…and August will be over in a flash. We got back from a nice trip to Anchorage on Sunday night, which ended with a twenty-minute conversation with Wilco’s guitarist, Nels Cline, as we waited for our delayed flight at the (soon to be renamed?) Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. He was really nice and friendly, and we talked about the show, their trip to Alaska, other projects he’s working on, and other stuff. The week was pretty busy at work but quiet in the evenings, and we had a nice weekend of walking tours and getting together with friends before another whirlwind week of travel begins.
On Saturday morning, we knocked out three more Walking L.A. tours, in Los Feliz, Franklin Hills, and Silverlake. They were each pretty short, but each was interesting, architecturally and historically, and we had a good time getting our exercise going up and down the many staircases we encountered.
We started in Los Feliz, where we walked from Los Feliz Blvd. up to the Ennis House and around the neighborhood before returning down Vermont. Someone was in the house, a contractor or someone involved in the restoration, I hope; I wonder how that is progressing…
More photos from the walk here.
We drove a little ways down Franklin and parked near the Shakespeare Bridge and wandered through Franklin Hills, a beautiful and quiet neighborhood we’d never been to before. It was a very nice walk, and we saw, as usual, lots of fantastic houses, many of them simple and interesting modernist designs.
More from Franklin Hills here.
From there, we headed down to Sunset and into Sunset Junction, where we got a nice spot in front of Intelligentsia (but no coffee, thanks to the line), and headed on the “West Silver Lake” walk. We were doing it a little backwards, starting in the middle and heading to the end and back, but I think we covered everything. More great houses, and we got to see the Music Box Steps going down and coming back up, which we weren’t really expecting.
We ended the walk with a late breakfast at Millie’s, which was very tasty and gave us a great vantage point from with to observe Silver Lake’s native hipster population and, in some cases, their parents, who were luckily not aging hipsters.
I headed into the belly of the beast, the Apple Store at the Grove on a Saturday afternoon, and made the upgrade to the new iPhone. Aimee took my year-old one, so now we’re both the annoying people who let no question go unanswered. Oh well; we don’t get lost as often now, either. We saw Step Brothers that evening, thankfully for free, but it wasn’t even really worth free, so we won’t talk any more about it.
This morning, I rode up to Griffith Observatory again, a little faster this time, ending up a little more tired, but it’s good practice. Aimee and I headed over to Michael and Ali’s for brunch with Maya and the long-lost Janet and Eric, whom we hadn’t seen in more than six months. We all rejoiced in their exciting news, and enjoyed a delicious meal of frittata, french toast casserole, fruit salad (which I’m still eating, we made so much), and finally, at long last, some decent bagels made in L.A. We’ll have to get the address…
Three days of work this week, then off to London. This has been the craziest year of travel, and we’re only in early August, with four or five more trips before the end of 2008.
