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Two Archivists, an SAA Annual Meeting, and How to be an Atypical Tourist
in Los Angeles
by Nancy Sandleback, Monastery of St. Benedict Center
A colleague and I decided to tack a few vacation days onto the beginning of
the SAA annual meeting in August to tour Los Angeles. We thought about renting
a car, a red convertible in particular, since all the travel literature we
consulted and a number of television shows/movies insisted that that was the
only way
to see the City of Angels. Then various scenarios started running through our
heads—infamous L.A. traffic jams, driving the wrong way on the Santa
Monica Freeway, reading the map upside down at eighty miles an hour, road rage
(mine, not the natives’), speeding buses leaping over incomplete highways,
Morpheus fighting bad guys on the top of semis, and . . . oh, wait, I think
that might be from a movie or two.
Anyway, we decided to be bold, brave, and, some would say, cheap, and do something
we were told was just not done. We decided to see Los Angeles via public transportation.
That’s right. Public transportation. To make life more interesting, for
our vacation we chose a hotel in Santa Monica, just north of the city.
We set off on our grand adventure from the Midwest and East Coast, respectively,
arriving at LAX airport a few days before the SAA conference. Our luggage arrived
at the same time, which is always a good start to any trip. We took the Super
Shuttle from the airport to our hotel, checked in, then took a short ride on
the hotel shuttle (yes, another shuttle) to the 3rd Street Promenade, where
we stopped at the local cinema to see “Pirates of the Caribbean” (on
pain of death, I will not admit how many times I’ve seen this movie)
and supper at Wolfgang Puck’s Express.
For our first full day of vacation, we chose to tackle a trip to the dramatic
hill-top campus of the Getty Center. After breakfast at the local IHOP, we
made our way down to the Big Blue bus stop, a block from the hotel, to catch
the Santa Monica #1 bus. Now I admit to being a bit of an organization freak.
In preparing for this trip, I visited www.metro.net, the Los Angeles County
Transportation Authority Web site, and used its handy trip planner. I was now
well armed with color maps, bus schedules, and fee information. It’s
a good thing, too, because as soon as my traveling companion and I planted
ourselves on the bench at the bus shelter, the locals started asking us questions
about the bus’s route. Keep in mind that we were dressed in our best
tourist outfits—sensible shoes, sunglasses, khaki pants, cameras in plain
view, a baseball cap in my case, and bags crammed with water bottles and maps—and
we were still mistaken for Los Angelenos. Anyway, we didn’t wait long
before our bus came along. We paid the fare and dutifully asked for a transfer.
We soon fell into a routine that would last us the rest of our vacation. One
of us would eyeball the passing street names, while the other followed along
on a particularly good city map purchased from Barnes & Noble. Paranoia
can be a good thing.
The Santa Monica #1 let us off near the UCLA campus. We then hopped on the
Metro Rapid #761 bus. The first snag of the day came when we got off the bus
at the wrong stop. We walked a few blocks, craning our necks to get a view
of the Getty peeking out from the top of a nearby hill. After wandering about
for 15 minutes, it became painfully obvious that the only thing separating
us from the entrance to the Getty was the 405 Freeway. By chance, we found
the delivery entrance to the Getty and attempted to throw ourselves at the
mercy of the security guard. The guard was not moved by our performance. So
much for my acting abilities. Better stick with my day job, I guess. We trudged
back to the spot where we had originally gotten off the bus and waited for
the next #761. A short time later we were at the entrance to the Getty tram
station. I can summarize the Getty Center in one word—magnificent! The
return trip to the hotel was a breeze.
For our next adventure in public transportation, we decided to travel to Long
Beach. As we sat eating breakfast at the local IHOP (interesting decor, cheap
food, and extremely close to the hotel) the next morning, we kept a close eye
on the buses going by until we spotted our latest quarry—the Santa Monica
#10 bus. We counted out exact change and walked confidently over to the bus
stop. Again, we were in luck, the #10 bus arrived shortly and we were on our
way to Figueroa Street and the 7th Street metro station. Once there we located
our train on the red line without too much difficulty and for the next hour
watched a lot of interesting scenery and passengers. We located a free shuttle
not far from the train station and took a short ride to the Aquarium of the
Pacific. We arrived in advance of the big crowds and gained entrance immediately.
