Route 66 Reversed Index
© 2007-2008 by John Varley; all rights reserved
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Route 66 Reversed Index
© 2007-2008 by John Varley; all rights reserved |
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November 5, 2007 - Route 66 Revisited and Reversed We have walked legendary Sunset Boulevard from Olvera Street to the sea. We have trudged along every mile of Wilshire Boulevard, from downtown to Santa Monica. We have even conquered the mighty Los Angeles River, Canoga Park to Long Beach. What new challenge might we take that could compare to those awesome urban explorations? |
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November 12, 2007 - Route 66 - Days 1, 2, & 3 Day One of our Route 66 trek was … uneventful. Let’s face it, at this point we’re only two blocks over from where our last walk ended, on Wilshire Boulevard. Everything we saw today was basically more of the same. |
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November 25, 2007 - Route 66 - Part 3: The 66 Memorial, West Hollywood It took quite a few years, but the expansion and renovation of Santa Monica Boulevard from the 405 freeway to the Beverly Hills city limits is now complete. |
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December 5, 2007 - Route 66 - Part 4: Return to LA - Little Moscow - The Theater District The eastern part of West Hollywood is thick with Russian businesses. Half the store signs you see are in the Cyrillic alphabet, which I can sometimes sound out phonetically. It was here that Lee and I went when our neighbor Mrs. Grigorian, an Armenian/Georgian woman who only speaks Russian, fell and broke her collarbone and we wanted to cheer her up with a get-well card. |
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December 11, 2007 - Route 66 - Part 5: Silverlake, Again I parked on the block where a slightly shabby and elderly little wiener dog named Bingo has been on patrol every time we come by here. He lives in a store called Pull My Daisy and he ambles up and down the block from the Kasbah Café to a coffee shop called Intelligentsia, making sure everything is okay in his territory and pissing on things. |
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January 4, 2008 - Route 66 - Part 6: "If you come to a fork in the road ... take it" Yogi Berra said that … I think. One thing I’m sure he did say is “I didn’t really say all the things I said.” So who knows? Whatever, I never thought it was advice I’d actually take, but like someone said, it ain’t over until it’s over. Sometimes when you come to a fork in the road, you should take it. After all, if you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else. Here’s the deal … |
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January 8, 2008 - Route 66 - Part 7: The 2008 Tournament of Roses Parade The Tournament of Roses is the largest consumer of flowers in the world. Somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people line the parade route, depending on who you believe. It stretches 5½ miles from beginning to end, and takes about two hours to pass any one spot. The mind boggles … |
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January 17, 2008 - Route 66 - Part 8: 66 North - Highland Park to Pasadena Figueroa Street again. Yet another neighborhood where English is definitely the minority language. On this stretch the Metro Gold Line seems to have revitalized the area a bit, as these things tend to do. But south of the main street the houses are larger, and north, lining the tracks, and some quite small ones. |
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January 21, 2008 - Route 66 - Part 9: 66 South - El Sereno, Montecito Heights, Monterey Hills As a general rule, the higher you go in Los Angeles, the higher the rents. The hills between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley are very expensive real estate. Our place, just south of Franklin in the beginning of the flats is a lot cheaper; right across Franklin the prices begin to skyrocket, in just one block. |
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January 24, 2008 - Route 66 - Part 10: The Doo-Dah Parade As if to recover from an excess of pomp and pageantry, some crazy people in Pasadena and the rest of the Southland get together for what might be called the Anti-Tournament of Roses Parade. And on Sunday we attended it: The 31st Occasional Doo-Dah Parade. |
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February 14, 2008 - Route 66 - Part 11: Colorado Boulevard This will be the last leg of our Route 66 walk, a straight shot down Colorado Boulevard, which is sort of the main street of the northwestern San Gabriel Valley and runs a long ways until it curves south at Santa Anita race track. |
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February 22, 2008 - Route 66 - Part 12: Santa 'Nita Ladies Sing Dis Song We’re not what you’d call horse people, Lee and I. Both of us can each count on one hand the times we’ve ridden on a horse. We like going to the county fair and looking at them, but not getting too close. They’re big, and dumb, and apt to hurt you. |