Flight Path Museum

Flight Path Museum & Learning Center 

 

The Flight Path Museum and Learning Center is one of the best kept secrets in Los Angeles. Housed in an old private airline terminal on the southern rim of LAX, the museum celebrates the glory days of aviation, when passengers dressed-up to fly cross-country and were served meals on real china dishes. 

 

Lots of aviation artifacts

 

A parade of flight attendant uniforms of yore (colorful!)

 

American Airlines exhibit

 

TWA

 

We discovered the museum in 2008 and have attended their annual fundraiser gala for the past several years. Australia Airlines was a sponsor this year, so we got to walk around under one of their gigantic planes. On previous visits, we got to go inside the much smaller DC3 parked alongside the museum. I may hate to fly, but I do love airplanes.

Spirit of Seventy-Six DC3

The Flight Path Museum is truly a hidden gem that's open free (!) to the public, Tuesday-Saturday. We highly recommend stopping by for an hour the next time you're in El Segundo.

The view from under Australia Airlines plane

 

Enjoying the gala

 

 

Canceled Flight

The Southwest terminal at LAX

I had a 9:30AM meeting this morning in Sacramento, so I got up at 3AM to catch the 6:15AM flight out of LAX, just 8 miles from our house. Normally, on day trips like this, I drive myself and park at the airport, but Tim insisted on taking me (I think he thinks dropping and picking me up at the airport is romantic). I went through security and was at the gate by 5:20AM. Forty minutes later a voice came over the loud speaker, saying there were maintenance problems with the plane; therefore, our flight was being delayed indefinitely. Fifteen minutes later, exactly when we were supposed to be taking off, the voice returned to say our flight had been canceled altogether.

Passengers had two options: they could use their tickets to board the 9AM flight to Sacramento or take the 8:30AM flight to Oakland (huh?). Since the 9AM flight wouldn’t get me to my meeting till 11AM—well after it had already started—I opted to go home. I called Tim.

“My flight’s been canceled. Can you come and get me?” I asked.

“Oh oh,” he sheepishly replied. “I’m already at work.” He was, after all, wide awake, so why not get an early start on the day? I decided to grab a cab.

But there were no taxis to be had at 6:30 on a Thursday morning. Apparently cabs don’t start lining up until 7Am-ish when flights start arriving. My only hope was to take the #6 Culver City bus that travels down Sepulveda Blvd., two blocks from our house. I headed toward Sepulveda.

Unlike most airports, LAX is located in the heart of a residential/ business area. In fact, the northernmost runway starts at Sepulveda, on which thousands of cars traverse every day. If you’ve ever flown into LAX, you've no doubt thought your plane was going to land on those very cars. We regularly drive this part of Sepulveda to get to our favorite taco joint on the other side of LAX, but I’ve never walked along this stretch. What a thrill when a gigantic Qantas airbus flew right over my head before landing on the north runway!

It’s been several years since I rode the bus and so had no idea how much the fare was. Having spent my last three dollar bills on a croissant at the airport, I decided to walk to the nearest Starbuck’s to break a twenty. Luckily, the bus stopped right there.

Getting on, I asked the bus driver how much the fare was. He looked at me and whispered, “Thirty-five cents.”

“$1.35?” I asked.

“No,” he whispered again. “Just thirty-five cents.”

And that’s when I noticed the sign saying that seniors get to ride for 35 cents. I didn’t complain, even though I certainly don’t consider myself a senior citizen . . . at least, not yet.

The ride took about 25 minutes. I was the only one who looked like she was dressed for a business meeting. Everyone else looked ready to tackle real work. The woman who got off the bus with me complemented my dress. I wanted to explain about LAX, but just thanked her instead. I then walked the two blocks to our house.

When I got home, the answering machine was beeping. It was Southwest letting me know that my flight had been canceled.

Stay-cation (11/6-11/15)

Saturday

What would you do if you were spending a week in Los Angeles? Well, we started our nine-day stay-cation by eating (of course!) at The Oinkster in Eagle Rock, one of Guy Fieri’s featured “diners, drive-ins and dives.” Those are shredded pork sandwiches and twice-baked fries in the before-and-after photos—yummm-eee!








Sunday

We’re all about mid-century living, so naturally we took the L.A. Conservancy’s tour celebrating the 50-year anniversary of 1960s architecture in Los Angeles. It started at the Proud Bird, a funky restaurant surrounded by old aircraft, including the orange rocket Chuck Yeager flew when he broke the sound barrier in 1947. Located on the eastern end of LAX, the Bird is the perfect spot to watch planes land while wolfing down Sunday brunch.

From the Proud Bird, we drove over to the Flight Path Museum, the former Imperial Terminal building where many VIPS and local sports teams board chartered airplanes. Now a free museum open five days a week, the Flight Path chronicles the history of LAX through photographs and fascinating artifacts. Most of the stewardess mannequins were dressed in their finest polyester suits and miniskirts. We also got to board an old DC-3 plane permanently parked behind the museum. Though we never left the ground, the thought of flying in such cramped quarters made me (relatively!) happy for today’s much larger—if less glamorous—737s.







