It's Rose Bowl week in L.A. and you can only stay holed up in downtown hotel room, staring at a laptop, for so long.
(Of course, it's a little easier here with a view of the snow-capped San Gabriel mountain range in the distance.)
But we digress.
There is more to bowl week than talking to players and writing stories and searching around for what kind of free food and drink there is to be had.
There was a need for a little exploration.
With help from some friendly Marriott staff, I received some jogging directions that took me through Historic Filipinotown, past white and beige stucco homes with orange-tiled roofs and up an incline on Glendale Boulevard to an oasis of sorts.
Just a mile or so from the financial district, here was a lake with a towering fountain and lined with palm trees.
Cute, roly-poly, odd-looking black ducks with white bills floated and dived everywhere.
A family held a birthday party complete with balloons on one picnic table. A ways over, a father tossed tennis balls to his pint-sized son holding a bat too big for him. Kids swung on swings. Other kids threw bread to giant, greedy gulls.
And, finally, So Cal was warmer than York County, sun and blue skies pushing temperatures into the mid-60s on Monday.
Think of those blue skies on perfect early-October Saturdays in Beaver Stadium.
A lap around the lake was good enough for me. It was time to head home, so to speak.
But not before I spotted a half-court basketball court, one with a double iron rim and an old-school wooden backboard.
Perfect for another day, for a game involving a certain Harrisburg Patriot columnist with a pretty good outside shot.
There is more to Rose Bowl week than staring at a laptop, you know.
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