Two Green Girls on the Road

Day 10, The City of Angels

Use the handy map here to follow Mary Logan's path and view her favorite snapshots.

We got a real California treat yesterday: an earthquake. Trish and I were glad to hear that there were no reported injuries or serious damage because we were sheepishly thrilled that we got to experience a real caveat of the otherwise dreamy California lifestyle. The quake was a 5.4 in nearby Chino Hills so was definitely felt here. I was moseying around on the phone with a guy at R.E.I., who was explaining to me that they still had on hold all the stuff I picked out for this trip but that was never retrieved, and at the slightest rumble Trish ran over and got in the doorframe like she'd been doing it all her life. It only lasted a second, and then she said, "Was that what I think it was?" I thought it was a big truck, but after I found out it was a real, live, earth-shattering quake, I've really been talking it up.

Our cousins in Echo Park, like many good Californians, grow all sorts of tasty things in their yard--apples, lemons, squash, tomatoes, apricots, pomegranates--it's like the Garden of Eden over there. We plucked a couple of apples right off the tree (it doesn't get any more local than that), and walked down to Sunset Boulevard.

Echo Park is seriously cool: culturally diverse, decked with colorful murals, bursting with local restaurants and shops, stippled with old hippie vans and hybrids, and close to everything you might want to do--except, apparently, the beach. Since Trish and I didn't want to contribute to the big traffic and smog problem in L.A. by driving our car around, and since gas costs as much as $4.59 around here, we decided to take the bus. We were really congratulating ourselves on how green we were, seeing as L.A. boasts the nation's largest clean-air fleet of buses. Unfortunately, we ended up spending all day on this clean-air warship because L.A. is quite obviously the largest city in the universe.

We rode the bus down Sunset to Santa Monica Boulevard, then got off and hoofed it a ways through West Hollywood to Beverly Hills, poking along looking at interesting things as we went. We decided the ocean wasn't too much farther and hopped back on the bus for Santa Monica Beach. About an hour and a half later, groaning from the bus ride, we got to the beach--it had only looked like an inch on the map! So we dipped our toes in the sand and turned around to head back for another weary bus trip. Clean-air fleet or not, we agreed our attempted greenness had been a bust.

Bust number two: We tried to go to a neighborhood local music spot called The Echo. It was free admission that night and had been recommended to us by many. We were pretty pumped, but unfortunately, I forgot my wallet and the sticklers at the door wouldn't let me in without ID. We went home resignedly, reminding ourselves to cheer up, because we'd had delicious squash straight from our hip cousins' garden for dinner.

Money spent: Less than ten dollars (it helps when you have misplaced your wallet)
Money spent on gas: None. Finally! $1.25 each way for the bus
Trash Tally: We really haven't had very much. We're eating out of bulk containers in the car, rarely getting take-out food, drinking mostly water from our water bottles, and often throwing away any evidence of trash before it accumulates and makes us feel guilty.
Highlight: Our very own Garden of Eden
Lowlight: The Nation's Largest Fleet of Clean-Air Buses
Mood: Mildly defeated but hopeful

© The Green Guide, 2008

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