Being fans of “Jaws,” we had to stop at Shark Lagoon, a section
of the aquarium where the audience can put their hands in the water and touch
the sharks as they float by. (I felt compelled to count my fingers afterwards—yep,
they were all there.)
The shuttle brought us back to the transit area and we dined at a local restaurant.
The day was still relatively young, so we decided to tour the Queen Mary, a
1936 ocean liner turned historic attraction in Long Beach. As luck would
have it,
a free shuttle took us to the ship. We took a self-guided tour, which included
(drum roll) a stop at the Queen Mary archive exhibit. (Yes, the sign said “archive,” not “archives.”)
I was starting to go into withdrawal after a few days away from an archives.
Besides the archive, the tour also included “The Ghosts & Legends
Show,” which was not particularly scary. I’ve had phone bills that
scared me more! We jumped on the free shuttle back to the transit area and
had a knock-down-drag-out fight with the ticket machine before boarding the
red line train. After we got back to the hotel, the last adventure of the day
was another trip on the hotel shuttle to eat dinner at Santa Monica Place.
(Okay, so maybe a Dairy Queen blizzard doesn’t come anywhere close to
a nutritious meal. Is my doctor reading this?)
We cheated the next day and booked a tour to Universal Studios. We’d
contemplated taking public transportation there, but concluded that if the
guide books couldn’t
agree that it could be done, maybe we shouldn’t push our luck. When we
arrived at Universal Studios, I noticed something very bizarre. Every fifth
adult was carrying a Sponge Bob, Square Pants water bottle. Now that was scary.
My traveling companion convinced me to go on the Jurassic Park ride. Having
seen all three of the movies, I had an idea what might happen on this ride.
I had also heard about a sudden drop at the end of the ride (or to paraphrase, “a
long drop and a short stop”). However, I did not realize that lots of
water would be involved. After the final drop, as I sat in my exceedingly wet
clothes, in my exceedingly wet seat, feeling like a drowned rat, I had a sneaking
suspicion that this was how the staff got its yucks, particularly the person
who developed the souvenir photos of the riders and plastered them all over
the gift shop back wall.
The rest of our vacation is kind of a blur. Using public transportation, we
managed to see the LaBrea Tar Pits and accompanying Page Museum; the Roosevelt
Hotel, where the first Academy Awards presentation was held; the $ signs disguised
as stores along Rodeo Drive; the high points and low points of Sunset Boulevard;
and the Beverly Hills Hotel. We walked around Mann’s Chinese Theatre
looking at the handprints and footprints there. Then we strolled down to the
Kodak Theatre (present home of the Academy Awards) and the Hollywood and Highland
complex surrounding it. It reminded me of a Cecile B. DeMille movie set. A
visitor’s center within this “entertainment complex” (as
it was billed) provided me with a map of the stars on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame. I enlisted my colleague’s assistance in locating a certain actor’s
star. I shot half a roll of film of it, while my colleague did a lot of dramatic
eye rolling. We also made a stop at the Beverly Center because I had read it
was possible to get a good shot of the Hollywood sign from there. Not true.
My colleague thought we should have settled for posing in front of the Hollywood
sign at Universal Studios.
We made the transition to the SAA conference hotel with a minimal amount of
fuss. Before we knew it, it was time to attend committee and section meetings,
sessions and workshops, exhibits, and special events. It was time to put away
the cameras and sunglasses and tennis shoes and pull out the business casual
wardrobe. We had toured Los Angeles using public transportation and seen a
good bit of the city. We had become intimately familiar with the names of
streets,
such as Pico Boulevard, Fairfax Avenue, La Cienega Boulevard, Rodeo Drive,
Santa Monica Boulevard, and Sepulveda Boulevard. When the conference ended
and we were traveling back to the airport via the Super Shuttle (what else!),
my colleague and I started hatching a plan for the 2004 SAA meeting in Boston
next August. She’s going to make arrangements for our pre-meeting sightseeing
adventures. Getting around town shouldn’t
be a problem—Boston is a walking city!
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