I'm happiest when I am organizing random projects. In the past few years, it was "Book Club," a group of friends who traveled from Bay Area bar to Bay Area bar tasting the best that there was to try in the artisan cocktail scene.
In the past month or so, the project has been to walk the entire length of Western Avenue in Los Angeles. This straight street is one of the longest north/south streets in Los Angeles, and runs 27 miles through San Pedro, Rancho Palos Verdes, Lomita, Carson, Torrance, Gardena, Inglewood, Baldwin Hills, South Los Angeles, Exposition Park, Koreatown, Hollywood and up to Los Feliz where it ends close to Griffith Park.
I grew up in Southern California near the San Pedro end of Western Avenue, and before this project I hadn't even walked a block on Western. We're 16 miles into the walk, and have 11 to go which will be split into two more walks. It's been super interesting to see the communities that we're traversing, and we're having a blast. I've been taking a photo every 5 minutes along the way, which has turned into the above Flickr album of 91 photos. I've been joined on all three walks thus far by my intrepid cousin Jocelyn, and Kamilah who keeps us entertained the whole way.
Highlights of the walk so far:
- A man stopping us to ask, "Are you tourists?" You know all those tourists whose life long dreams are to walk on Western Avenue? I've never met them.
- Sergeant Messina of Gardena who took it upon himself to keep us company in his squad car on our rainy day walk in the area.
- The amazing old signage that we're spying. Check out this amazing Sandy Vitale Dance Studio sign that Kamilah captured.
Let's not mention that this is my first blog post in a couple years, shall we? I'm trying to get back to it. If you miss me, you can find me on Twitter, on Pinterest, on Instagram (@jenmaiser), or on Facebook. I've been writing a lot, though mostly for non-food clients. You can, however, sometimes catch me on Bay Area Bites and Serious Eats.
I've moved out of the Bay Area! I'm currently spending a little bit of time with my amazing grandmother in Southern California. The story of the long San Francisco good-bye is a story I'll hold for another day. It was a tough—really tough—leap, but I know that it was right, even if I miss some parts of San Francisco desparately.
Talk to you all soon!
