Los Angeles, California: Days 3 and 4

Odometer: 389–556 (167) miles

Listen to: “LA Hallucinations” — Carly Rae Jepsen

This place is difficult. I think it’s possible to make LA seem easy, something that fits, a place that feels like home. But that takes effort and a commitment that, as a visitor, it’s hard to muster up. Having to sit in traffic to get anywhere seems taxing, both physically and mentally. Getting a sense for the city seems impossible, given that LA is really several disparate cities all united into one massive sprawl. It’s the king of the suburbs, the model of 1950s America taken to its logical, halfway dystopian end.

This may all sound like I had a terrible time in LA, but I loved it. I met up with friends I haven’t seen in years, had a ton of cool conversations, and even saw a Space Shuttle. It’s only the place itself that bothers me. The city doesn’t feel warm and inviting, but my friends who live here are excellent.

From Santa Barbara, I followed the PCH down, going through Ventura, Oxnard, and Malibu. One sort of odd thing I’ve noticed about SoCal beach towns: they all seem to feel that it’s incredibly important to remind you that you’re near the ocean. Street names are things like “Reef Street”, “Seabreeze Way”, “Have You Noticed All That Water To The West Of Us? Boulevard”. I guess all that branding worked though; when you think of California, you think of places like Malibu.

On arriving, I met up with Talyn, who does graphic design and works in stunts and is also possibly the most badass person I know. We hadn’t seen each other since freshman year of college at Mizzou nearly 8 years ago, so that was a pretty great reunion. One thing I realized about LA after talking to her: this city really seems to encourage people to try creative projects outside of your day job. Talyn was coming up with a fascinating photo project (don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll let her reveal more details at her own leisure), and she had already gotten several people on board to support it, including lighting techs, photographers, etc. I can imagine thinking of a similar thing in SF and struggling to get it off the ground.

Later, I got beers with Nicholas, and we talked for an hour about comics, movies, TV, the future of journalism, and nearly everything else. Nicholas is one of those people who, whenever we talk, we end up having these sprawling conversations that cover every topic imaginable and yet still have this internal thread that links it all together. In short, it was really excellent catching up.

From there, I walked out of downtown, spent about 10 minutes on a bridge trying to take the above photo of headlights on the highway, and then met Patrick, another Mizzou friend who I’ve known since freshman year. Unlike me, Patrick stayed in photojournalism after graduation, and he’s been working freelance for the last several years. Not only are his photos pretty much always phenomenal, I’m also just blown away by how hard he works at this. Photojournalism is a tough industry to truly succeed in unless you’re extremely dedicated to it, and Patrick’s dedication was just astounding. For me, as someone who’s taking a break from a field to get my passion for it back, seeing that passion for photojournalism at work was pretty inspiring.

That first night, I stayed in what was essentially a hostel, except I booked it through AirBnB and they called it a “podshare” instead of a hostel. They also called it a “co-living space”, drawing parallels with the co-working spaces that have popped up everywhere in SF, LA, and New York. Ah, the familiarity of home. The people running it were incredibly nice, but after getting woken up by a guy yelling on his cell phone, I think I may avoid this sorta thing from here on out.

Last time I was in LA, I had probably one of the most improbable reunions with an old friend imaginable. Through the providence of a random Facebook event, I realized that a close friend’s sister (Stephanie) was dating one of my elementary school friends who moved away from Tulsa after fourth grade, and who I had since lost all contact with (Rob). Naturally, I had to meet up with them again while I was here, so we got lunch in Westwood. It was wonderful to be able to see them again after they introduced me to the city last year. In my mind, they’re the example of why LA can be great: they’re amazing people, their friends are all really great too, and they all seem to have carved out their niche and really enjoy living here.

Patrick was kind enough to let me sleep on his couch last night (I couldn’t stand another night of “podsharing”), and now, I’m packing up and getting ready to head into the desert. It’s about a 320 mile trip to Needles, which should bring my total mileage further than any ride I’ve done before on the Vespa. Loading my pack up with water, and trying to be strategic about stopping for gas.

Wish me luck

-Esten