My last day in California was a Monday. Pete had to work so I had the day to myself before the Dodger game at night. That was not a problem. I got breakfast and walked around Santa Monica for a bit. Then I went to Pinkberry. I knew Pinkberry first from Curb Your Enthusiasm. The first time I had it was either in Washington DC or California. There are a couple on Long Island, but they're not anywhere close to me. So I always like to get it when I'm near one. They had blueberry yogurt that was fantastic. I had some more during a layover at the Salt Lake City airport on my way home from Boise.
After that I went down to the Santa Monica Pier and the beach. The last time I was there was Opening Day in 2013. That day worked out pretty well for the Dodgers. (By the way, here's my other post from 2013 and here's my trip last year.) I walked around the Pier and then went down to the beach. When I was at the beach, my phone said "No SIM Card installed." It meant that I couldn't make a call or text anybody. I had free Wi-Fi from the city of Santa Monica and was able to google what to do. The easiest solutions were to turn the phone on airplane mode and then back again and turn it off and on again. Neither of those worked. So I didn't know what to do. I was still able to listen to music. As I put my feet in the Pacific Ocean, "I Love LA" came on. That was pretty cool. Then I walked back to Pete's apartment. Fortunately, he was able to fix my phone by taking out the SIM card and put it back in. He had to use one of Katie's earrings to do it.
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| Standing in the Pacific Ocean |
Pete got done with work around 2:00 or so and we got our day started. Katie wasn't joining us since she had to work late. We took a drive to Hollywood. Hollywood is one of the least interesting parts of southern California to me. Celebrities are a little bit like the royal family to me. Why should I care about them? At least most celebrities have actually done something to gain fame, but I still don't care about them. But we saw the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theater so I can say that I've seen those things.
From there, we went to El Tepeyac, which was featured on Man vs. Food. I should have watched the episode before my trip, but I didn't even think of it. I had been to Philippe's in Los Angeles before for French dip sandwiches. The challenge was spicy food at some Asian place so I had no interest in that. El Tepeyac was Mexican food so that was appealing to me. Adam apparently had a five pound burrito there. Pete and I just asked our waiter what he recommended. I think he recommended a burrito that had pork, chili, salsa, rice, beans, and guacamole. We both had it. Pete had the regular size and I had the mini size. It was a good call with the mini size. The regular size wasn't five pounds, but it was more than I would have wanted to eat before the game. I should do a Man vs. Food post at some point. I've probably been to about ten places that Adam got to.
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| I think the name of this burrito was the Original Hollenbeck (the mini). |
After that, we went to the stadium. We were very early. The gates weren't open yet when we parked the car so we walked around a little bit. When they finally opened, we tried to enter on the field level. They wouldn't let us because our seats were on the reserve level. What up with that? I think I entered on the field level last year even though I was sitting on the loge level. One of the cool things about Dodger Stadium is being able to enter on every level of the stadium, but I don't think you should be restricted to only entering on your level. So anyway, we went up to the reserve level. We were searching for a way down. There was a stairway with a woman working at the door and we asked if we could go down. She said no, but told us where we could go down. So we started walking down to the field level. We came to a door and opened it. It was the press box/suite level. It was kind of unclear if we were allowed in or not and we had already been thrown out of another Los Angeles sports venue for sneaking in, but we were allowed in. They use some of the space there now as kind of a Dodger museum. There was some pretty cool stuff to see there.
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| The Dodgers at Los Angeles Coliseum |
After checking that out, we still wanted to get down to the field level. There was an escalator down and we asked the woman working there if we could take it. She asked why and I said we wanted to walk around the field level. She told us that we couldn't just walk around, but we could go down there to do something. So Pete asked if we could buy something down there and then finally we were allowed to go down to the field level. But it was much more difficult to get there than it should have been.
When we finally got down there, we went to the left field pavilion and watched some Nationals batting practice. They hit a bunch of home runs one section over from where we were sitting. We bought beers (so Pete wasn't lying). I had a Coronado Mermaid's Red Amber Ale. The Coronado Brewing Company is located in Coronado, California, which is near San Diego. The beer cost $16.50. It was at least 20 ounces (it might have been even more than that) and it was good, but I'd rather just have a pint and pay a more reasonable price. Dodger Stadium still needs work on beer. Have smaller options, more reasonable prices (bad beer might have been cheap, Dodger Stadium is supposedly cheap in terms of the per ounce price of beer), a wider selection, and craft beer at more spots throughout the stadium. The first time I went to Dodger Stadium was late August 2011. I went to two games with my brothers. We sat in the top deck for the first game and the field level for the second game. On the field level, they had both Sam Adams Summer Ale and Octoberfest. I was so excited. I haven't seen any Sam Adams in four games at Dodger Stadium since.
So after that, we went up to our seats. We were on the reserve level (the second highest) and one section off from being directly behind the plate. I got the seats for $16 each. It's a great view for that price. I read this article about Dodger Stadium. My favorite fact is that St. John Paul the Great drew the biggest crowd in Dodger Stadium history. My next favorite was that the high five was invented there on October 2, 1977. The other thing that was interesting is that they have grilled Dodger Dogs and steamed Dodger Dogs. The article says that grilled Dodger Dogs are available right behind home plate on each level. That didn't seem to be the case. It was kind of unclear where they had grilled Dodger Dogs and where they had steamed Dodger Dogs. I think they had the grilled dogs at the Elysian Park Grill, but that's not where we got our Dodger Dogs. I'll have to try that the next time I get to Dodger Stadium (hopefully next year).
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| Our view for the game. I love Dodger Stadium. |
The game was not fun. It was Dodgers against Nationals, Brett Anderson against Gio Gonzalez. Anderson has had a pretty solid year for a guy who was supposed to be the fifth starter, but this night was not good. He have up two runs in the second, but was good other than that for the first five. And then the sixth inning happened. He gave up five runs without recording an out. Ian Desmond hit two home runs and drove in three. Gonzalez pitched eight scoreless innings. There weren't many bright spots for the Dodgers. Jose Peraza was making his Major League debut and he had a triple. Carl Crawford hit a pinch hit three-run homer with two outs in the ninth to prevent the shutout. The game took two hours and 45 minutes and the crowd was 45,722. The next two games against the Nationals were great. The Dodgers won 5-0 and 3-0 behind Greinke and Kershaw. But I wasn't there for those games. Oh well.
I've now been to six games at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers are 2-0 with me in the top deck, 1-0 with me on the field level, 0-2 with me on the reserve level, and 0-1 with me on the loge level. I know where I sit has nothing to do with whether the Dodgers win or lose, but Pete, we're sitting in the top deck if I come out to a game next year.
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