#16: Santa Anita Park Horse Races

The first year I lived in LA, I technically lived on the Westside.  I say "technically" because, though Westchester is considered the Westside, it is much closer to the ghetto than the beach, and is most famous for being the "Home of LAX."  But anyway, for a weird 6 months of my life, I lived in an apartment right under the flight path of planes flying into LAX.  It was only after I moved in that I realized this apartment wasn't actually in Westchester, but Inglewood.  And as I mentioned in my Watts post, if you know a city's name from a mid-90's gangsta rap song, it's probably not the ideal place to live.  I like to think I built up tons of street cred (I didn't) but the one thing I did learn about Inglewood is that it was home to a huge ghetto horse track and casino called Hollywood Park.

I always wanted to go to Hollywood Park, if simply to revel in how misleading the name was.  Hollywood Park sounds pretty legit, a classy place where stars go to classily bet on horse races, but no, it's definitely in the ghetto whose most famous former resident is Ice Cube.  And the naturally shady aspect of horse racing could only have been intensified in such a setting.  I was fascinated.  But as soon as I moved out of the ghetto and into the 'Hills, I realized that maybe I should just try to be fabulous, not ghetto fabulous, and go to a legitimately classy horse race park instead.  I think it goes without saying that my move to Beverly Hills was a life upgrade in more ways than one.

So, a few years later, I finally made it out to Santa Anita Park in Pasadena, host of the Breeders Cup and other actually meaningful Southern California horse races.  My good friend Marsha - a veritable horse expert - agreed to go with me, and I can't stress how much better the experience was going with someone who knew what a "thoroughbred" was.  I certainly had no clue.  We even wore pretty dresses and fancy hats, just to add a little extra something fun.

General admission cost I think $7, but we paid $20 each for the fancy eat-lunch-while-you-watch-with-a-TV-at-your-table seats, which was definitely worth the extra money.  We were able to sit under an awning, which would have been essential on a hot day, but was EVEN more essential as it was a bit drizzly that day and we didn't want to ruin our fab horseracing dresses.

After we walked around the stadium and checked out the parade of horses about to race, we made it to our table to order lunch and a bottle of wine, which we leisurely consumed over the next four hours. Marsha spent a good part of our afternoon teaching me the different types of horses, and how to read the stats pages.  She also taught me to correct terminology associated with horse racing, such as "trifecta," "superfecta," and the differences between "winning," "placing" and "showing" (basically fancy ways of saying first, second, and third).  She was so patient with me and taught me about the science and speculation behind what people "think" makes a good racehorse.  It was truly fascinating, and she saved me lots of googling.

There were 8 races that afternoon, and we sat through the first five trying to guess the trifectas - basically which horses would come in first, second AND third in the race.  Trifectas have a big payout, something like 50-to-1, and needless to say I didn't correctly guess a single one.  As the sixth race approached we finally finished our delicious lunch and decided to place some real bets.

I bet on a superfecta, which guesses the top 4 finishers, in any order.  Marsha placed three separate bets, for a specific horse to win, a different horse to place, and yet another to show.  I got 3 out of my 4 for the superfecta, which was "close but no cigar" but Marsha actually did correctly predict which horse would place.  Of our total $12 we bet (high rollers, I know) I think we got $5 back.  I was hesitant to bet much more, simply because after 6 races having not even guessed correctly once, I just knew I would just be throwing my money away. 

We sat through the next two races before deciding to head home.  We had spent about 4 hours at the track, and had a blast.  I learned more than I ever thought I would about horse racing, horse breeding, and horses in general.  Marsha was totally in her element and I had a truly fabulous (non-ghetto) time, that I'm sure I would NOT have had at Hollywood Park!

Me, Marsha and our hats checking out the Winners Circle, where the jockeys walk around the horses before their races.

Horses racing towards the finish line, right in front of our seats

Enjoying a late afternoon lunch at the races :)

#45: The Rose Bowl Flea Market

I have become a recent fan of flea markets, in particular the weekly one near my neighborhood called the Melrose Trading Post. I've been about 7 times and have always come home with new treasures. But you can't become a flea market fan without eventually hearing about the Mother of all the flea markets - the Rose Bowl Flea Market, held once a month in the giant parking lot of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Loyal and die hard flea marketers have been flocking there for over 40 years!

