Eric's Gastronomical Transit Adventure

First off, it appears that this is my 100th blog post. It took me nearly seven years to get this far. Perhaps I'll get to my 200th post in about 15 years or so. Hopefully sooner, though.

Anyway, I took myself on yet another adventure the other day—last Saturday, if memory serves. August 6. And you have two choices: read this, or don't read this. See, I try to make things simple on my planet. It makes things...simple.

For whatever reason, I didn't take very many pictures, though I should have because I did some things that I've never done before and saw a few new things, too. I'm within a single-digit number of years of my supposed retirement age of 65 (some people think I'm that old already), so these impromptu and random adventures are just a warm-up for when retirement actually hits me.

As my title says, this particular adventure involved transit and eating, two of my favorite things to do even though I need to be careful with the latter because of my sugar-challenged condition. Everyone knows about that as I tend to repeat myself over and over again and again time after time...

Sometime recently, I saw a link to an article on Facebook about National Chili Dog Day and it listed several places to visit in order to celebrate. One place in particular stood out, most likely because it claims to be the place where the chili dog was invented. Art's Chili Dog. And just my luck, it happened to be in Los Angeles! So why not go there and give it a try?

Because I'm so...me...I always do things in the most complicated manner possible. Drive there? Pfft. I'm going to get there using public transit. Why not drive? Because I actually like to use public transit. With my lifelong interest in, fascination with, and enjoyment of riding buses, it's pretty much a given. And since L.A. is adding new lines to its Metro Rail system, a train ride or two gets into the mix. And you all know how much I like riding trains.

To me, the best way to start an adventure involving transit is to either drive from home to Chatsworth and take the Orange Line bus to North Hollywood and catch the Red Line subway or to just drive straight to North Hollywood Red Line station and go from there. For this adventure, I chose the latter. It gives me a few more options when I return to North Hollywood.

Down the escalalalalalator (it's a long one) into the ground, a $7 all-day pass purchase, and a scoot down a second and much shorter escalator. I stepped aboard a Red Line train whose doors pretty much closed before I was even all the way in. Talk about good timing! We were off to L.A. Normally, I get off at 7th St. Metro Center, go up a level, and catch a Blue or Expo Line train to wherever I'm going. Today, however, I got off at Vermont/Wilshire to take the Purple Line to Normandie. Once I got there, I returned to street level and got on a Line 206 bus that would take me south to the intersection of Florence Ave., which is where Art's Chili Dog is. Hmmm...Florence and Normandie... Haven't we heard about that intersection somewhere?

Indeed we have. Anyone who was in Southern California in 1992 will remember the riots that started after the four police officers accused of beating Rodney King during a traffic stop were found to be not guilty. The flashpoint of the riots was the intersection of Florence and Normandie. If you want to read about those riots, click here. If you want to read about Eric's adventure, keep reading...

At Wilshire and Normandie, bus 8603 sucked me in for the ride down south. When I got to Florence and Normandie, the bus opened its doors and spit me out. Across the street and off to the right was a small light blue building that said "Art's Chili Dog" on it. "Must be the place," thought Eric. So he went over there and went inside. There was only one other person inside at the time. No one was behind the counter but after stepping inside, a man who I assumed to be Art or a reasonable facsimile appeared and asked me what I'd like. I said that I needed to check my blood sugar first and see what would work for me. A turkey dog with chili and cheese only would work just fine. As for something to drink that would be suitable for diabetics, Art's only sold cans of Diet Pepsi. I would have to choke it down, but at least it was cold and wet. After eating, "Art" and I got into a conversation about diabetes and it turns out that he too is diabetic. He is also a Type 2, but is only taking metformin. I told him about my wild adventure and all he could say was "Damn!"

Not a big surprise, but there really isn't much to do at Florence and Normandie, so I went across to get on a bus to take me back to Wilshire Blvd. for the train ride home. Bus 8605 pulled up and made me get on. I fought it, but a giant 45-foot long bus is a lot bigger than I am so I gave in.

