Claremont, Los Angeles, Laurel Canyon.
A slow morning, with Marg at the dentist and Mark at yoga. I wrote my blog, and once back home Marg was making various arrangements for the Squeakin’ Wheels gig for tomorrow night, and around 12:30 maybe we headed into Los Angeles, and in particular Laurel Canyon.
I’m not clear at all on why so many express dislike for Los Angeles, although the traffic, poor air quality, and prices provide definite reasons. But, I’ve heard people also describe simply not liking the city… but why? The architecture is great, and typical for this region of the country, and the cityscapes and the views of the city and the valley, and its many mountains and canyons, from atop Los Angeles, like along the Mulholland Drive, are wonderful. The whole city is diverse in terms of its different regions/districts. I like it here, and like the weather. I especially love Laurel Canyon.
Marg and I drive through Laurel Canyon, which I’ve loved visiting since I first discovered it by luck years and years ago, and Laurel Canyon was central in the development of much of the music and social ambiance Bev and I loved. Bev really enjoyed being here in 2020.
From Mulholland Drive, I released some of Bev’s ashes into the San Fernando valley far below.
Then we just had to stop at Beverly Park, right off of Mulholland Drive, which Bev and I saw last time we were here.
We actually drove up to Mulholland Drive by coming through Laurel Canyon, but returned to the canyon to drive through its narrow and slow-driving streets. Laurel Canyon is just minutes from downtown Hollywood and Hollywood Boulevard, but is a beautiful rural area, a canyon seated in the Hollywood Hills, made up of narrow roads, hills, and lush greenery.
We also were heading to eat at the Canyon Country Store, which is famed because of where it is and who came to eat or buy provisions from here way back in the hey day of Laurel Canyon as a center of music from the late 60’s and into the 70’s.
Laurel Canyon is important in Bev’s music and social influences when growing through adolescence and into early adulthood, and not only did Bev enjoy being here a few years back, but also really enjoyed a documentary on the development of the canyon and music scene here in the late 60’s, which we must have seen 10-12 times.
Everyone lived and played in Laurel Canyon, from Joni Michell, to Crosby, Stills and Nash, Jackson Browne, the Mamas and the Papas, the Doors, and the Monkees, and many more. The Beatles’ song, Blue Jay Way is about a song either in Laurel Canyon or right next door. Laurel Canyon is not only mighty purty, but seeped in music folklore.
And all of them came to the Laurel Canyon Country Store, where Bev and I ate in 2020.
We ate a couple of delicious sandwiches from the Canyon Store, and I just marvel at how many of our musical icons ate at this very store, perhaps at this very table. We could even have gone over the road to get a psychic reading. Mind you, you might get killed crossing, as there was steady stream of traffic going both ways along the narrow road, up and down the hill, in and out of the canyon.
We headed out of the canyon, to Griffith Park, where the famed Observatory is located, atop the park, dramatically overlooking Los Angeles. Of course, I forgot to release some of Bev’s ashes in Laurel Canyon… but I’m going to come back here on Friday to do just that.
The releasing of Bev’s ashes does have a bit of a ritualistic quality for me, and when I miss a spot where I intended to release (like Westbury, on Long Island) it nags, and I feel I missed a place I should have intermingled and shared with Bev.
The streets were getting busier as the afternoon edged toward rush hour getting around and out of the city, so it took a while to get to Griffith Park. Like many of the streets, lined with tall palms or other desert weather trees and shrubs, the park is beautiful, as well as expansive, a great resource for the city and visitors. The views of LA and the San Fernando Valley are magnificent.
Marg and I took a little hike along a more barren part of the park that led up to the observatory, although it was pretty hot.
Then we hoped we might miss the rush hour heading east out of Los Angeles, and we hoped we might miss it because it was 6 pm, but we didn’t. For a while, until Pasadena, we were in good shape, but things slowed to a crawl after that. That’s a pretty good reason to not want to live out this way. Mind you, the same can be said of many big cities in the U.S.
I’ll be back in Los Angeles on Friday, to spread some of Bev’s ashes in Laurel Canyon, and I’ll also probably visit a couple of other spots, like nearby Canter’s Deli, famous in this area, where I’ll get myself a corn beef sandwich.