The market only comes around once a month on the 2nd Sunday, so Barbara, Lana, Dan and I planned a trip for February. Lana and Dan are getting married in May and wanted to find inspiring vintage accents for their wedding decor. Barb and I were looking for cowboy boots for our impending trip to Nashville, as well as a few other things. And of course, we were all open to uncovering any of the many treasures the flea market had to offer!

After suffering through 30 minutes of traffic just to park, we walked through the gates, paid the $8 entrance fee, and headed into the sea of vendors. There are over 2,500 vendors that come monthly to the market, and tens of thousands of patrons. It was overwhelming to say the least! We veered to the left as we had heard that was towards the vintage vendors. To the right was apparently all the new and hand-made crafts vendors, but we didn't have time to even peek at that side.

It took us a while to get going. The place was a maze of booth after booth of mostly overpriced vintage/used goods. As it is with any flea market, you have to hunt for the good stuff. I made the first purchase of the day when I saw a table covered in a massive tangle of gold jewelry, and some hipster girls digging through it trying on different bracelets. I noticed a very thin gold bangle, and fell in love. I began to dig through the pile and found 9 bangles, all about 2 millimeters thick, and all with different etchings in them. They are now my new favorite accessory, and all together cost $10. I had to hunt, but I found a treasure!

After my initial find, we were on a roll. Barbara found a berry-picking bucket (adorable), Lana and Dan found three fantastic shabby-chic frames (I'm going to help them make chalkboards), I found a gold-filegree mirrored tray for $5, then Barb and I found our biggest prize. We wanted to find the perfect vintage boot for our Nashville trip, so as to not look like tourist posers in brand new boots. After trying on boot after boot that didn't come close to fitting (apparently cowboy boot sizing is different than normal shoes and is completely incomprehensible) I found the perfect pair. A warm shade of reddish brown, with a slight heel, they fit like they were made for me! I was ready to drop some cash on the boots, and the seller told me they were $15. I could hardly believe it! Barb found her own camel colored beauties only a few minutes later, for $20.

By that time, the market had gotten super crowded, we were hungry, and our shopping bags were full. We meandered towards the exit, and were out of the Rose Bowl in minutes.

The Rose Bowl Flea Market was a BLAST. It was overwhelming, sensory overload, inspiration galore, and overall a fairly inexpensive way to find beautiful vintage found objects. I can't wait to go back - and to go earlier! Admission is more expensive in the morning, but the crowds will be lighter and the goods will be even better!

They give $2 bills as change!

Lana and me - showing off our flea market fashion!

#1 most over-priced items at the flea market - vintage books. You can find these at thrift shops for $1. The cheapest ones we found at the flea market were around $10. Ridiculous.

Lana perusing vintage books before she saw the price tags.

These jars were beautiful and inspiring, shining in the sunlight!

Perfectly worn shutters gave me lots of craft ideas.

Trying on my fab cowboy boots!

The flea market definitely had a carnie feel - complete with carnival music as we entered and exited!

#18: The Rose Float Parade

When I was in Girl Scouts as a kid, we used to volunteer to help with the floats for the Rose Parade every year. For years, all we were allowed to do - since we were so young - was help sort flowers. Nothing glamorous. But the last year I participated, I think I was about 12 years old, I hit what I thought was going to be the jackpot. They were going to let me decorate part of the actual float!

So they handed me a board, and a big bowl of white rice and a bowl of black olive seeds (I think) and told me to make a license plate. Nine hours later, I was almost finished. I couldn't even feel my fingers they were so cramped, my back was sore from hunching over the table, and I honestly couldn't stand the sight of rice for weeks. But it was all going to be worth it, because I was going to see my work on national TV during the Rose Parade!

Yeah... no. Of course the cameras spent about 45 seconds examining the vibrant flowers and the people waving on the float, and didn't once pass over my masterpiece of a license plate. At that moment, I was done, DONE, with the Rose Float Parade forever.

That was, until, I moved to LA 10 years later and met a few native Pasadenos (residents of the great city of Pasadena) who live and breath the Tournament of the Roses. This event is their chance to show the country, and even the entire world, how awesome they are. Over time I decided that, though I would never, ever volunteer to decorate again, it might be worth it to trek down to Pasadena to watch the parade in person on New Year's Day.

