Monday, September 04, 2006
Walkin' to LA
This was the 225th anniversary of the founding of LA. Every year on Labor Day the cities of Alhambra and LA re-enact the walk that the first settlers (44 pobladores) made from the San Gabriel mission to Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula mission. There are usually about 1000 people who make the walk. I think there might have been as many as 2000 this year.
The distance is 9 miles mostly on Mission Blvd. Today we walked to LA along with a whole bunch of other people including descendants of the original families.
The sign-in was at 7:00 am at the San Gabriel Mission. They had a sound system playing "walk" music: "Walk like an Egyptian", "Walk Like a Man", "Walk away Renee", etc. They gave out t-shirts and breakfast snacks. It was partly sponsored by Disney so Mickey Mouse was there and every TV station. There was a formal kick-off with speeches by Tony Plano, the star of "Betty the Ugly" and Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mayor of LA and a bunch of city council dignitaries. A band of local Gabrielino Indians came and did a blessing and of course the priest of the San Gabriel mission said a prayer.
There were 2 hard parts to our walk. The first was finding parking. We got up at 4:30 and arrived downtown around 5:30 to board the bus to the San Gabriel mission. Then we drove around for 1/2 an hour and finally parked in Union Station for $12.
The second was walking 9 miles in the heat on pavement. We have walked on trails that long fairly often but walking on pavement is much harder on joints and feet.
The neighborhoods we went through were not very nice but it was really great to see LA from that perspective. They blocked off the streets and we walked down the middle. Everyone walked briskly for the first 3 miles but things began to slow down and spread out by the time we got to mile 5. There was a refreshment stand and water along the way. They city even used these neat connections to take water directly from hydrants and attach a water fountain.
We made it back to Olvera Street before 11. We limped back to our car.
I was never so happy for grapefruit juice as I was when I got home. With a little bit of advil I am feeling pretty good now.
The distance is 9 miles mostly on Mission Blvd. Today we walked to LA along with a whole bunch of other people including descendants of the original families.
The sign-in was at 7:00 am at the San Gabriel Mission. They had a sound system playing "walk" music: "Walk like an Egyptian", "Walk Like a Man", "Walk away Renee", etc. They gave out t-shirts and breakfast snacks. It was partly sponsored by Disney so Mickey Mouse was there and every TV station. There was a formal kick-off with speeches by Tony Plano, the star of "Betty the Ugly" and Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mayor of LA and a bunch of city council dignitaries. A band of local Gabrielino Indians came and did a blessing and of course the priest of the San Gabriel mission said a prayer.
There were 2 hard parts to our walk. The first was finding parking. We got up at 4:30 and arrived downtown around 5:30 to board the bus to the San Gabriel mission. Then we drove around for 1/2 an hour and finally parked in Union Station for $12.
The second was walking 9 miles in the heat on pavement. We have walked on trails that long fairly often but walking on pavement is much harder on joints and feet.
The neighborhoods we went through were not very nice but it was really great to see LA from that perspective. They blocked off the streets and we walked down the middle. Everyone walked briskly for the first 3 miles but things began to slow down and spread out by the time we got to mile 5. There was a refreshment stand and water along the way. They city even used these neat connections to take water directly from hydrants and attach a water fountain.
We made it back to Olvera Street before 11. We limped back to our car.
I was never so happy for grapefruit juice as I was when I got home. With a little bit of advil I am feeling pretty good now.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
