Mexican girl with a child and asked for a dollar. She snapped, "No! I've barely got enough to feed my baby, and you want me to feed you?" The line at McDonalds didn't move at all, so I just used their toilet without buying anything. Inside the restroom there was another person begging.
It's noteworthy that the homeless in L.A. are invariably old, and they are without exception black or white. You don't see children begging, like you do in Third World countries. What's more, while there certainly are desperately poor Asians and Hispanics, but they don't beg and they don't live on the street. To the immigrants here, America really is the Land of Opportunity. They've come here to work, and while many of them have horrible jobs, they pretty much all do work. For most immigrants, even the worst jobs here provide a better life than what they knew in their home country. Their living the same American dream that the Irish and Germans and Russians lived before them.
I don't know what motivates those who are homeless to take to the streets. Most of them don't look like drug abusers or alcoholics, though I'm not sure I'd automatically recognize someone in either category. Some seem mentally unstable, but others just seem like people--people who have chosen to live on the street. Los Angeles, like every American city, has plenty of facilities to deal with those in need. There are also lots of jobs for people with relatively few skills. There were more "Help Wanted" signs than I've seen at anywhere around here, and pretty much all of those were for unskilled, entry level jobs. I suppose they must feel those jobs are somehow beneath them. It seems odd, though, that they don't find begging something to be embarrassed by.
I walked south to Wilshire Boulevard, the one place in the area where the neighborhood isn't seedy. I took the subway back north three stops to Vermont & Sunset and then walked north a couple of blocks to Vermont & Prospect (Prospect used to be the name of Hollywood Boulevard, and the street still bears that name east of Hollywood). I waited at the bus stop with what seemed like half the Hispanic population of Los Angeles, and eventually a very crowed bus came along. Fortunately about as many people got off as got on, so pretty much everybody (myself included ) got a seat.
Like most of L.A.'s bus routes, bus 180 follows a long and rambling route. Unlike Chicago, where the buses just make their way down a single street, L.A.'s buses follow circuitous routes that take them through almost every part of town. This bus starts in West Hollywood. It wanders through Hollywood and Los Feliz before winding through the city of Glendale. It then loops back into the Eagle Rock district of the city of Los Angeles before heading out to Cal Polytechnic University in Pasadena. There are far quicker ways to get to Pasadena (in another month there will be a rail line to there), but this one was convenient to where I was. It was interesting for about the first ten minutes, but the hour or so after that got old. The residential neighborhoods we saw were interesting (Midwestern style homes with tree-filled lawns), and the old Route 66 Bridge over the Arroyo Seco leading into Pasadena was quite attractive. Beyond that, there wasn't much to notice.
Even if it had been a short ride, this would definitely not have been the most pleasant transit experience I'd ever had. The vast majority of my fellow passengers were quite pleasant. Most of them were the Hispanic workers who had been waiting at the bus stop. Most of them sat silently in their seats, each clutching a shopping bag and staring into space. A few visited with each other quietly, but none were annoying. There were also a few pleasant black people on the bus, a couple of Asians, and one other white person, a young man in a chef's uniform who was headed to classes at a cooking school. Two passengers made this trip unpleasant, though. They were a black couple about my age who sat in the very back of the bus. They were constantly talking, and they spent much of the trip making very audible snide comments about almost all the other passengers on the bus. It was the sort of thing teenagers might do, but these folks were definitely not teenagers. I know, I've spent many paragraphs in this travelogue with often less than flattering descriptions of people I saw on trains and buses. To my mind, though, it's one thing to recollect the people I saw; it's quite another to say make snotty comments about them to their face. I could only hope that most of the Hispanic people might not understand the nasty things that were being said about them.
I, too, was a target of their "humor". I don't recall the specifics, but basically they pegged me as a hick. There are certainly ways in which that's true, but I am well educated and I bet I've probably traveled more than they have. I also had parents who taught me when it was appropriate to talk and when "silence is golden". It's too bad they never learned that same lesson.