Our next stop was the Theme Building, LAX’s iconic hub that looks like something out of the space-age cartoon, The Jetsons. Turns out it was actually modeled after Martian spacecraft in the 1953 movie War of the Worlds (who knew?). Built in 1961, the Theme Building is currently undergoing renovation after a chunk of concrete fell off one its four arched legs. Retrofitting won’t be completed till next year; still, we were able to go up to the observation deck, which has been closed since 9/11. The view of the entire airport was magnificent.






Tuesday

Although I’m a loyal member of the L.A. County Museum of Art (LACMA), the thought of driving up to mid-Wilshire—one of the most congested parts of the city—is sometimes just too much to bear. So it’s been a while since we’ve visited the museum. However, Tim and I were sufficiently intrigued by an exhibit celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall that we spent much of Tuesday at the museum and environs. I loved the permanent display of old L.A. light standards that now greets LACMA visitors. We were also impressed by the Wall, which has been temporarily installed across the street.


















The best part of the day, though, was (finally!) getting into Mozza, possibly the best—and therefore, most popular— gourmet pizzeria in all of Los Angeles. The trick is to go at 2PM on Tuesday. But even then, it was crowded. We were lucky to snag two seats at the counter, where we watched mesmerized as the cooks assembled and baked at least 20 pizzas while we were sitting there. Very entertaining and, of course, the food was amazing.

The rest of the week

In addition to running around and eating, we also met with friends, went to two plays, caught up on tivo, and saw five movies (a new world’s record even for us): An Education, the well-acted story of a 16-year-old student who has an affair with a con artist in the early 1960s; A Serious Man, the Coen brothers’ darkly funny semi-autobiographical film about growing-up Jewish in Minnesota; 2012, the ridiculously improbable yet fun disaster movie that revels in destroying Los Angeles and the rest of the world; Fantastic Mr. Fox, a truly wonderful stop-motion film that features the voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep; and Women in Trouble, an extremely low-budget flick, starring some of my favorite actresses from TV shows Friday Night Lights, 24, and Entourage.

It was a fabulous week and only a taste of what it will be like once we retire. Only ten more years to go!!


P.S. Does anyone know what this is? (Tim is not allowed to guess!)

A Few of our Favorite (L.A.) Things (and Places). . .

Los Angeles Magazine is currently running a survey where readers can vote for their favorite places and things in L.A. The list includes many of our top faves—like Disneyland, the Bradbury Building, and the Los Angeles Public Library—but it also omits many others. To rectify the situation, I’d like to offer the following L.A. landmarks—some of which are famous and some known only to us—that we feel help define the wonder that is “Los Angeles.”

1. I may hate to fly (see my January 27, 2007 blog entry), but I do love the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Despite the traffic, it remains our airport of choice when traveling to places too far to drive. It is also the scene of many childhood bon voyages, including the time the entire family turned out to wish my uncle Manuel and aunt Eva “adios” as they winged their way to Spain, ca. 1964. My favorite features at LAX are the spectacularly mid-century-modern Theme Building and the more recent installation of internally-lit pylons that sit at the entrance of the airport. They are always the first thing I look for when landing at LAX.

2. There is nothing quite as exhilarating as driving the Miata topless (the car, not me!) to downtown L.A. on a Sunday afternoon. The city can be very peaceful on the weekend and oh so beautiful on a clear, sunny day. To me, the most iconic of all L.A.’s many landmarks is City Hall. We’ve toured it twice and never tire of its majesty. The fountains outside the Department of Water & Power building, a few blocks away, are also amazing, especially on a summer night. Despite its tendency to turn into a ghost town after dark, downtown Los Angeles remains one of the most magnificent places in the entire city.

3. OK, so the world famous Farmers Market also appears on Los Angeles Magazine’s list of top 64 places. But it’s far too important not to include on my list, too. Farmers Market has always been something of a foodie’s United Nations, so naturally it was my family’s favorite destination when I was a kid. It was also our signature haunt when Tim and I lived across the street in Park LaBrea during the 1990s. We feared “the Farmers,” as Tim’s aunt used to call it, would become severely overshadowed the day The Grove opened next door, but the 1934 Market’s charm happily remains in tact. Life as we know it would cease to exist without Dupar’s pies or baked goods from the ancient but tasty Bread Bin.

4. As reported elsewhere on this blog, Tim and I are all about mid-century-modern houses and so have spent many enjoyable hours touring homes designed by Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, and Gregory Ain. In one of the most magical days of my life, the two of us spent the afternoon in the company of Julius Shulman, perhaps the single most famous photographer in Los Angeles history. His black-and-white shot of Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22 might just be the most iconic photo ever taken of the L.A. lifestyle. We were thrilled to be able to visit the Koenig house last year and have been inside many others that are almost as famous. Long live modern architecture!

