Echo Park Lake, 90210, and the Norton Simon Museum

There are not many things I miss about Minneapolis, but I miss Lake Calhoun a lot.  I thought Echo Park Lake would remind me of it, which it sort of did because of the views of the city's skyline, but it's much smaller--about one third the size of Lake Calhoun I'm guessing based on the length of the walking trail.  There were a lot of people either running or walking their dogs.  If I lived in the area, I would be around this lake all the time.  

I thought I would spend more time at the lake.  I walked around it and then sat by it for awhile.  I saw this project on Pinterest for an art journal.  I am very much not an artist, but it sounded interesting and it's something new.  I bought a small sketchbook and some colored pencils the other day and started the art journal today.  I needed to move more after a bit.  I looked on Yelp and found a coffee shop nearby.  The place at the lake didn't have chocolate and all I wanted there was a mocha.  The coffee shop I found on Sunset, just a few blocks away, had a Horchatte--a latte with Horchata.  I thought it could possibly be good.  I like Horchata.  It didn't have any flavor.  Oh well.  My parking time was almost up, not that I think they were checking today, but I was also hungry.  I wanted to go to a museum in Pasadena, but it didn't open for another hour, so I searched Yelp for tacos in Pasadena.  I found a place that had the same name as the place in East LA.  I don't have any idea if they were related or not, but I tried it.  They were good.  They were not as good as the East LA tacos, but I didn't expect them to be.  It did cause my favorite text exchange of the day:

After the tacos, I still had some time before the museum opened so I drove up Fair Oaks Avenue, just because.  After I did that, I went down Altadena Drive because I knew the 90210 house was on that street.  I found it!  I wanted to take a picture of it, but didn't.  Dylan's house is down the street, but I missed it.

The Norton Simon Museum is nice.  It's not very big and it's only $10.  Also free parking!  They have some great art--Rodin, Diego Rivera, Henri Rousseau, Van Gogh, Monet, tons of Degas.  There's a nice sculpture garden in the back that will be beautiful in the spring and summer.  Right now, they have a pretty bird of paradise bush (bush?).

In other news, I'm looking for a new car and am super overwhelmed by it.