Great Los Angeles Walk 2010

"Well, you can always not show up and sleep in instead, or quit half way". Those were some of my thoughts as I went to bed last Friday night. Several weeks earlier I had signed up for the Great Los Angeles Walk 2010 edition. Organized by Mike of Franklin Avenue, the Great Los Angeles Walk was started to celebrate his ten year anniversary of living in Los Angeles. The first Great Walk in 2006 took them down the entire length of Wilshire (15.8 miles!) from Downtown to the sea. The second year the group walked down Santa Monica Blvd via Sunset. Last year was Washington Blvd. and this year was the triumphant return to Wilshire Blvd. I wanted to participate the first year, but couldn't find anyone to join me and then other things came up. The same thing pretty much happened the last two years, but when I learned the walk would be returning to Wilshire, I knew I wouldn't be able to pass it up. As I took the bus down to Pershing Square, my stomach was filled with butterflies. I hadn't properly "trained", it was raining, I wasn't sure which blogger friends I would see and if I would end up walking by myself.





It turns out, I worked myself into a tizzy for no reason. I had a great time (mostly) walking down Wilshire and learned a lot about the city in the process. The LA Conservancy and Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council had put together some handy guides of interesting points along our route. Some I was familiar with, others not so much.


Macarthur Park

There was a scheduled tour at St. Basil's church in Koreatown. We missed much of what the tour guide said, but it was a beautiful building.



Some of my favorite sites were in Koreatown and Wilshire Center. There is some beautiful architecture in this part of town and interesting history.


The Wiltern Theater cheered us along


The beautiful courtyard at the Los Altos Apartments


Wilshire Ebell Theatre - home to one of LA's first women's clubs.


These gates used to be the entrance to the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Right around the Miracle Mile is where we started feeling the pain. Luckily, this was the area that lunch was supposed to happen. Unfortunately, the food trucks that had been promised had to back out because of the rain. We definitely understand why there are always food trucks in this area. The lunch options are pretty dismal.


The El Rey Theater 


Museum Square

After a mediocre meal, we kept on walking to Beverly Hills. By this point, exhaustion and hurting feet were getting the better of us so around La Cienega, we hopped on the 720 bus.


Beverly Hills Porsche

While we were resting our feet and being driven in style, we passed many of the walkers climbing up the non-sidewalked dangerous hills of the Wilshire corridor. Knowing my clumsiness, I would have surely been hit by a passing car. We got off the bus at Wilshire and 26th and continued on our way to the ocean. We just *had* to pop in to The Gap to check out a sale. Our last (and best) pit stop was at Huckleberry to pick up some pastries and warm ourselves up a bit. I finally got to try the salted caramel bar that everyone raves about.



Despite our "cheat", we were still passed by two older women who seemed to power walk the entire way. I felt a little guilty about that, but not too much. At long last we finally made it to the ocean as the sun was setting.



It was a great fall day to walk along Wilshire. I'm glad that the warmer weather we had been experiencing lately was kept at bay. It really helped to have people walking with me. I think we kept each other motivated especially during those last painful steps. You can view the rest of my pictures from the day in my Flickr photo stream. There are also terrific write ups of the event at LAist and the host blog Franklin Ave. Hopefully next year, with a little more training I will walk the entire route!