5. Certainly among Tim’s top 10 L.A. landmarks is Mt. Wilson, home to a world-renown observatory as well as to most of the area’s F.M. radio and television antenna. Visible from the end of our block, Mt. Wilson is part of the San Gabriel mountains which form the city’s snow-covered backdrop during especially cold winters. My sister and I built many a snowman in the shadow of Mt. Wilson when we were kids. Today I find the roads just a tad too narrow and windy for a casual drive; but Tim loves visiting his radio station’s antenna and seeing Los Angeles county from above.

6. And speaking of viewing the county from above, one of our favorite L.A. “things” is the Goodyear blimp, which lives about 15 miles south of us and frequently flies over our house en route to sporting events, etc. We’ll be quietly sitting at home when suddenly we’ll hear the distinctive hum of its motor. “BLIMP!!” one of us will yell as we go running out of the house, looking up at the sky. For some reason, I still can’t get used to seeing a zeppelin fly overhead in the middle of the day. Silly me!

7. What would Los Angeles be without cars—especially phenomenally gorgeous cars that would rust anywhere else in the country. Even with the gas crisis, Angelenos adore their cars. The annual L.A. Car Show is a “must see” event every year, while Culver City’s annual vintage auto show always makes my heart weep for the many wonderful cars that have come and gone in my life. If I were a millionaire, I’d build a garage big enough to keep examples of all the cars I’ve ever loved.

8. Whenever we can’t think of anywhere else to eat, we always default to Dinah’s, a Los Angeles institution since 1959. Located on Sepulveda, about two miles from our house, Dinah’s is the perfect place to stop before or after going to the airport. Their fried chicken is among the best in the county and their oven-baked Apple Pancake is to die!

9. One of our favorite local “sights” is the "square tree" located on Sanford, within a mile of our house. Come rain or shine, the square tree just sits there completely oblivious to its natural surroundings. My sister has called it an “abomination.” But the square tree brings me comfort to think that there’s still some order in the world.

10. And while we’re on the topic of abominations, no tour of L.A. would be complete without the “house of Davids,” located on 3rd St., one block west of Rossmore. The front yard, festooned in hundreds of naked white statues (dressed up here for the holidays!), is the horror of upscale Hancock Park. It is also, of course, one of our favorite places to take out-of-town visitors.

On the Road (Again!)

I travel a lot. Not only do I have an office in Sacramento, but I also conduct workshops around the country and attend conferences. I’ve already gone on three trips this year and it’s only January!

The irony, of course, is that I would be just as happy staying home in my conventional Culver City neighborhood. I always feel like I’m missing something important when I leave L.A.; plus, I HATE to fly. This isn’t just grumpiness over airport security or the discomfort of being shoehorned onto an airplane. This is a true fear of falling out of the sky. I will never see the movie “United 93” and the plane crash scenes in “Lost” always send me running out of the room.

So how do I do it, over and over again? Well, I’ve discovered I pass through five emotional stages when coping with the trauma of travel (with sincere apologies to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross!):

1. Excitement - especially when I’m planning to return to a place I love (e.g., NYC, Hawaii) or when I’m traveling to a place where people I love live (e.g., Seattle). Then there's the fun of finding the cheapest airfares and hotel rooms, as well as hunting down theater events or other things to do.

2. Regret - as soon as I book my trip, I begin wondering how I’ll survive five hours in the air. Will the flight be bumpy? Will it be snowing/raining/foggy/unbearably hot when I arrive? About a week before my trip, I suddenly become obsessed with weather reports, looking for any excuse not to go. “What was I thinking when I said I’d lead a workshop in Philadelphia in JANUARY?!!”

3. Anger - especially when I realize all the fun things I’ll miss because I’m going out of town. “Whaddaya mean you’ve got free sneak preview tickets to the new George Clooney movie? That’s the week I’m in Ohio!!” My crankiness is further compounded by the new regulations limiting carryon items. Because some guy in Great Britain knows how to make explosives out of deodorant and a stick of chewing gum, I now have to squeeze all my cosmetics into a quart-sized ziploc bag. (I’m sorry, Mary Kay, but there’s only room for one jar of facial cream!) You know the world has gone crazy when lipstick and a tube of black mascara are considered lethal weapons!

4. Terror - stomach aches and sleepless nights; but even worse is the fear of forgetting to print my Southwest boarding pass until it’s too late to get on the A line! Such dread can only be surpassed by a white-knuckle cab ride to the airport. Luckily, we live only ten minutes away from LAX, so my husband usually plays chauffeur.

5. Acceptance - once I’ve made it safely through security and have found my gate, I start to settle down and accept my fate. “Surely the pilots won’t risk their own lives by doing anything foolish!” I always tell myself, keeping my fingers firmly crossed. On the plane, I plug into my headphones and push “shuffle” on the iPod. Frank Sinatra, Sting, the Beatles, Neil Young, and Steely Dan are all my best friends as I wing my way to my next destination.

Then, of course, there’s the trauma of finding a cab/shuttle/train to the hotel; but at least I survived another flight.

And most people fear public speaking more than anything else. Ha! When’s the last time you had to run your lipstick through a metal-detector before speaking in front of a room full of conference-goers? I’d rather conduct a full-day workshop in Los Angeles than fly to somewhere more exotic any day.

1/27/07