I have no idea where the couple was from, but it wasn't either Glendale or Pasadena. They derided those communities as racist and vowed they'd never live where they weren't welcome. It made me wonder why they were riding through them, particularly since they seemed quite a bit better off than most of the people riding the bus. Glendale and Pasadena may be racist-I don't know. Both are certainly very wealthy communities, but Glendale at least seemed very diverse ethnically. There are a lot of Asians in both cities, and quite a few Hispanics in Glendale. Neither city did seem to have much of a black population, though.
I got off before the black couple did. I exited at Delancy Street in downtown Pasadena. The only reason most people have heard of Pasadena is the annual Tournament of Roses Parade and its football partner, the Rose Bowl. To most people outside California, the place might as well not exist after New Year's Day. It's an interesting little city. The more time I spent there, the more Pasadena reminded me of Evanston, Illinois. Like Evanston, it's an old, close-in suburb, but it is very much detached from the city proper. Both places are liberal college towns, and both look slightly seedy on the surface, but exude old money underneath. Pasadena is mostly single family homes, while Evanston tends toward apartments, but they really are quite similar communities.
Supposedly downtown Pasadena is one of the trendiest shopping areas in greater L.A. Apparently Colorado Boulevard (the route of the Rose Parade) had gotten very seedy, but they consciously made an effort to move it upscale. I'll leave the trendy shopping to trendier people; as a shopping destination the place did nothing for me. There appeared to be a few interesting restaurants, but the shops (again like Evanston) were mostly odd arts and crafts. Everything is freshly sandblasted, though, and I suppose that should count for something.
* * * * *
My reason for coming here was the Old Pasadena Summer Fest, a combination carnival, food fair, and jazz festival they were holding in a city park just south of downtown. Neither the carnival nor the jazz festival interested me much, but I thought the food fair might be interesting. I was wrong. I was expecting "Taste of Chicago" and instead got something closer to a taste of Fort Dodge. Almost all the food here was boring--pizza, hamburgers, tacos, and similar stuff that you could find in the food court of any mall. I bought $10 worth of tokens that were valid at the various food stands, but I had trouble spending them all. The only interesting thing I found was a stand set up by a Thai restaurant that served skewered cubes of mystery meat covered with a spicy sauce. I had planned to spend a couple hours here, but I had seen and eaten all I wanted in less than half an hour...
I planned to take an express bus back downtown. This route runs a very sparse schedule on weekends, and I knew it would be quite a while before the next bus showed up. Rather than stare at the bank of porta-potties at the entrance to Summer Fest, I decided to start following the bus route down Fair Oaks Avenue. I'd walk south couple of blocks, and pause briefly at each bus stop to turn around and see if the bus was on its way. When it wasn't, I walked another couple of blocks. I suppose if I were a sensible person, I'd have walked north, so I could have caught the bus earlier than I might have otherwise. I figured this way I'd see something new, though, and the walk was certainly not unpleasant. Eventually the bus caught up with me, and I rode the rest of the way.
I spent well over an hour on the slow bus from Hollywood, but the express bus downtown got there in less than fifteen minutes. (That's about what the new train will take, too.) Much of the route follows the El Monte busway, a dedicated interstate lane I had paralleled on the Metrolink train from Fontana. In fact the express bus stopped directly above the Cal State-L.A. train station I had been to several times now. The train station was much nicer, though. The busway looked like it was built in the '50s and hadn't been touched since then. Its elevator was out of order, and the bus shelter was covered with graffiti. The same was true at the LACUSCMC stop (that mess of alphabet soup stands for Los Angeles County University of Southern California Medical Center--the driver just called it "County Hospital"). No one was waiting at either of these stops, which at street level seem to be in the middle of nowhere. At LACUSCMC, though, we switched drivers. The stop is right next to the MTA headquarters (I'd seen the big bus parking lot many times from the train). The gruff white man that had driven the bus from Pasadena got off, and an Asian boy whose feet could barely reach the pedals from the seat got on. From there it was just a short little hop (shorter on the bus than on the train) to Union Station.
