Flatlands Near Death Skate
The lucky 13th skate didn't break the previous week's cold record, but it was still chilly. We had a respectable turnout in spite of the frigid temperatures however. Initial indications were that there would be some hill climbing involved in the evening's festivities, but it turned out that preliminary indicators were all frickin' wrong. We were lazy, and it was agreed that a Flatlands Skate would suit everybody's tastes.
After doing a bit of the new green lane on Spring, we stopped in St. Vincent, then tooled on over to the Church of Money so they could tell us there's no skating allowed at the skating rink.
They did not dissappoint. We left them babbling and took a spin around the Conference Center where our resident diabetic announced that he did not have any of those particular drugs with him and would be most likely to survive the night if we got him to a "liquor store" post haste. Fortunately there's a liquor store every 300 yards on Venice Blvd., so we got him some genuine imitation apple juice food and one of those tobacco and dirt bars by Clif®. Somebody needs to explain to them the difference between the food and the field if you ask me.
Next we hit USC. We zoomed a few straggling students (go home already!) and then went over and looked at the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. From there we did some laps around the mini-rink at the California Science Center until we got run-off by the rent-a-cops. They weren't satisfied with us skating away however, and they followed us while we went to the Memorial Colusseum and around the Short Arena. Not wanting to get them riled up we rolled under the freeway to Broadway and hammered the three miles back to 4th Street.
A little more they said, a little more! We hopped Charles' Lift up to the top of the hill. We were headed for the slope, but got waylayed by the pretty lights at the DWP headquarters. We found a new game in luring the security guards out of the lobby by skating around in front of the place, then leaving just before they get close enough to tell us we can't skate there. Good fun that is. From there we hit the hill, looped around and back to the 2nd Street tunnel, then the usual mid-block route back to the parking lot.
Apres skate was Weenies and Beer again, and those of us drunk enough took the Metro home. W00t!
Jenni
Rick
Lila
Paul
Joel
Shawn