Wednesday morning started out bright and early with our second 6 AM Graphic Design Urban Running Subcommittee (6AMGDUSRS) meeting. Again, I sent Alex a message telling him I wasn’t going to make it … but then I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went for the run. I was exhausted because I’d stayed up entirely too late on Tuesday night watching Training Day with the boys down the hall (lol … I’m 99% sure I said that phrase 10 years ago when I lived in the dorms!). They had promised they were going to go running with me the next morning (I should have known better). Oh well … they missed out because downtown was pretty awesome at 6 AM.
The 6AMGDURS managed to hit a 5K before 7 AM. I snapped that pic of DTLA from the 7th street bridge.
[ photo by Alex ]
After our subcommittee meeting, we went to the Nickel Diner down the street from our hostel. That diner has the BEST donuts. Here’s a strawberry donut that Derrick snapped. That strawberry donut tasted like so many of my childhood memories, but mostly it tasted like Strawberry Nesquick.
After digesting that sugar rush, we piled into our rock-star vans and headed out to the Griffith Observatory.
I continued to take senior photo sesh-es of people who were interested in playing. This is another former student of mine, Jessica. Sadly, I can’t link to her website because there are a million people with her name who are also graphic designers …
Amber became my favorite person to shoot on this trip because she’s full of personality AND she had just gotten a rad StitchFix before the trip, so all her outfits were super cute.
Adorable.
Here’s the view of the city from the observatory. Related: I just spent 20 minutes looking for a Beverly Hills 90210 clip that I swear had this exact shot in the background. No dice.
Ryan let me take his senior photos too. In this shot he seems to be saying “Get thee to the vans!” or “OUT OF MY ROOM ghost!” … or something like that. Probably the ghost thing. #hotelcecil4lyfe
Since my feet were angry from running around in heels and flipflops the previous two days, I ended up wearing my activewear on Wednesday, which meant that I was dressed properly to hike around the observatory like I wanted (!!!). Nobody else had legit shoes on, but I made a couple of people tag along with me anyway because the one rule on this trip was you had to bring a buddy along. Thanks to Maggie for this snap and for tagging along with me.
I loved this sign inside the observatory.
Oh, and since California doesn’t have snow or the accompanying salt, we saw a ton of great classic cars. This was a bitchin’ Camaro I saw in the parking lot at Griffith.
After the observatory, we went to Echo Park to hit up the Time Travel Mart. The Time Travel Mart is an idioscyncratic little shop that has specially designed items from different time periods. All proceeds go to support a non-profit organiazation.
This graffiti wasn’t part of the Time Travel Mart (around the corner), but I loved it, so here you go.
[ photo by Alex ]
OK.
I’m going to go ahead and let out a big sigh here …
*SIGH*
I saw this phone at the Time Travel Mart and about peed my pants laughing. But then I remembered everybody on the trip missed the 80s. And then I died a little inside when nobody got this.
After the Time Travel Mart, we split up and went to separate restaurants in Echo Park. I mentioned previously that I had been food-stalking Alex on this trip, and he wanted to go to a vegan restaurant called Sage. We spent some time trying to corral some people to go with us. Although we ultimately didn’t have success, we did get two people to at least walk into the vegan joint. I called that a win.
I didn’t snap any food pix on this trip (why … I don’t know why …), but I ended up getting the vegan reuben and a vegan ice cream coffee float. The reuben was so good (I love all reubens), but it still doesn’t hold a candle to the vegan reuben I had at Founding Farmers with Sarah a few years ago.
After Sage, we got back in the vans and headed to Hollywood for the most frustrating parking situation ever our scheduled tour with GOOD Magazine.
[ photo by Alex ]
After our time with GOOD, we headed to Amoeba Records, which was right by the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We didn’t have much time to spend there, so I had to make a tough decision: spend time (and $$$) in a huge record store … or run around and see stupid stars with people’s names on them. I chose the latter. Maggie was nice enough to go with me because I needed a pic of me with MJ and Bowie’s stars (obviously).
Here are noteworthy stars I saw.
In case you didn’t know, Cloris Leachman is from Des Moines. I remind Mark every time we pass Roosevelt High School, and it’s become a running joke in our relationship. I got this photo for him. I should have printed it at CVS and mailed it as a postcard. Oh well.
Obviously, Amy.
Oh, and the Oscars were happening the week that we were in LA, so they were setting up a bunch of random events around Hollywood.
Here’s a big, giant, gargantuan statue butt. #bunsofsteel
After walking through the craziness, we finally stumbled upon MJ’s star. A couple of other people were getting photos with it (because, duh, King of Pop). I got the required photo and continued on to find Bowie.
It’s really stupid, but I almost started crying when I found Bowie’s star. Partially because I knew that just a few weeks ago this star had served as a memorial space for him and that memory is still too fresh for me.
I wrote him a note on a napkin and left it there. The note says, “Oh no, love! You’re not alone … take my hands because you’re wonderful…”, which is part of the lyrics from Rock and Roll Suicide, the last track on Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. That part of the song is so uplifting and reminds me when I’m down that everything will be all right because I’m wonderful (thank you, DB).
Maggie and I ran back to the vans just in time to peek in Amoeba (it wasn’t that awesome) and head back to the hotel. She and I went to dinner, drank some wine, and ended up in her room giggling and sketching for the next few hours. So much fun!
When I went to go to bed, I ran into a bunch of the juniors who were just getting back from some Disney thing that they went to (if I remember anything from teaching them last year it was that they were ALL obsessed with Disney). They convinced me to come out with them to get some food and chat about life. I wasn’t hungry, but I had started to get a bad case of FOMO at this point in the trip, so I went anyway.
Fun. Times. That statement does not begin to describe this trip.
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Seriously, can I go back?
Man, as I’m writing these I realize that I forget snippets of things. I’m probably going to go back and edit these posts to add the things I forgot. Sorry if anybody actually reads …