I really hadn't eaten much at the food fair, so I was still a little hungry. I decided to visit another of those "must see" restaurants recommended by the travel guides. "Philippe's, the Original" is located a couple blocks north of Union Station in a rather seedy next-to downtown area. The place is famous because it supposedly invented the French dip sandwich. The story goes that back in the 1920s a cook accidentally dropped a sandwich in meat juice. The customer liked it that way, so they started selling them intentionally. I have my doubts as to whether that legend is actually true, but I figured I might as well see what all the hype is about. Philippe's is all about the atmosphere. It's a cavernous restaurant filled with large communal tables. The floor is intentionally covered with sawdust, supposedly to absorb stray meat juices but really to add to the character and legend of the place. You order at a bar and then carry your food to any spare place you can find to eat it. I ordered a dipped ham sandwich (they also have the more traditional beef, as well as turkey and lamb), together with coleslaw and a cup of their 9˘ coffee (for years they kept the price 7˘, but apparently they recently had to raise it). Honestly, the food was nothing special. The roll itself was hard, and the meat juice made it soggy and salty. The ham was pretty tasteless, and both the coleslaw and coffee had off flavors. It was an interesting experience, though.
I chose to wear the shirt I had purchased at Dodger stadium today, which raised quite a few comments. Three different people at Philippe's said something to the effect of "oh, I didn't know there was a game today". The restaurant is quite close to Dodger Stadium, and I'd imagine they get a lot of fans here. There wasn't a home game today; the Dodgers were in Milwaukee, spanking Brad's future teammates all weekend. I explained to everyone that I was a tourist, which always seemed to open the floodgates of conversation. L.A. proper isn't a place that gets a lot of tourists. The tourists go to the beach or the amusement parks, but not many of them (and especially not many that are from the United States) make it to the actual city. They react to tourists in much the same way we do in Iowa, with a bit of surprise but also happiness and true hospitality. Everyone seemed thrilled that I was visiting Los Angeles, and especially glad that I actually liked the place.
I've heard L.A. described as "a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there". There's some truth to that backwards comment. There aren't any top-notch tourist attractions here, nothing to rival Chicago or New York. It is a pleasant and vibrant city, though. While most of the suburbs struck me as charmless, I could easily live in the city of Los Angeles-that is, if I could afford a decent place to stay.
I went back to Union Station and lucked out in arriving just minutes before the next departing train. The Metrolink trains run quite infrequently on weekends, and I had forgotten to bring a schedule. God must have been smiling on me, though (perhaps the Hispanic woman's blessing in North Hollywood had an effect), since I had almost no wait at all.
* * * * *
It was interesting that we had the same conductor on this train as we had coming into Los Angeles in the morning. She was a young white woman, and you could tell over the P.A. she had a bad cold. On this route she noted "this train is going to San Bernardino. It will NOT go to downtown Riverside." During the work week all the trains on this route end in San Bernardino, but on weekends most of them loop southwest from there and go to Riverside, which gives weekend access to about half a million people who would otherwise not have it. For some reason it's only most, not quite all of the trains that do that, though. This one didn't, and she had to keep reminding people of that fact.
She also scolded people who took to long to board or get off. On three different occasions she said, "Ladies and gentlemen, station stops are to be 30 seconds or less. You must be in the doors when we reach your station." I've always wondered about people who take a long time to get on or off a train-handicapped people excepted, of course. Even with luggage there's no reason it should take more than a couple seconds to board, but some people seem to take forever. They deserve to be scolded, and it amazes me they don't get left behind.
* * * * *
The background music on this page is the country song "Achy-Breaky Heart", which seems appropriate with all the "white trash" references in this travelogue.