Chilling in Los Angeles: Baseball tour downtime
- Andrea
- Nov 23, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 5
A little bit of background📝
This post documents the few days that I spent in Los Angeles with our son, D, in 2012 for a period of downtime on the way back to Australia. I'd been with D on a Colorado baseball tour in which D played for an invitational team in a tri-state tournament. This was my third visit to Los Angeles after our initial stopover on the way to London in 1996 and our layover on the way back from Orlando in 2008. Since the Colorado trip, I've been again to LA, in 2016.
Baseball stuff in LA⚾
First, to the baseball part of our LA adventure with the team and their family members who had joined the tour. I had my second experience of a major league baseball game of that trip when we saw the Angels play at Angels stadium. We had been to a Rockies game at Coors Field in Denver. The outside of Angels stadium alone is pretty amazing, with the giant Angels cap at the entrance. America sure does stuff on a grand scale!
My second major league baseball experience was just as exciting as the first time. Again, what a spectacle!
I'm not sure why we didn't do an Angels stadium tour seeing as we went to a game there. Instead, we toured Dodgers stadium. Like the Coors Field tour in Denver, we were able to see behind the scenes, learn about the team's history, and touch the hallowed turf. The stadium opened in 1962 and is the third oldest in the US, after Fenway Park in Boston [1912] and Wrigley Field in Chicago [1914]. It's the largest baseball stadium in the world by seating capacity.
One of the best things about the location of the stadium in Elysian Park is its hilly location, affording fabulous views of LA. Even on a smoggy day, it was pretty cool.
Los Angeles icons🐭🎥👠🏖️🦐
Baseball things aside, the boys had the chance to spend a day each at Disneyland and Universal Studios. This was my second visit to both parks so it wasn't new for me and D had been to Disneyland on the way back from the Cal Ripken tournament the year before. That said, the second Disney park had opened since my first visit in 1996 and it was amazing to see the expansion.
I hung out with the parents from D's team and we mostly stuck to the original park, going on some of the more sedate rides, including the famous teacups, something I hadn't done the first time around.
D and his mates spent most of the day lining up for ages for the big ticket rides in the new park as it was super busy during the summer season. We stayed for the evening fireworks. Pretty cool, hey?
Our experience at Universal Studios was better in terms of access to rides as the coach had gotten us skip-the-line passes. We did the backlot tour first, as I'd learnt from my first visit that it's best to get on early before the crowds. It was nice to see some new special effects on the tour from the one we did in 1996, although some of the old favourites remained. For a film buff like me, Universal Studios is the ultimate theme park!
Some of the shows we'd seen in 1996 had been replaced, but Waterworld was still going strong. Even though I'd already seen it, the stunt show was still spectacular the second time around. We only had time for one show as we we had tickets to an Angels game later that day.
I'm terrified of heights and I don't do rides, but peer pressure got me on the Jurassic Park one again [the first time was in 1996] and the new Mummy and Transformer rides. I hate that feeling of a sudden drop but I got into the spirit of things. I was rather proud of myself, actually!
One of the cool things about our Universal experience is the caricature that D and I had drawn by the resident artist. I had it framed when we got home and it still hangs on my wall to this day. In the photo below, the artist is at work, drawing D's teammate, L, and his mum, L. That's D on the right in the second shot, with our caricature.
It was a fun day and kind of a shame that we had to leave to go to the Angels game. That said, the skip-the-line passes made the most of our time. I looked up the tickets, and at the time of writing this post, they cost $109USD for single admission and $199USD for the express pass. I think it's worth the extra cost if visiting during the busy season with limited time.
There were firsts for me during our LA sojourn and I was thrilled to add these to my list of LA wanderings. One of the firsts was a visit to Venice Beach. It felt like when we went to the Santa Monica Pier in 2008 - an iconic place that I'd seen in film and TV that I finally had the chance to experience firsthand. The weather was glorious, as the below photos show. Venice has a massive stretch of sand and it's super flat. It was so nice to see D carefree after the stresses of the tournament.
