One night in LA -- what’s the must-see/must-do activity?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi folks,

I’ll be traveling to the Fullerton area of Los Angeles (um… Fullerton is in LA, right?) in a couple weeks, and will be there for about a night. It’s mainly to see Grandm’ma, so most of our time will be spent with a nonagenarian. But we have a Friday evening/night free, and while we’re not really looking to whoop it up, we want to do something more than sit around the hotel. Neither of us have been to the area before, so everything is fair game. We’ll have a rental car (a Trailblazer), but I don’t think we want to go driving about the city. Does LA have a Times Square? A Circle Line? A … a … a what’s the one thing that LA has that we should see?

Thanks,

Rhythm

2

Sadly, Fullerton is not in LA, nor is it anywhere near it.

I know of absolutely nothing of interest in Fullerton.

:slight_smile:

Really.

ETA- except for your Grandma, of course! :slight_smile:

3

Ach… and they look so close on the map! I realize this was the equivalent of saying “We’ll be in Staten Island, what’s to do in Manhattan,” in a they’re not really the same place. But does twenty or so mile make that much of a difference? Is it due to the notoriously clogged highways? What about public transportation – can we take a bus/train (I suppose there’s no subways out there)? Is there any way we can schedule a small earthquake?

4

You’ll be in Orange County. I’d say go to watch the Ducks if they’re home. Otherwise go to the beach area.

5

Fullerton is behind the Orange Curtain.

Fullerton is about 40 miles from Santa Monica. Depending on when you’ll be driving, traffic may not be that bad. The most direct route is to take the 5 North to the 10 West. Or you could take the 5 to the 105 to the 405 to the 10. Or you could take the 91 to the 405 to the 10.

Anyway once you’re in Santa Monica you can go to the 3rd St. Promenade. Walk around, watch street performers, shop, get some dinner, drop into Ye Olde King’s Head for some fish’n’chips or a pint. And then you can walk out to the pier, do the carnival rides…

6

From Fullerton, you could just go down to Disneyland. Or if you don’t want to do that, you can just hang out in the Downtown Disney shopping area and not pay for the park.

7

Abso-freaking-lutely.

Get down to Santa Monica. Walk the promenade and hit the pier. Take your shoes off and walk on the water line. It’s the best time you can have in LA for an evening. There’ll be restaurants, street theater, weird and cool people of most description wandering on the pier and the promenade.

When I take staff there from time to time I insist the first-timers come down with me to Santa Monica and let me buy them dinner and such. I consider it a moral duty to do so.

8

Heh… behind the Orange Curtain. Funny thing is, we just moved out of the city (NYC) a year or so ago, and are in… Orange County. Not quite California, but it is where OC Choppers are from (hey, when you move way the hell out into the sticks, you need to have something to cling to).

Just saw that there’s fires in the area? What the hell is that? Are we going to be stuffing Grandma in the car and taking her to Vegas with us? Not that she’d mind, mind you… she may be in her nineties, but she tells some great stories about Vegas back in her day.

Anyway, Disney isn’t … isn’t… well, I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s quite our cup of tea, but having never been there, how can I say? Good suggestion though, we’ll be looking into it.

Santa Monica sounds like a mix of the Village and Cambridge. Not that that’s an accurate description, but from a never-been-to-California’s perspective, it helps to pigeonhole things into familiar concepts. In other words, it sounds like a place we’d like to go. OF COURSE it’s different, but is the above close? But forty minutes – IF – traffic is nice to us, may be a bit steep for our energy level.

Egad, that makes us sound like old codgers. But consider that I’ll be working until midnight on Wednesday, our flight from New York to Vegas leaves at five AM on Thursday, that we’re going to drive from the airport straight to Los Angeles, and lastly, that we’re driving back to Vegas for a conference on Saturday morning (the trip out to Grandm’ma[sup]*[/sup] was a happy add-on), and you get the idea that while we won’t be dead on our feet on Friday, nor will we be in the mood for too much exhertion. Spending about ninety minutes driving may not be in the cards – especially as we can’t really start until we’re on our own that evening.

But then again, we’ll be damned if we’re going to spend two days in the LA area (better?) and not have actually seen/done anything LA.
[sup]*Pronounced like Puglsey Addams would have. Grandm’ma’s that cool.[/sup]

9

Fullerton to Santa Monica on a Friday night is NOT a quick trip. You’ll be looking at a 1 1/2 hour or so trip to Santa Monica anytime before 8-9pm.

If you want to do the amusement park thing, Disneyland, California Adventure, and Knott’s Berry Farm are right next door to Fullerton and are relatively uncrowded in the fall. Downtown Long Beach is not too far away and has that 3rd Street Promenade/Old Town Pasadena vibe without the touristy annoyances. There’s lots of great clubs, theaters, and nightlife venues to visit.

If you must visit 3rd street in Santa Monica (a true tourist trap), I’d suggest taking the 91 freeway west to the 110 north and then the 10 west. That’s probably the least dense route. If you want an uncrowded parking structure, exit on Lincoln Blvd and turn right, head north to Wilshire Blvd., turn left (west), go all the ways to 2nd St., turn left (south), park in the structure on your left. Be sure to check out the shops and clubs on 2nd and 4th streets as well if you run out of things to do on 3rd.

10

Third Street Promenade

The Orange Curtain

11

Be sure to bring a fire extinguisher. :eek: :eek:

In all seriousness, I heard that Santa Monica is coated in ash. Fullerton may very well be, by the time you get there.

12

Nahhh, we’re fine (lovely pink sky this evening though). Malibu is the one that’s in trouble.

13

Malibu’s not the only one in trouble now, but I was just quoting KFI 640 AM, where I heard that “Santa Monica is a winter wonderland of ash”. And I said ash, not fire. It sounded plausible to me, since in the 2003 fires my neighborhood got covered with ash when the Cedar fire was a good 30 miles away.

14

Uhg… it looks like Fullerton is between Limestone Canyon Regional Park and Santa Monica (or Malibu, as the case may be). Um, I’ve packed for snow in the mountains, packed for rain in the tropics, but never had to think about ash (though our cat is named after Ash). I assume driving out from Vegas will not be in jeopardy… will it?

15

Just checked again. I’m in the middle of Santa Monica and I can’t see anything outside other than the normal dust and dirt that gets kicked up by the winds. I remember seeing ash from the 2003 Southern California fires, but then those were pretty massive.

16

I’m in Santa Barbara, and the sundowner/Santa Ana winds are kicking up ash from the Zaca fire (2nd biggest fire in California history). It has made for a bizarre surreal brown haze (I thought it was going to rain or something) that’s somewhat reminiscent of the worse smoggy days in L.A. in the late 60’s. The haze was actually blocking out the outline of the sun for a while.

17

The Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica is just a glorified mall, IMO. (The pier, though, has rides and things.

If it’s just an evening/night, consider going to the observatory.

18

True enough. But there are some interesting people there. I wonder if the guy with Psychic Cat is still there? I wouldn’t actually shop there. I’d go to Santa Monica to go to the pub. But it was pleasant to walk around the promenade afterward, or to go to the pier. Venice Beach is just two miles south. The OP probably doesn’t have the time to do that, but it’s a nice stroll.

19

One night in LA will wipe the smile off your pretty face.

20

The OP and Stoid (who’s heading to NY from LA, it seems) should swap suggestions.