Hollywood, a Brewery, a Bridge, a Walk, and Tacos

 Los Angeles, CA

Always lead with tacos if you can

What's The Plan?

Today was a free day (a day with no solid plan).  Donna asked what I would like to do and I spent the morning putting together a plan and then presented it to her.  She approved and we were off on an unplanned and yet overly planned adventure!

Taking Transit to an Iconic Location 

We headed out at around 11am.  We were taking the bus to Vermont and Sunset.  There is a Metro Subway Station there that will take us to our first destination.  We are headed to Hollywood and Vine!  That iconic location that every tourist hopes to go to and yet we won't make it to the location that you are thinking of.  Our destination is 100s of feet below the street.  Our destination is The Hollywood and Vine Metro Station!  I could type a bunch of words to describe it to you but I remembered to take pictures instead.

Heading down into the Vermont/Sunset Station

Still the Vermont/Sunset Station, not our destination, but still cool

We were going towards North Hollywood.  The Vermont/Sunset Station has art depicting constellations and the earth's place in the universe

The Red Line (or B Line) coming into the station

When you get off at Hollywood and Vine you are greeted with art that represents a movie screen and curtains

The pillars are decorated like Palm Trees and there are 2 Movie Projectors donated by Paramount Pictures

The railings are made to look like Sheet Music with notes

The whole station is just really cool for transit nerds like us

The ceiling is covered with movie reels

And real Hollywood Graffiti! 

We had 9 minutes to explore the station before our train returning us to the Vermont/Sunset Station arrived.  I was really happy that we found time to visit the station and I am looking forward to more public transit as we explore other cities.

More Public Transit to a New Brewery!  and Tacos.

Our train arrived and took us back towards Union Station.  We got off at Vermont and Sunset, the same place we got on, and looked for our next bus stop.  Maps tells you it is on the corner of Vermont and Sunset but there are 4 corners so we explored all four and found our stop on the 4th corner.  We got to the stop as our Metro Rapid bus was arriving.  It seemed more like a commuter bus in that it was very clean and the people riding seemed like they were choosing to ride rather than having to ride.  Probably because it connected to the residential Silverlake area, an expensive area.  We rode by very nice houses on our way to the Frogtown neighborhood.  We thanked the driver, exited our bus, and walked to an industrial park where Frogtown Brewing resides.  The brewery was large and open and had great beers.  The Frogtown Taco truck was at the brewery all day so we took advantage and shared a few taco plates.

Rapido!

We knew we were on the right track when we saw the sandwich board sign guiding us in

The entrance is cool

The indoor space is great and they had a GIANT patio I didn't take photos of.

Taps and Teku Glasses

My "War on Sobriety", a 10% IPA served in a 10oz glass

They have about a dozen Buffalo Trace Barrels for their Barrel Aging Program.

A legit Taco Truck.  I think their tortillas were the star of the show.

A Walk Along The LA River

Okay, I know what you are picturing when you picture The LA River.  You are probably picturing this chase scene from Terminator 2.  Well yea that is part of The LA River but we walked a very different part.  There are trees, a bike path, coffee shops, and people picnicking.  It's also great habitat for migratory birds like Killdeer and Black-necked Stilts.  

The LA River, its not a sewage canal

The bike path has many shaded sections

There is a counter that shows (when you have control of your shudder speed) how many bikes use the path

There are coffee shops and other places to visit along the way

You can see our next destination just down the river

Donna caught me enjoying the shaded areas

Street Art is prevalent along the river

Walking wasn't enough exercise for Donna, she needed to use the provided Elliptical Machine.

The Final Destination (spoiler, we don't die)

Our walk along the LA River wasn't just a walk along the river, it was a means to getting to an end.  That end is the newly opened Taylor Yard Bridge.  This footbridge spanning the LA River opened in March.  I had read about it in The LA Times and wanted to visit it for some reason, so we did. It isn't particularly beautiful but visiting it fulfilled a need that started when I learned about it.  Apparently it was 30 years in the making and was budgeted at $5.3m and ended up costing $27.2m.  It connects Elysian Valley on the West Side with Cypress Park on the East Side.  You can read about it here and here if you want, or just look at my pictures.

There it is!  Our final destination!

This is a helpful sign if you didn't see the giant bridge off in the distance before you saw the sign telling you there is a crossing 200 feet away.

Bikes to the right, peds to the left

The bridge featured 2 offset viewing areas so you could get out of the flow of bike and walking traffic

A tour was being given during our visit

It turns out the architect and engineer for the project were giving the tour.  I wanted to ask how they feel about giving a tour of a project 5x over budget.  My projects were never 5x over budget.

The bridge switches back on the other side to give bike riders a smooth transition

It's supposed to allude to an old railway bridge and LA Streets design.

Me enjoying The Taylor Yard Bridge

After our walk we were pretty much in no mans land and had to take a Lyft back.  It was either that or 3 busses that would have taken almost an hour to go 4 miles.  It was adventure even if it wasn't an adventure "normal" tourists would take.

If you want to learn more about city planning and public transportation check out these YouTube channels we enjoy watching. They might cause you to walk to a weird bridge in a city near you!

City Beautiful

City Nerd

The Tim Traveler

Yesterday we rode a swan.  See all of the photos here.