To watch the parade, I found that you have a few options. You can camp out on Colorado Blvd. starting at noon the day before the parade, and get a front row view of all the action on New Year's Day. Now, I do many things, but camping is unfortunately not one of them. Especially not on sidewalks... that's called being homeless.

The other option is to buy tickets to sit in the "grandstand" - one of the large bleacher structures that they build all along the 5-mile parade route. I looked into it early in the year, and found that a grandstand seat at their cheapest start at around $40 a piece (and get more expensive as the year goes on). It seemed like a viable enough option, until my main Pasadeno Michael told me that they give you about 8 inches of butt-room, you have to get there at like 5am, and the bleacher is as cold as ice (and about as comfortable). I was beginning to second-guess the decision, based on the pure hassle of it all. Not to mention, over 1 million people go to watch the parade, and we all know how I feel about large crowds and having to wait forever. But luckily, I have friends that are in-the-know, and Michael told me a little-known secret.

The night before the parade, all of the floats line up in order along Orange Grove Blvd, as the float designers make last minute adjustments and prepare for the judging. There are huge lights above every float, to the point where it's almost as bright as day. My friend lived just a block away from all the action, and after he explained how easy and fun it was, I was excited to check out this low-key, low-effort version of the Rose Float Parade. Unfortunately, he moved to Chicago last summer so I didn't get to hang out at his house while waiting for the floats to line up!

The Tournament of the Roses has a quirky rule that the parade and football game never take place on a Sunday. Trivia: it's because when the parade first started in the late 1800's, they didn't want the horse-drawn floats to spook other horses that were standing outside of churches. No joke. Since 2012's New Year's Day was on a Sunday, we went up to Pasadena on Monday the 1st instead. Ronny and I had a late dinner, then walked around amidst all the campers on the sidewalks to kill time before 11pm, when the floats started lining up.

The first thing I noticed is that the majesty and grandeur of the floats does NOT translate at all on TV. It doesn't even translate in these pictures and I was standing 5 feet away. It is absolutely awe-inspriring to see the magnitude of these floats, to see each individual petal amongst the thousands of flowers. Each float takes an average of 80,000 man-hours (all volunteer) to complete, and cost up to half a million dollars. There were a total of 47 floats this year, with entrants from corporations, cities, universities and charitable organizations. A great part about seeing them the night before is that each float is "escorted" by a handful of the volunteers that worked on the float, many of whom are a part of the organization behind the float. You can ask them questions about what materials were used, how long something took, its significance, etc. Luckily Ronny found a really cute corgi to go play with while I asked a ridiculous amount of questions.

I absolutely loved the whole experience, and am so glad Michael educated me on it. I would have never known otherwise! I really hope I get to do this again, even though I still have no interest in going to the actual parade. Oh, and the best perk of all, going to this is completely FREE! All we paid was for parking, which was a fraction of what it would have cost us the next morning to see the parade.

It's lamentable, again, that my camera was still broken at the time (I have since replaced my old point-and-shoot with a Nikon D5000 SLR) so I again apologize for these pictures being pretty low quality. I'm sure you can google Rose Parade 2012 and get awesome profesh pictures.

People like me forget that there is actually a football game involved with the Rose Parade. Traditionally, each university playing in the Rose Bowl submits a float, and its marching band and cheerleaders march with it in the parade. Here's the University of Wisconsin...

... and the University of Oregon (the eventual winners of the game)

A breathtaking dragon made from yellow mums from Air China's "Spirit of Prosperity and Harmony" float, which celebrated 2012 being the year of the Dragon. I believe this one ended up winning the top trophy.

This one was called "Shining Knights Still Exist" from Odd Fellows and Rebekahs

Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer! The wheels on the wagon actually turned as the float moved.

This one is from the Aids Health Fund, titled "Our Champion." It featured three floral portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, the charity's founder, in different stages of her long career. The portraits were made using nine different shades of seeds. They were truly stunning in person.

Dole's "Preserving Paradise" float was an ode to the beauty of Thailand. Remember, this entire thing is made up of organic plant materials. Unbelievable.

