#RSRSeesTheUSA Day 26: Los Angeles, CA
I’ve decided to keep driving up to Alaska.
OK, no. April Fools!
But I am thinking about what I want to do with my next month before I head to Denver.
I’m struck by the way a big city is rubbing me the wrong way. Partly that’s the massive overwhelm that is LA. Partly that’s the contrast with the mainly rural, quiet places I’ve been spending my time on the majority of this trip. And partly it’s because I’ve lived most of my adult life in big cities, and I don’t want to do it anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. So far, LA is a great big buffet of tempting foods, literally and metaphorically. I’ve eaten great Thai and great Indian and great donuts, and I’ve been to see art, and the sun has shone on me, and today I finally made a literally museum dream come true (more in a minute). It is lovely to be back in a place that offers that kind of variety.
But it’s not what I want as home base. I want a place that’s smaller and has a local, idiosyncratic character to get to know, not everything at my fingertips. I want somewhere where I can see stars and hear nature. I love being in the mountains (or at least being able to see them). I keep feeling pulled to head into the hills and canyons around LA (haven’t done it yet), or alternately, to curl up in my cozy Airbnb. I think my next move is going to be to drive up the California coast and get some sea air and cliff time.
First I’m going to focus on gratitude for this opportunity to explore freely and to see a city that I still can’t believe I’ve never really been to. I’m going to remind myself that whatever experiences I have here are new experiences, and that there’s no arbitrary empirical ranking of things that are “better” or “worse”.
Next I’m going to celebrate my birthday tomorrow by staying in a fancy Hollywood hotel and having dinner with an old friend in a restaurant that focuses on mozzarella.
I’m going to revel in the fact that I finally made it to the Museum of Jurassic Technology (which… there are reviews, but if you’re ever thinking of going, this is one that’s best to go into cold), which I think is tied with the Paris Catacombs for place I wanted to see for the longest time before finally getting in. I won’t say anything to spoil it, but I will say that it’s by turns charming and weird and lovely and eerie and macabre and funny and thought-provoking. It makes you question what museums are for and histories of display and how you “know” something is authentic and what even is the concept of authenticity, anyway.
These things are all my jam, I hope you know by now. So yes, my visit to this cabinet of cabinets of curiosities, this wunderkammer der wunderkammern, ended up taking me almost 3 hours, and it was all worth it.
Here’s another one—like the Legacy Museum—where the “no photos inside” rule makes absolute sense, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
