Lukas' Grand Day Out

Before I met Cindy I worked in downtown Los Angeles for two years. I have long desired to take Lukas to Downtown LA for a sight seeing tour, but I have been waiting for him to be old enough. Today was the day!

We took the Metrolink commuter train from Orange County to Union Station. The train was not very full because of the holidays, which was nice. We had a selection of seats, and enough room between us and most of the passengers so that Lukas' near constant narration of the trip didn't bother anyone ("Here comes another railroad crossing", "Daddy, there are three sets of tracks going that way", etc.). Well, one person did get up and move in the first five minutes, but I cannot say for a fact he was looking for peace and quiet.

When we arrived we took the Redline (subway) to downtown LA. When we exited the Figueroa station we noticed it had started to drizzle. This would be the weather for us the entire time we were there. No problem, we first headed to an underground mall (505 Flower) to find a snack. After our snack we went to the Bonaventure Hotel and explored the interior and the elevators that run outside the building. Among other things, this hotel is famous for the number of movies that have been filmed there. I found three plaques noting the locations for films like "True Lies" (Arnold Schwarzenegger), "Forget Paris" (Billy Crystal & Debra Winger) and "In the Line of Fire" (Clint Eastwood & John Malkovich).

We had an appointment with a friend in the US Bank building in less than an hour so we made our first of two visits to the downtown library. Lukas was thrilled to explore the library. We read one book and then headed over to the US Bank building. This building is over 1,000' tall and is the tallest building on the west coast of the U.S. Our friend made arrangements with the building security staff to get us access to the 69th floor, which is just a couple short of the top. I did mention the drizzle didn't I? Well when we got to the top, we were in the clouds. It was still fun, but we didn't get the bang for our buck that we were expecting.

We then went looking for lunch. Downtown LA has a lot of choices, and many of them that are friendly to a budget minded person like myself. But hot dogs? Lukas saw a hot dog shop with stools along the front windows and had to have a hot dog. OK, the potato chips were the best I have had in a long time.

We took a quick walk in the light rain to see the outdoor ice skating rink, and then we headed back to the library. While Lukas was drying his feet, I read "On Beyond Zebra" by Doctor Seuss. For the next 45 minutes Lukas sketched the made up letters in the book, and talked about the funny words. I ended up making copies of the "letter" pages to take home.

As we headed back to the train station we stopped at a terrific gourmet catering truck. Yes, they have gourmet, or fusion, catering trucks in LA. We went to a Korean BBQ truck and ordered a beef and Kim-chi taco. It was awesome, and Lukas' tie for third favorite thing we did today. His list in order is:
1) The library
2) The Bonaventure Hotel
3) Hot dogs/beef and kimchee taco







What a great day!