A very awesome rainbow, I don't remember which float

My company, Paramount, had an entrant this year to celebrate its 100th Anniversary in 2012. It was called "100 Years of Movie Magic" and featured the Grease Lightening car, Forrest Gump's bench, the plane from Wings (the first Paramount release), Bumblebee from Transformers, the Star Trek ship Enterprise, over 4,000 red roses to make up the "red carpet," and the famous Bronson gate that I drive through every morning on my way into work. Pretty cool!!

20-foot tall floral Bumblebee

Me and Ronny in front of the Paramount float. We wanted to take a picture in front of the Cal Poly float, but for some reason it was dark where CP's float was lined up.

#27: The Huntington Gardens

At my old job I used to get bored a lot, and one week I found myself voraciously reading about the history of Los Angeles on Wikipedia (I know, nerd alert). I read about the history of South Central, Hollywood, Long Beach, Santa Monica, and all the old rich neighborhoods like West Adams, Hancock Park, and Pasadena. There is so much fascinating history about each of these different neighborhoods, not to mention important cultural influences that are still seen today. But that's besides the point. What really matters here is that reading about the histories of these neighborhoods really made me want to explore them. I'll save South Central for another day, but at the top of my list was Pasadena, and with it, the Huntington Gardens.

The Huntington Gardens (full name: The Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens) is in one of the oldest, richest neighborhoods of South Pasadena. The land and buildings were actually donated by the Huntington family estate, and the main museum (that houses locally well-known paintings such as Pinkie and Blue Boy) was the family home. And by home I mean ridiculous 1800s old-money mansion. There is also an impressive research library, which counts a Gutenberg Bible and manuscript of The Canterbury Tales among its six million titles. Not to mention the 14 different botanical gardens on its grounds.

My friend Barbara and I headed over to Pasadena on a lovely Sunday during LA's "Carmageddon" weekend (aka the weekend they closed part of the 405 freeway and everyone thought there would be Earth-ending hellish traffic, when in fact, there were NO cars on the road) and it was the easiest drive to Pasadena I could have imagined. We paid the $10 entrance fee (it's $20 on weekends for adults but I showed my student ID to get the discount, don't judge) and began exploring. We started out walking the grounds around the main house, which included a huge lawn lined with statues, and shaded winding paths through different orchards. We stopped by the Japanese garden, which was unfortunately under construction and mostly blocked off. We then visited the Chinese garden, complete with pagodas, lily ponds and thousands of native Chinese plants. We walked through the Desert garden, the Camellia garden, and the Herb garden. They were all absolutely stunning, peaceful, colorful.... everything you'd expect from a botanical garden.

Then we headed over to the Rose garden, which was breathtaking, to say the least. Row after row, trellis after trellis of the most vibrant, pungent and creatively-named roses I've ever seen. There were roses of every color of the rainbow (and even others - like grey!) with awesome names like "Rainbow Knock-out," "Class Act," "Passionate Kisses" and "Playboy." I've been to botanical gardens before, but I've never seen a rose garden of this magnitude. It was like something out of a storybook!

After a thoroughly enjoyable (and long) stroll through the extensive rose garden, we went over to the rose garden tea room for a high-tea lunch. We completely stuffed ourselves with fresh scones (with clotted cream and jam!), tea sandwiches, fresh fruit, fancy crackers and even fancier cheeses, and various pastry treats all topped with pink lemonade. It was absolutely delicious and the perfect compliment to a lovely day in the garden. Plus, the air conditioning was amazing.

After we snuck a few scones into our purses, we headed over to the art museum to avoid the now sweltering heat outside. I especially wanted to see the view out of the back terrace, which has a magnificent view of greenery and mountains and you would never guess you were in LA! We saw all the paintings, artifacts, stained glass windows, and spent the remainder of the afternoon lounging on the shaded terrace. We leaned back in rattan chairs and looked out over all the surrounding gardens and greenery. It was absolutely lovely.

After a quick trip to the gift shop (which was stock-full of History of LA books.. I die!) we headed home, full of romantic dreams of what it must have been like to be insanely rich in Pasadena in the 1800s. I am so glad that Barbara showed me this gem of a place. It was so beautiful and romantic and relaxing and interesting and the absolute perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I highly, highly recommend a visit here (and make sure to bring your student ID!)

Pagoda in the Chinese Garden

Roses in the rose garden

The back veranda of the main house that overlooks all of South Pasadena

The shaded east terrace

Our amazing high tea meal!

Barbara and me rocking our sundresses in the rose garden