Geography

The bed was comfortable. The service was friendly. The room was clean. There were no unpleasant smells. We enjoyed being in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. We walked and drove and drove some more and then walked some more. But never very far. At night we unwound while sipping pinot noir in the poolside garden. Accompanied by lounge music and locals talking about their bands and auditions, and Germans smoking fat cigars and talking about who knows what, we dipped our tired feet into the warm waters of the jacuzzi and confided in one another the details of endured medical procedures requiring catheters.

Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles is closed to the public on Wednesdays.

Where did I get the idea that we’d be the only people at Griffith Observatory? I thought we’d practically have the place to ourselves save maybe for some teenagers with switchblades and pompadours. And if we got there early enough in the day and there was still sunlight, we could take pictures of each other in front of a telescope dome with the Los Angeles skyline in the background before hurrying to get another shot with the Hollywood sign before we lost the light entirely.

Sometime before we left, we’d sit on a bench and on our phones find scenes from movies and television shows the observatory has appeared in.

It turns out that in addition to the sweeping views and swell WPA architecture, Griffith Observatory is a very popular tourist destination. It reminded me of the crowds at the Louvre if everyone at the Louvre arrived in a sedan and got angry and started honking because they couldn’t find parking near the Mona Lisa.