It’s been a while since I’ve had vegetables. I’m mostly been eating what’s near the road, what’s cheap, and what’s fast. So a lot of fast food, street tacos, and donuts. I’ll usually try to get an apple and yogurt at breakfast but I’ve learned Motel 6 doesn’t give you a mini fridge. I ate yogurt that sat out overnight the night before.
I’m tired on walking on concrete for hours a day. I’m tired of inhaling car exhaust all day. I’m tired of having my blood pressure rise each time I use a crosswalk. But I still have about five and a half hours to go.
Walking through El Monte and Rosemead aren’t the worst. I’m along a residential areas, so there’s some variety and local colour. But still very scant shade.
I’m going to the San Gabriel Mission, which pre-dates Los Angeles and is where the making of LA began. So after paying $15 for admission I was a little disappointed to learn that I wasn’t in the original mission. The Mission Vieja, from 1771, is long gone, only marked with a landmark stone at the corner of San Gabriel Boulevard and Lincoln Boulevard in the city of Montebello (and right by an oil field).
The mission I’m in, from 1775, has a museum which navigates the complex story of LA and its origins in the Spanish crown’s colonization and the enslavement of the indigenous peoples. This is a common theme in world history, hardly unique to California, and tough to think about. Spanish colonization, and the Catholic Church, might be seen as extraordinarily successful, in the number of places that speak Spanish and are majority Catholic. Los Angeles itself was the pueblo, or “town”, established by 44 settlers from modern-day Sonora and Sinaloa.
I only have about 15 minutes, so I have to breeze through the plaques, the chapel, and the memorial to the 6,000 or so indigenous people buried here.
The gift shop sells these “Tiny saints” keychains which I always found fascinating after seeing them on an asmr video of a Catholic shopping channel. They are keychains of cute, cartooney versions of saints, people that sometimes died in incredibly horrible ways. But they’re really cute.
I’m out the door and back along Mission Road, the part that angles to the Southwest. It’s terrible walking. The sun’s coming from the south, and the shady side has a train track in a concrete trench and no sidewalk, not even a walkable strip of grass.
So I take the side streets into the city of Alhambra. It’s pleasant and quiet enough, no one walking as the sun comes out though. A sprinkler gives me a much needed cool down.
I duck into a pharmacy to get some electrolytes and snacks. At this point, I’m ready to be done and won’t stop moving for long.
I make it out of Alhambra (fittingly there’s a Moorish arch monument), and cross into the city of LA at last. I’m on Valley Boulevard, near the Cal State LA campus, but won’t go through.
At this point, there’s definitely more of a city feel. I don’t have to push the button to cross the street (as often). The sidewalks usually don’t end abruptly. The flip side is that litter increases a ton, and signs of homelessness too.
Still, very few people out walking. I pass a gigantic parking lot for a nearby hospital, and see some greenery, a welcome sight.
This is Lincoln Park. There’s a restroom with many stalls, but I find all of them on one side were locked, so I think it’s closed. After sitting down and seeing a man come out of one, I realize it’s actually open. The stalls are all occupied by people using them to rest and escape from the heat.
I cross a road and Valley Blvd becomes Main Street. Then cross the Golden State Freeway, fairly painlessly with an underpass, where a city worker is sweeping the monumental amount of litter. There’s an Italian grocer that advertises being there since the 1920s; I can only imagine the changes since then.
Main Street is pretty deserted. I pass a gigantic city utilities facility that seems to go on forever, then some signs of gentrification: a luxury rental building, across the street from houses owned by the local housing authority.
This part is a blur. I’m in Chinatown, then cross some elevated train tracks, some gigantic modern buildings that scream big money, and a huge ornate post office.
There are a lot of people walking now. I feel like I’m in a real city for the first time and not just walking between parking lots. I dart down to the Pueblo. It’s much busier today: there’s music, vendors, plenty of bustle. But I’m tired and feeling anti-social. I reach the plaza, and I am done. I’m ready to lay down now.
So long, and thanks for all the burritos and horchata. I’ll write an epilogue a little later when I’ve recovered. I need to touch some grass.
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