Venice Beach certainly lived up to its eclectic reputation. The beach is pretty, but the boardwalk is a bit dodgy in places. We were approached by some dude wanting to sell us CDs [yes, back in the days when they were a thing!] so one of the Dads stepped in to politely shepherded us away. Then D and I went into an art shop next to the place where we had lunch to buy two canvas prints. Total stoner vibe in the store!
In my 1996 post, I wrote that I was disappointed that we missed our Beverly Hills tour due to a timing mix up. This time I had the chance to walk down Rodeo Drive, see a bit of Beverly Hills from the bus, and experience Sunset Boulevard. Rodeo Drive is just a street, but it's iconic, and it was kind of awesome just to wander down such a famous piece of real estate. Of course we didn't buy anything! The boys enjoyed checking out the posh cars, though.
Here's a sample of what we saw of Beverly Hills. I think the house in the bottom right-hand photo was owned by Marilyn Monroe and is where she died, but I know the house is in Brentwood, so perhaps we drove there, too. I can't remember, but I must have taken that photo for a reason! I was a little underwhelmed by Beverly Hills, to be honest, but the palm trees are pretty.
Sunset Boulevard was a complete bust. D and I didn't like it at all. It's very crowded and touristy and just not that nice. It was cool to see the Hollywood sign, Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but we'd had our fill after an hour of wandering around.
I did buy this gorgeous sketch of the Hollywood sign that I still have on a shelf at home. That's exactly the view I was expecting...
And, this is the view we saw...
We liked Olvera Street in the historic El Pueblo de Los Angeles neighbourhood. It is LA's oldest district, where 44 Native American, African and European settlers travelled across the desert from the present-day northern Mexico to establish a farming community in 1781. Olvera Street now has a Mexican marketplace and hosts several traditional Latino events during the year.
Again, after missing out on eating at Bubba Gump on a previous visit, I had the chance to experience the themed restaurant this time around. I have to admit that the food is expensive and pretty meh, but the restaurant itself is awesome, full of film memorabilia.
I love my photos taken at the front of the restaurant on Forrest's bench. I bought a few things in the souvenir shop, including a Lieutenant Dan shirt that D eventually passed onto me that I still wear [see below top right].
Los Angeles is...Los Angeles. I recommend keeping your expectations in check. Sure, there are loads of cool places to check out and it's heaps of fun. I'd describe it as a "Destination Experience" as it feels like being able to say you have been there is more meaningful than the actual being there, like ticking off a list of famous places. There's almost an overwhelming amount of things to see and do and LA isn't an easy city to navigate. If you're into theme parks, you can base yourself in Anaheim and see the Disney attractions fairly easily. Being on a bus tour this visit with D's baseball team definitely meant we could see a lot in the space of a few days.
Check out my post on the baseball part of that 2012 trip in Colorado. I warmed to the vibe of Denver and I loved the stunning Rocky Mountains, and the Royal Gorge Bridge.
I know I'd been to LA three times at that point, but two of the three were by accident rather than be design, as stopovers on the way back to Australia from somewhere else. I'm pretty much done with LA now, although not so done that I didn't return. Check out the post I made on my 2016 visit, which, to be fair, was also on our way to somewhere else! [Chicago, actually.]
The baseball tournament in Colorado that preceded our LA sojourn was full on, so I was glad of a bit of down time. It was nice for the boys [and the parents] to have some fun without the pressure of competition.
D had the opportunity to hang with this mates and have a second go at Disneyland and Universal Studios [me, too].
We also had the chance to make new memories, experiencing Venice Beach, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard, and Bubba Gump, plus the baseball experiences at Dodgers and Angels stadiums.
My third visit to LA confirmed that, while it's fun, the city is not really my jam.
Braving The Mummy and Jurassic Park rides was a big thing for me and I can still recall that terrifying feeling as the rides plummet.
Like our Colorado experience, being on a tour with a bunch of people all moving as one, on someone else's timetable, is tough for me. I was a bit over it by then.
The Venice Beach hipster-stoner vibe was totally on brand! The beach was lovely, too, and it was a beautiful day when we visited. Pretty natural spaces make me feel at peace.
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