Somewhere en route, something started brewing in my head. Do I have to go back home? NO!!! What else could I do? Where else could I go? Well... there's this recently opened stretch of the Expo Line that takes riders to within a few blocks of the Santa Monica Pier. And it's the only Metro Rail track that I hadn't yet ridden. And I might get to ride on one of Metro's new Kinkisharyo rail cars. Decision made. To 7th St. Metro Center I go!

With Red and Purple Line subway trains running at the bottom and Blue and Expo Line light rail trains running in the middle at a right angle to the subway, 7th St. Metro Center is a pretty busy place. After my arrival there, I went up to catch the Expo Line for the trip to Santa Monica. Within a few minutes, the train pulled up. It was a Siemens train, not a Kinkisharyo. Oh well. Those are new; they'll be around for awhile. It took just over a half-hour to get out to Santa Monica.

While I could have walked over to the pier and perhaps taken a ride on the West Coaster, I chose not to. The old Sears store is just across the street from the train station and I hadn't been in there since about the mid-'70s, so I went in and walked around a bit. Nothing exciting there. If I had found Sears exciting, I would have myself examined—my head, anyway.

It was going on 5pm and I decided to start my trip back to North Hollywood. Driving might take 30-45 minutes, but transit would take longer so I had to allow extra time. I waited for my train and before long, a nice, new set of Kinkis pulled up. That would be the next train out, so finally here was my chance to ride one.

I climbed aboard car 1029 and found a seat. A few seats up a group of young men sat down. One of the guys was carrying a banjo so I figured that he and his friends had been playing at the beach or at the Santa Monica Place mall across from Sears. The banjo player appeared to be playing on the train, but if so it was too softly for me to hear.

 

 

I'm not sure if the guy holding the banjo knew I was taking pictures, but he never said anything. These guys got off sometime before we got back to downtown. Metro operates five types of railcars in L.A. After stepping off of 1029, I've now ridden on all five types.

 

At 7th St. Metro Center, I had to return to the bottom level to catch the Red Line train back to North Hollywood. Within a few minutes, the train pulled up and I got on. Even on a Saturday, the trains were packed. I was surprised to see them running six-car trains on the weekend. Normally rush hour trains are that long. But, I don't ride Metro Rail that often, so I could be wrong. I was wrong once...

 

In North Hollywood, I had a few things to do: hit the car wash; take one last walk through the Macy's/former May Co. building at long gone Laurel Plaza (it closes in less than a month and will be demolished or repurposed); and get something to eat.

 

The car wash would take the least amount of time and was open for a couple more hours (I didn't know what Macy's hours were, but the car wash is just a quarter-mile away). Clean car, off to shop!

By my estimation, I parked right about where I used to go ice skating many years ago.

For me, it was the first time I'd been in the building since the Laurel Plaza mall was demolished about 20 years ago. They had signs all over announcing "STORE CLOSING!!!" with percentages of discounts on everything. The escalator leading to the basement wasn't operating (it had some steps missing, so they had customers use the other escalator as a stairway). I just took a ride up to the second floor, walked around a bit, then rode back down to the first floor. This was quite a store in its day, but its day was long, long ago.

Finally, the eating part. You can never go wrong at Fatburger (in my opinion, of course), so I stopped in. My blood sugar was on the low side, so I got a small order of fries (which I usually avoid). Once I was done eating, there was one more thing on my list: get a picture of the classic, neon Circus Liquor sign across the street.

I'm not a clown person, but I've always liked that sign and have wanted a picture of it before it goes away forever. Here was my chance to catch it on silicon. (Isn't that what memory cards are made of?) My phone isn't a pricey camera, so I did the best I could with what I had. Even though some of the blue spots on the clown's costume aren't lit up, this is one of the better shots:

So there you have it. Food. Train and bus rides. Photos. A visit to a department store of my childhood. And a clown.

See you next time!